Status: 04/30/2021 12:03 p.m.
–
–
–
There were repeated incidents at the Indian Point nuclear power plant. Now it is switched off. In New York, only 40 kilometers away, the relief is great. But where does the city get its electricity from now?
From Peter Mücke,
ARD-Studio New York
–
–
–
When the last block of the Indian Point nuclear power plant is finally shut down today, Phillip Musegaas feels one thing above all: relief. For decades, Musegaas fought with the environmental protection group “Riverkeeper” for the closure of the breakdown reactor, where one wonders from today’s perspective how one could ever come up with the idea of building this nuclear power plant here, of all places, on the Hudson River, just 40 kilometers from New York City.
–
–
–
–
20 million people live within a radius of 80 km
“It’s a very large 2000 megawatt power plant with a lot of radiant material on the site,” explains Musegaas. “20 million people live within a radius of 80 kilometers. In the event of an accident, there would be no way to bring these people to safety. A serious incident would make New York City and the entire metropolitan area uninhabitable.”
When the first block of Indian Point opened in 1962 on the site of a former amusement park, no one had any concerns. It was not until the mid-1970s that units 2 and 3 went online that resistance began to form – initially because of the effects on the Hudson River.
Impact on the Hudson River
“The fishermen have noticed that a power station like Indian Point has a major impact on the fish population,” says the environmentalist. “The power plant needs large amounts of water for cooling. That is what it gets from the Hudson. It is channeled through the system – all life in the water is killed in the process – and then pumped back into the river.”
In high-load operation, the power plant required more than twice as much water within 24 hours as all of New York City consumed in one day. But for the environmentalists it was initially a hopeless fight.
Incidents, lax safety precautions
Until September 11, 2001. “All my trust that I was safe and that nothing could happen collapsed with the World Trade Center,” says Maurin Widder, who lives not far from the power station. “That’s when I knew I had to take action – or take tranquilizers to come to terms with the fact that we were a target for terrorists.”
The investigators had also found plans for attacks on US nuclear power plants among the al-Qaeda terrorists. Years of hearings followed.
Indian Point made negative headlines again and again: Incidents, lax safety precautions, a leak in the cooling pool. And then a devastating fire in 2015. A transformer exploded. Two years later, politicians decided to end the aging power plant, which to this day still provides a quarter of the electricity for New York City.
Is nuclear power the lesser evil in the end?
It is now clear: wind and sun cannot absorb that as promised. And so gas-fired power plants have to be ramped up on a large scale to satisfy the New Yorkers’ hunger for energy. Some experts already fear power outages in summer when the city’s air conditioning systems are running at full speed.
And some environmentalists, like Phillip Musegaas, come to ponder: Is a nuclear power plant in the end perhaps the lesser evil than a climate-damaging gas-fired power plant? “Yes, there is this debate,” he says. “And it is justified, because nuclear power plants can also reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But switching off Indian Point is the only right decision. There are now promising plans to really expand renewable energies. And that is the great opportunity for this decision for me . ”
Out for New York nuclear power plant – Indian Point will be shut down today
Peter Mücke, ARD New York, April 30, 2021 11:01 am
–
–
–
