Nuclear Development is seeing a resurgence in both New York and across the country. Spurred on by the nuclear industry, president Trump, and supported by Governor Hochul, the Finger Lakes is at risk of becoming host to several nuclear reactors. Schuyler, Wayne, Broome counties, and Rochester have all thrown their hat in the ring for potential nuclear development. Seneca Lake Guardian is collaborating with other local, regional and statewide organizations to help educate and inform communities about the risks and costs associated with nuclear power development.

BACKGROUND:

Focus on Schuyler County:

In December 2025, the Schuyler County Partnership for Economic Development submitted a 433 page Request for Information (RFI) to the New York Power Authority (NYPA), identifying the former Camp Monterey location in the Town of Orange as a potential site for a Small Modular Reactor (SMR).

At that point, whether most residents realized it or not, Camp Monterey had been placed into a statewide conversation about future energy infrastructure. 

While SCOPED is now saying that there is “not an appropriate site for a 1 Gigawatt nuclear facility”, and even claiming that a nuclear reactor “will not happen in the county”, we have documented evidence that these claims are unverifiable based on the following:

This is the entire RFI from SCOPED titled “Advanced Nuclear”.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TnmarILwfWabUurxFTfyqSs4op0L8PtH/view?usp=sharing

This is the “Letter of Support” from SCIDA.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V44j1sgAXBNAZdJBxaTDH8qnFH47vfTz/view?usp=sharing

https://cicbca.org/nypa-draws-strong-interest-from-developers-to-partner-in-nuclear-power-projects-upstate/

https://www.wydc-tv.com/homepage/schuyler-county-protest-follows-nuclear-power-information-request-surprise/article_d86d3a08-fe72-4e6e-9625-cd9a24b050b5.html

https://www.fltimes.com/news/opponents-of-proposed-nuclear-facility-in-schuyler-co-protest/article_dc40eefc-a50b-475b-ae4c-bd4ec0c8166e.html

Why Gov Hochul’s deeply flawed Energy Plan would explode electricity rates

The $36 billion+ cost of the nation’s newest, most expensive nuclear reactors ever built—Georgia’s Vogtle reactors—resulted in a 25% utility rate increase.

Dr. Joseph’s Romm’s report is available at  https://web.sas.upenn.edu/pcssm/publications/

 The explosion in electricity rates and substantial delay in achieving New York’s zero-carbon emissions goals that would result from Governor Kathy Hochul’s nuclear reactor plans are carefully documented in a just-released report by Dr. Joseph Romm of the University of Pennsylvania (see bio below). He notes that much better options are now available. His analysis documents the following case:

 1. NYS’s plans for new reactors will be a huge burden on ratepayers, comparable to the price spikes the twin Vogtle reactors hit Georgians with.

 2. NYS Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) noted in a 2025 report, “Nuclear plants in the U.S. have a long history of substantial cost overruns.”[i]

 3. The cost analysis underlying NYS’s Energy Plan is so flawed that neither the state nor the contractor who wrote it stands behind its accuracy or the consequences of using it.

 4. As a result, NYS’s Plan embraces two anti-affordability strategies to achieve its goal of a zero-emissions grid by 2040—up to 3.3 GW of new reactors and 15 GW of gas plants running on green hydrogen—while ignoring much better options.

 5. Data centers have helped triple wholesale electricity prices in NY. Nothing would be more anti-affordability than bringing in more, and then building plants for them that produce electricity at a cost much higher than the data center is charged for. The difference would be paid by NY ratepayers and taxpayers.

“In his new report, Dr. Joseph Romm does an excellent job of explaining why the newly enacted NY State Master Energy Plan is bad policy, especially its reliance on new nuclear plants. Put simply, new reactors are extremely expensive and slow to deploy compared to renewable energy, the latest storage technologies, and modern approaches to grid management. Pursuing nuclear will increase electric costs for consumers, perhaps dramatically so. And it will slow and distract the state from reducing our climate impact,” said Robert W. Howarth, the Atkinson Professor of Ecology & Environmental Biology at Cornell University and Co-Editor-in-Chief of OLAR, Journal of Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research.

“With its plan for new nuclear reactors, the New York State Energy Plan simply would be a financial disaster for the state’s ratepayers and taxpayers. Instead of facts, all the Plan, and the nuclear proponent who support it, can offer is “hopium” (a combination of hope and opium meaning unfounded hope) as there is no evidence that the cost of new reactors be anywhere as low as they claim,” said David Schlissel of Schlissel Technical Consulting.

THE REPORT’S EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

 In June 2025, New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul directed the state “to develop at least one new nuclear energy facility with a combined capacity of no less than one gigawatt of electricity” as part of an effort to support an “affordable electric grid.”[ii] Yet, the only U.S. commercial reactors built this century—the only ones the state modeled—are 1100-Megawatt AP1000 reactors.

