Upstate NY Town Explores Nuclear Option

WAMC Northeast Public Radio: Upstate NY Town Explores Nuclear Option
ALBANY, NY (WAMC) - Congressman Chris Gibson has been touting having a nuclear power plant built in the Capital Region... an upstate community has decided to take a closer look at the idea... Capital District Bureau Chief Dave Lucas reports.


Congressman Gibson says Nuclear power holds the key to an energy future that is safe, clean, reliable, and affordable. He turned heads and made headlines when he revealed his ambition to build one somewhere in the 20th Congressional District. The town of Easton sits along Washington county's western boundary. On Tuesday night, town officials adopted a resolution to consider building a nuclear power generating facility. Supervisor John Rymph has been given the green light to appoint a five-member ad-hoc committee: he says it's "just to do some fact-finding."

Barbara Warren, Executive Director of the statewide Citizen Environmental Coalition, says the idea of advancing nuclear technology at this time is unsustainable. Local farmers wonder about safety issues and whether local property values would be affected. Phil Ulrich was at the Easton meeting: he lives one town over in Greenwich: he holds a nuclear engineering degree from RPI and spent 20 years in the field. He claims nuclear power is safe and sustainable.

Supervisor Rymph says the idea of putting up a nuclear plant in town is not a new one. There was a project in the 1960s that eventually was abandoned. The site it would have been constructed on is no longer available. Phil Ulrich says that the town would need between 500 and a thousand acres of land within 5 miles of the Hudson River. Other upstate towns are also considering exploring the nuclear option.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Nuclear energy provides about 20 percent of electricity generation in the United States through 104 operating reactors around the country. In New York, six reactors currently provide more than 30 percent of the state's electric power.