When Gov. Kathy Hochul took office in 2021, New York was in the middle of a\u00a0complicated energy transition. Albany had passed one of the nation\u2019s most ambitious decarbonization laws only two years earlier, yet the state had just shuttered its single largest source of carbon-free power: the Indian Point nuclear station.<\/p>\n
Five years later, the situation has flipped. Hochul, a\u00a0Democrat who is up for reelection in November, watered down<\/a> the state\u2019s decarbonization goals this spring and is now calling for the biggest buildout of new nuclear reactors in decades.<\/p>\n \u201cExpanding our nuclear energy capacity will play a\u00a0key role in my all-of-the-above energy strategy to ensure we have enough reliable power to keep the lights on and costs down for New Yorkers while helping attract 21st century economic development opportunities,\u201d Hochul said in a\u00a0statement to Canary Media.<\/p>\n If successful, the 5\u00a0gigawatts of new nuclear power plants that Hochul aims to build would make New York the No. 3\u00a0state in the country in terms of atomic generating capacity.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an ambitious target. The entire U.S. has built just over 3\u00a0GW of new nuclear capacity over the last 20\u00a0years, and most of it came from the first-of-a-kind AP1000 buildout<\/a> at Southern Company\u2019s Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating plant in Georgia, which was plagued by cost and deadline overruns.<\/p>\n Hochul\u2019s nuclear embrace comes as federal support flows<\/a> toward efforts to build both smaller next-generation reactors and larger-scale facilities similar to the three New York already has.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is part of the return of energy realism to the Western world,\u201d said Isuru Seneviratne, the co-founder of Nuclear New York, an advocacy group that has pushed for more atomic energy in the\u00a0state.<\/p>\n Not everyone is happy with the move. Influential local groups such as NY Renews say the state has not done enough to maximize wind and solar power, and some state lawmakers have called for<\/a> a\u00a0moratorium on nuclear.<\/p>\n Hochul, for her part, has cast nuclear energy as necessary for long-term decarbonization. The state has struggled to execute<\/a> on its plan to build large-scale renewables upstate and ferry the power downstate, and President Donald Trump has all but crushed the offshore wind industry<\/a> that New York was otherwise banking on for clean\u00a0power.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile dangerous policies coming out of Washington, D.C., threaten to halt our progress, I\u00a0am doubling down on our efforts to strengthen our grid and invest in the clean energy we need to power New York,\u201d Hochul said in the statement to Canary Media.<\/p>\n Changing tides<\/p>\n The Empire State\u2019s turnaround marks a\u00a0major shift in state energy policy.<\/p>\n Indian Point station, north of New York City \u2014 at one point the state\u2019s largest nuclear plant \u2014 shut down its last reactor in April 2021, following a\u00a0decades-long campaign by those who believed the facility represented a\u00a0grave risk from a\u00a0September 11\u2013style terrorist attack; among them were then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who also argued that the warm water the facility discharged harmed wildlife in the Hudson River.<\/p>\n Hochul took office later that same year, but it wasn\u2019t until 2024 that she began calling for the state to revisit nuclear energy.<\/p>\n In January 2025, Hochul issued<\/a> a\u00a0nuclear \u200b\u201cmaster plan\u201d for the state. Five months later, she ordered<\/a> the New York Power Authority (NYPA) \u2014 the largest state-owned utility in the country \u2014 to help bring down the cost of building the first gigawatt of new nuclear capacity.<\/p>\n That December, New York inked<\/a> a\u00a0partnership with Ontario, where the conservative government is building what will likely be North America\u2019s first small modular reactor: a\u00a0300-megawatt BWRX-300 from the American Japanese giant GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy. The pact was aimed at working together to settle on one or two reactor designs that the entire Northeast could get behind, allowing for a\u00a0regional supply chain to form that would bring down the costs of building the second, third, and fourth versions of the same technology.<\/p>\n In January 2026, Hochul upped the target<\/a>, adding another 4\u00a0GW of capacity to the state\u2019s nuclear goal while announcing that eight upstate New York communities<\/a> had responded to NYPA\u2019s request for information to express their interest in hosting nuclear facilities.<\/p>\n Two months later, she spearheaded a\u00a0deal<\/a> with the governors of all six New England states to coordinate plans for new nuclear projects with the hopes of further cementing a\u00a0regional standard for nuclear. In June, her office kicked off<\/a> the Public Service Commission process to begin siting the plants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Gov. 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