 NYSERDA noted “the Vogtle units were originally estimated to cost $13 billion … but eventually cost $32 billion.”[iii] The final cost may be over $38 billion.[iv] One analysis noted it was “the most expensive power plant ever built on earth,” with an “astoundingly high” estimated electricity cost.

 So, Georgia ratepayers’ bills are rising by over $220 a year, a 25% increase. In 2023, state regulators made customers pay for most of Vogtle “on top of a monthly surcharge”[v] they’ve had to pre-pay for years, totaling $1000.[vi] South Carolina consumers still pay for two never-completed AP1000s.[vii]

• Any new NY reactors are likely to cost the same or more than Vogtle’s. Small reactors (SMRs) would cost even more per MW: That’s why commercialization efforts for SMRs have failed for decades. A December 2023 Columbia University report concluded that “if the costs of new nuclear end up being much higher” than $6,200/kW “new nuclear appears unlikely to play much of a role, if any, in the US power sector.”[viii] Yet, a 2024 MIT report noted, “According to GP [Georgia Power], the total project cost including financing cost was $18,500/kW.”[ix]

• Remarkably, the 1053-page December 2025 NY Energy Plan, which opens with the Governor’s letter asserting “Affordability is just as important” as “reliability” to the state, has no discussion whatsoever of the impact of the planned nuclear plant(s) on affordability.[x] The Plan’s 35-page “Energy Affordability Impacts Analysis” does not mention the word “nuclear” once. The Plan never mentions the Vogtle plant and only briefly mentions the 1.1 GW AP1000s, although that is what the state is planning for with scenarios requiring an additional 2.2 GW and 3.3 GW.

• There’s also no serious discussion of data centers, although they’re driving both demand and affordability concerns. The Governor states this is “a time when demand is rising fast. Advanced manufacturing, new housing, and exciting research all require more energy.” But her letter ignores data centers in the list of what’s driving demand, despite the fact NYISO (the state’s grid operator),[xi] and the Plan itself point out they are a major demand driver. Why? Most likely because the Plan makes clear that new nuclear is at best a post-2035 solution. So, it doesn’t address the data center problem.

• Ironically, new reactors are the only option that worsens the affordability problem but can’t be built fast enough to help address the AI data center demand crisis.

• The Plan also assumes the state’s primary new non-nuclear carbon-free firm capacity in 2040 will be 15 GW of gas plants “converted to run on hydrogen by 2040” but run only 260 hours a year. The “modeling assumes” that these “multi-day reliability needs are met by generators powered by green hydrogen. Under this assumption, the combustion generation fleet remains critical.”

• But that scenario is so implausible it’s hard to see why the state embraced it other than 1) to make its embrace of nuclear seem affordable and sensible by comparison and 2) to provide an excuse for keeping so many natural gas plants running through the 2030s. But carbon-free green hydrogen won’t be affordable or scalable for decades, if ever, as detailed in my 2025 book, The Hype About Hydrogen. “America’s Clean Hydrogen Dreams Are Fading Again,” as a 2025 NY Times headline put it, adding “Costs are rising, and Congress just put a lucrative tax credit out of reach for many companies.”[xii]

• Remarkably, the state considered and rejected other strategies for carbon-free firm, dispatchable power,[xiii] and multi-day reliability needs in 2040—including long-duration energy storage, virtual power plants, and advanced geothermal energy. Yet these probably have a greater combined chance of meeting those needs more affordably than new reactors and hydrogen. A superior strategy for NY is to let other states take the risk of building nuclear, while it focuses on better approaches.[xiv]

 The report explores these flaws in NY’s energy plans and offers a pro-affordability strategy.

______________________________________________________

 Dr. Joseph Romm is a New York native and leading expert on climate solutions. He has been involved with nuclear energy policy and analysis for over three decades. In December 2025, Romm was the primary presenter on nuclear energy costs for a webinar and public meeting of the National Academy of Sciences Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board. He gave a 30-minute presentation on “Promoting SMRs Will Slow or Stop any ‘Nuclear Renaissance’ and Undermine U.S. Leadership in AI.” He holds a PhD in physics from M.I.T. and is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media (PCSSM). His work focuses on the sustainability and scalability—and the scientific underpinnings—of the major climate solutions, as well as the media coverage of them. rommj@sas.upenn.edu

Small Modular Reactors: Current Status and Challenges Discussed at Kyoto Club Webinar. Experts explored costs, safety issues, and the future role of SMRs in the energy transition.https://www.kyotoclub.org/en/news-en/news-from-the-world/2026/02/03/small-modular-reactors-stato-dellarte-e-sfide-al-centro-del-webinar-kyoto-club/

Statement to Schuyler County Legislature

by

Robert W. Howarth, PhD

January 12, 2026

For the past 40 years, I have been a professor at Cornell and a resident of the Town of Ulysses. I do not live in Schuyler County, but my home is only 3 miles from the County border. I have many friends in Schuyler County, and frequently visit in Hector and Watkins Glenn. And as the crow flies, my home is only 20 miles from the site under consideration for a nuclear plant. I am an expert on energy policy and environmental consequences, and I am one of 22 members of the NY State Climate Action Council, the group charged by law with developing the blueprint to implement the State’s 2019 Climate Act.

