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The controversial Indian Point nuclear plant near New York will close in 2021, a casualty of low energy prices and relentless criticism by environmentalists, the power company announced Monday.
Under an agreement with New York State, Entergy plans to shut down one of the two operating units at Indian Point by April 30, 2020, and the second unit will close a year after that.
Entergy attributed the decision to close the decades-old plant to shifting energy economics. Among the changes, power prices fell as much as 45 percent due to natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation in New York and Pennsylvania, part of the American shale boom.
"Key considerations in our decision to shut down Indian Point ahead of schedule include sustained low current and projected wholesale energy prices that have reduced revenues, as well as increased operating costs," said Bill Mohl, president of Entergy wholesale commodities.
Entergy said it would look for other opportunities for the 1,000 workers employed at Indian Point.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and environmentalists applauded the news since the plant, located within 30 miles of New York, has long been a concern due to safety problems and worries that an accident at the aging facility could affect some 20 million people.
Lower energy prices cited by the article have not been reflected in customer electricity bills. Indian Point supplies 30% of New York's power, so if the post-Indian point power supply drops by the same amount the high prices New Yorkers currently pay per kwh will climb even higher.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday January 11 2017, @06:04PM
How long to power back up? Gonna have to sooner or later, and its gonna have to boot up faster than its shut down...
The problem is here:
Marcellus Shale formation
The Marcellus has a lot of natgas but it can only be produced by fracking. OK whats the problem? Well, fracking production always follows a Seneca curve where decline in production is always faster than the initial growth in production for some rather boring technological and economic reasons. Combine that with the usual Hubbert fractally self similar curve theory which has so far always proven true, and when Marcellus (as a field) production declines, it'll decline fractally like an individual well would. Except due to Seneca effect wells decline faster than they grow. And the field grew by doubling like every year. Implying when the field gets around to declining, for various geological and economic constraints, it'll halve in production every... oh lets say six months.
So when it declines, eventually, in like two years its gonna go from "we don't need us no stinkin nukes we got us natgas peaking plants" to "ohshit.jpg nationwide blackout unless we boot the nuke up in the next three months" Now before people freak out the doubling and half numbers are real as are the theoretical production curves, and the ohshit.jpg from the NRC is completely made up by me.
So you grab a tiger, thats very nice, but when you let go its gonna snap back and eat you a lot quicker than it took you to grab it. Or some extended metaphor like that.
Someday Marcellus is going to run dry and boy won't that be the most exciting couple years ever.
This also has certain economic/financial system implications where some sleepy as hell well in TX that still sells drip condensate a hundred years after it was drilled can weather a recession or even a depression and keep on pumping because the decline rate is so slow that its longer than the economic cycle. But Marcellus both growth and decline are far faster than recessions or depressions. So in the old days the odds of running out of natgas during a recession are kinda low, but post-fracking when the money spigot from NYC shuts off, the gas shuts off in a year or three and its all over at that point. Isn't that interesting?