Environmental activists celebrated the closure of a key nuclear power facility in New York state, but the state’s power-sector emissions have increased in the years since the plant shuttered.
State officials finally closed the Indian Point nuclear facility in 2021, a development that climate activist groups commended because of purported safety and environmental risks posed by it. However, about three years after the plant shuttered, the state has seen a sharp increase in the greenhouse gas emissions attributable to power generation, due in large part to increased reliance on natural gas to make up for the closed plant’s output, according to a new analysis conducted by J.P. Morgan.
“In 2020 and 2021, New York State shut down Indian Point’s nuclear plants with the intention of replacing its generation with renewable energy,” J.P. Morgan wrote in its analysis. “That’s not what has happened so far: Three new natural gas plants (Bayonne Energy Center, CPV Valley Energy Center, and Cricket Valley Energy Center) have filled the gap, along with mostly gas-fired electricity imports from states like........