Energy Association Says Indian Point is Virtually Irreplaceable

ALBANY, NY (07/13/2007)(readMedia)-- The Energy Association of New York State today said that the Indian Point Nuclear facility is a positive asset for the State that will be virtually impossible to replace for many years to come, according to the Association’s Executive Director, Patrick J. Curran.

“New York is struggling to figure out how it is going to provide the roughly 2 000MW of additional electricity it is going to need in downstate in the next few years without significantly adding to the ‘carbon footprint”. Even if we can achieve unprecedented success through aggressive conservation efforts, to provide New Yorkers with all the electricity they will need to live and work will still require significant new generation in the New York metropolitan area, and significant new electric and natural gas transmission facilities, all of which are extremely difficult to site and build in the downstate region. We must also consider the issues of reliability, fuel diversity, avoiding a dangerous overdependence on natural gas, price stability and technical system support that comes form the operation of large baseload facilities within the downstate load pocket” said Curran.

It is incongruous to suggest that we could ever meet those projected needs if at the same time we were to remove another 2000MW of essentially emission free, reliable, economic, baseload generation from the region by not renewing Indian Point’s license. From environmental, economic, and electric systems operation points of view, there simply are no realistic alternatives to the renewal of Indian Point’s license.”

The member companies of the Energy Association are the owners and operators of much the state’s electric and natural gas infrastructure, comprised of many hundreds of thousands of individual shareholders including a great many New Yorkers and retirees, employing over 28,000 New Yorkers, serving over 7 million New York customers and their families and businesses, annually paying over $2.5 billion in state and local taxes and contributing tens of millions of dollars annually to community and charitable purposes,

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