The Save Indian Point Campaign continues

Since the shutdown of Indian Point reactors 2 and 3 in late April of 2020 and 2021, respectively, Holtec Decommissioning International has been decommissioning the plant and claimed that a return to service was not an option anymore. However, in September of 2025, Politico broke the news that Holtec, at the request of the federal government, took a closer look. It and determined that, based on experience with the return to service of the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan, a rebuilding of reactors 2 and 3 would be possible at a cost of $8-10 billion and would take about four years. Considering the near impossibility to bring that much clean and reliable to downstate New York, which is currently one of the most expensive and dirtiest grid in the nation and at serious risk of missing reliability targets, this option is too important to ignore. Therefore, the Climate Coalition proudly joins Stand Up Four Nuclear’s open letter campaign to bring back these important clean energy assets. Besides signing the open letter as individual or organization, please also join the December 4 webinar on the importance of bringing back Indian Point!

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Why we need Indian Point to continue to operate:

1. IP’s clean nuclear power is being replaced with dirty gas power. This increases air pollution along with rates of respiratory disease and death for New Yorkers. Don’t be fooled, Indian Point has not been replaced by other clean energy sources and won’t be for at least the duration of Indian Point’s existing NRC license.

2. Adds grid vulnerability, reduces resiliency: Governor Cuomo has increased NYC’s grid vulnerability by making imported gas the only source of power. By eliminating NYC’s largest source clean energy and its only nuclear power plant, there will no longer be energy diversification and this reduces energy resilience should there be a problem with the delivery of gas by pipeline to the city. 

3. Hypocritcal Climate Reversal: Closing carbon-free, pollutant-free nuclear and increasing generation from gas moves New York two large steps backward on climate. This goes against everything New Yorkers have been promised from the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act and increase New York’s carbon dioxide emissions by 10 to 15 million tons annually. 

4. Increases Coronavirus mortalities: Increasing dirty energy from new gas plants directly threatens all New Yorkers, as Covid-19 mortality rates are directly linked to levels of pollution. New studies have also found that coronavirus may spread when it makes contact with the particulate pollution in the air!

5. Eliminates 1,000 clean energy jobs in NY: Hudson River Valley towns will lose a thousand highly skilled, technical jobs at Indian Point when it is closed. For the surrounding communities and businesses, these losses will be crippling for families unable to replace jobs, especially during this pandemic.

6. Ignores the scientific advice: Governor Cuomo is the consummate politician and claims to follows the advice of experts. Yet the experts say that we cannot afford to shutter nuclear power if it means increasing emissions. Cuomo made that exact argument to save upstate New York’s three nuclear power plants but he chose to kowtow to the environmental and gas (i.e. fossil fuel) lobbies which both see nuclear as “competition” to advance his political prospects in the downstate area.

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