It would be a mistake for New York to invest in nuclear power, and it is a mistake for Schuyler County to encourage nuclear power here in the Finger Lakes. Nuclear power is far more expensive and far slower to deploy than are renewable sources of power (See Jacobson et al. 2013; Jacobson 2023; Satymov et al. 2025). For this reason, after extensive study, debate, and public input, we on the NY State Climate Action Council endorsed a blueprint for New York that has a strong preference for meeting future electric needs with solar, wind, and hydro power rather than new nuclear plants. This blueprint, (the Council’s “Final Scoping Plan”) was passed on a 19-3 vote just over 3 years ago, with the two co-chairs of the Council (the NYSERDA President and the Commissioner of the NY Dept of Environmental Conservation) as well as the President of the NY Power Authority joining in this strong majority vote.

Unfortunately, the State is now considering the development of nuclear power, in contradiction of the Scoping Plan from the Climate Action Council. A new State Energy Plan passed last month states that both large, conventional nuclear plants and small modular reactors (SMRs) should be considered. In a thorough review of this new plan published last week, Dr. Joe Romm of the University of Pennsylvania documents the shoddy analysis underlying this new plan. He notes that any new construction of nuclear plants in New York, whether conventional plants or SMRs, would be costly for the electric rate payers and tax payers of New York. If are want to address the affordability issue in New York, nuclear is categorically the wrong way.

Even the most enthusiastic supporters of nuclear power recognize that there are very few sites anywhere in the State with sufficient cooling-water availability and sufficient distance from population centers to build a conventional plant. But they point to the SMRs, which need less cooling water. It is important to note that the SMR concept is not new: people have considered SMRs for more than half a century. But there have never been commercially operating SMRs in the US, and only two plants globally now operate, one in Russia and one in China. There are good reasons for this: SMRs are at least as costly to build and operate as are conventional nuclear plants, and SMRs are expected to produce 2 to 30 times more nuclear waste than do conventional nuclear power plants (see new peer-reviewed article by Kim and Macfarlane 2026). This review by Kim and Macfarlane (2026) should be taken seriously, as Macfarlane is the former Chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (Barnard 2025). See also discussion in Romm (2016).

There simply is no acceptable solution for nuclear waste, and the waste generated by current and past nuclear plants in New York State has simply been accumulating at the plant sites. A new plan put forward by the Trump administration to recycle spent fuel is considered extremely dangerous by some experts. According to an article last summer in the Washington Post, this recycling of spent fuel has a “history of spectacular mishaps, including an unintentional atom bomb” (Halper 2025). The bottom line is that if a nuclear plant were to be built in Schuyler County, we should all recognize that the plant will also become a site for nuclear waste storage and disposal far into the future.

The bottom line? New York and Schuyler County do not need nuclear power. As a matter of affordability and reaching climate goals, we are far better off with renewable energy, modern energy storage, and modern management of the electric grid. The large safety and waste concerns, particularly for SMRs, further undercuts any rational argument for new nuclear plants.

I urge you to rescind all bids of interest for a nuclear power plant in Schuyler County.

References Cited:

Barnard, M. 2025. Small modular reactors and the big questions of cost & waste. CleanTechnica, September 10, 2025. https://cleantechnica.com/…/small-modular-reactors-and…/

Halper, E. 2025. Trumps’ nuclear “renaissance” rests on risky plan for nuclear waste. Washington Post, September 22, 2025. https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/trump-nuclear-waste…/

Jacobson, M.Z. 2023. No Miracles Needed: How Today’s Technology Can Save our Climate and Clean our Air. Cambridge University Press, 437 pages.

Jacobson, M.Z., R.W. Howarth, M.A. Delucchi, S.R. Scobies, J.M. Barth, M.J. Dvorak, M. Klevze, H. Katkhuda, B. Miranda, N.A. Chowdhury, R. Jones, L. Plano, and A.R. Ingraffea. 2013. Examining the feasibility of converting New York State’s all-purpose energy infrastructure to one using wind, water, and sunlight. Energy Policy 57: 585-601.

Kim, P, and A. Macfarlane. 2026. Challenges of small modular reactors: A comprehensive exploration of economic and waste uncertainties associated with U.S. small modular reactor designs. Progress in Nuclear Energy, 190: 105989.

Romm, J. 2026. New York’s nuclear anti-affordability fiasco: Why the State’s deeply flawed Energy Plan would explode electricity rates. University of Pennsylvania Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media, January 9, 2026. https://web.sas.upenn.edu/pcssm/publications/

Satymov, R, S. Ruggiero, B. Steigerwald, J. Weibezahn, N. Duic, J. Ahola, D. Bogdanov, and C. Breyer. 2025. Who will foot the bill? The opportunity cost of prioritizing nuclear power over renewable energy for the case of Finland. Energy 337: 138630.