Albany Times Union

OPINION: Commentary:
New York should put a two-year moratorium on new nuclear power
The governor's push for more nuclear goes against the recommendations of the Climate Action Council. It will raise energy prices further. And it's just too risky.
By Robert W. Howarth, For theTimes Union April 15, 2026

Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to build 5 gigawatts of new nuclear power upstate as part of her “ratepayer protection plan.” That would be a grave mistake for New York. Hochul’s push for a nuclear buildout contradicts this consensus and the evidence. The fact is, at $7,000 per kilowatt hour, building nuclear is the most expensive way to get electricity. Whether we build large conventional plants or small modular reactors, it will prove extremely costly for ratepayers and taxpayers.

In other words: Building more nuclear won’t protect ratepayers; it will hike prices further.

It also takes longer. Nuclear reactors have always taken a decade at minimum from planning to launch. Nuclear, therefore, can’t help us reach the mandated goal of generating 70% of New York’s electricity from carbon-free sources by 2030. Building utility-scale solar and wind, in contrast, can take just one to five years.

Even nuclear’s most enthusiastic supporters admit very few sites in New York have sufficient cooling water and distance from population centers to be candidates for building large nuclear plants. They point to small modular reactors, which need less water. But these reactors are nowhere near deployable. None has ever operated commercially in the U.S. There’s good reason for that: Many studies show small modular reactors are even costlier than conventional nuclear plants and are neither competitive nor profitable.

They would also produce two to 30 times more “spent fuel” — highly irradiated, lethal nuclear waste — per unit of electricity generated. Since there is no solution or permanent repository for it, spent fuel generated by New York's nuclear plants has accumulated at reactor sites in our midst. Building more nuclear facilities would compound that problem.

The Trump administration proposes to “recycle” the waste, but reprocessing spent fuel is extremely dirty and dangerous, as New Yorkers learned firsthand. The nation’s only commercial reprocessing plant operated from 1966 to 1972 in West Valley, Cattaraugus County, leaving behind hundreds of thousands of gallons of lethal radioactive waste and widespread contamination that is still being cleaned up 50 years later.

Given the risks and costs, lawmakers should put a two-year moratorium on any new nuclear in New York. If they take that time to study the issue, they will come to the same conclusion the Climate Action Council did: We don’t need more nuclear power. In terms of affordability, safety and reaching climate goals, we are far better off concentrating on renewable energy, storage and modern management of the electric grid.

Robert W.Howarth, the David R. Atkinson professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University, is a member of the New York State Climate Action Council.

April 15, 2026
Robert W. Howarth