There are 6 licensed commercial nuclear reactors in New York. Half of the reactors are of the boiling water type (BWR), including the pair at Nine Mile Point and the lone reactor at the James A. Fitzpatrick power plant. Together, these total 2,468 (MW(e)capacity. The other three reactors, Indian Point 1 and 2 and the Ginna unit, are pressurized light water reactors (PWR) total 2,600 MW(e) capacity.

Permanently Shutdown Commercial Reactors: The Indian Point Nuclear Plant originally had three reactors. Indian Point 1 (PWR, capacity 615 megawatts thermal) was permanently shut down on October 31, 1974. The Shoreham Nuclear Plant (one BWR, 2,436 megawatts thermal capacity) was shut down on June 28, 1989, and decommissioning has been completed.

Research Reactors: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued an operators license for one reactor (critical assembly type, 0.1 kilowatt power level) at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on July 3, 1964.

Permanently Shutdown Research and Test Reactors regulated by NRC: The Tank (ZPR) reactor at Cornell University (power level 0.1 kilowatts) was shut down on February 12, 1997. A ZPR type reactor (0.0001 kilowatt power level) was also shut down at Manhattan College in December 1996. The Pulstar reactor (2,000 kilowatt power level) at the University of Buffalo was shut down on July 23, 1996.

Nuclear Power Generation in New York, 1965 through 2005 Million kilowatthours

Sources: Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-906, Power Plant Report, and predecessor forms.

Nuclear Generation in New York in 2005 was 42,443 billion kwh.

Nuclear Generation

Electricity generation by nuclear power plants is available for each reactor and each State for the following years:

• 2002
• 2003
• 2004
• 2005

Contribution of Nuclear Power

As of January 1, 2005, New York ranked 4th among the 31 States with nuclear capacity.

Based on preliminary 2005 annual data, the efficiency of the State's nuclear industry as measured by the capacity factor (the ratio of actual generation to total possible generation) was 95.6 percent. Nearly a third of the State's electricity output is provided by six reactors.

The State's three major power outages in 1965, 1977, and 2003, affected both nuclear and non-nuclear plants, but the 2003 crisis did bring about an unanticipated problem for nuclear plants. The Oyster Creek Nuclear Plant in New Jersey could have supplied power that might have helped limit the crisis. But Oyster Creek was shut down because Federal regulations require that a nuclear power plant must have an off-site source of power in case of emergency. Although all systems were in working order at Oyster Creek, the off-site source of power went off-line. Fortunately, such outages are rare but the loss of two plants instead of one tended to exacerbate the crisis.

Courtesy of the Schenectady Museum, New York. World's Fair, 1964, General Electric fusion exhibit.

Brookhaven National Laboratory

The Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York was founded in 1948. It is one of 10 labs funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven is the world's largest accelerator for nuclear research. According to the lab's web site, "it collides gold nuclei head-on at energies of 100 billion electron volts per proton or neutron. Researchers are using the collider to "search for a never-before-seen form of hot, dense nuclear matter known as quark-gluon plasma. Half a century before the RHIC was built, Brookhaven scientists decided to build a new machine to accelerate protons to previously unheard of energies. Known as the Cosmotron, it became the first accelerator to send particles to energies in the billion electric volt (or GeV) region. In January 1953, it "reached its full design energy of 3.3 GeV.

New York Nuclear Highlights

• On March 26, 1962, the Atomic Energy Agency (predecessor of the Nuclear Energy Commission) issued an operating license for a reactor at Indian Point. Indian Point 1, the first of three reactors at this location and the first commercial reactor to come on line in New York, was shut down on October 31, 1974
• After four record years, National nuclear generation dips slightly in 2005, but New York does not follow the National trend. Local output tops 42 trillion kilowatt hours to eclipse the State record set two years earlier.
• The New York Shipbuilding Company builds the Nuclear Ship Savannah in its New Jersey shipyards. It is the first nuclear-powered commercial vessel built in the United States and a milestone in President Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace program.

License Renewal

On May 19, 2004, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) renewed the license for single reactor at the R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant, setting a new expiration date of September 18, 2029. On May 26, 2004, an application was received for license renewal of units 1 and 2 at Nine Mile Point. The application is currently under review. NRC anticipates that Entergy Nuclear, Inc., will submit a license renewal application in July 2006 for the James Fitzpatrick Nuclear Power Plant.

Air Quality in New York

Of the 50 States plus the District of Columbia, the electric industry of the State of New York ranks 17th highest in carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. The State's electric industry ranks 16th highest in sulfur dioxide (SO₂) emissions and 23rd highest in nitrogen oxides (NO_x) emissions.

New York Airborne Emissions, Electricity Sector, 1990-2004 Metric Tons
Year	Carbon Dioxide CO2	Sulfur Dioxide SO2	Nitrogen Oxides NOX
1990	67,542,817	417,095	193,028
1991	63,935,180	399,647	187,907
1992	59,502,162	356,119	178,555
1993	53,430,039	305,241	157,077
1994	53,129,437	269,327	145,193
1995	56,479,721	229,179	149,127
1996	52,124,058	265,174	105,506
1997	57,247,263	307,757	107,942
1998	61,144,556	288,087	119,165
1999	61,180,111	256,791	93,876
2000	60,287,269	261,218	94,488
2001	59,190,137	235,052	90,605
2002	55,769,178	214,157	82,721
2003	56,944,121	259,039	80,719
2004	57,624,769	236,062	77,478
Total	875,530,818	4,299,945	1,863,387
Source: EIA-767 and EIA-906 Survey, Energy Information Administration

New York Airborne Emissions, Electricity Sector, 1990-2004 (CO2)*

*Carbon Dioxide

New York Airborne Emissions, Electricity Sector, 1990-2004 (SO2)*

*Sulfur Dioxide

New York Airborne Emissions, Electricity Sector, 1990-2004 (NOX)*

*Nitrogen Oxide

More information on New York

1962: The First U.S. Nuclear-Powered Surface Ship

The contrast between the world's first nuclear-powered surface ship, Lenin, and the world's first nuclear-powered commercial vessel, the Nuclear Ship Savannah, is substantial. The U.S. vessel is the namesake of a vessel launched a century earlier, the first steam-powered vessel to cross the ocean. The nuclear-powered version was a remarkably beautiful and graceful ship, that could (and did) carry cargo. It was an expensive way to carry cargo, however, so the vessel was heavily dependent on the Federal subsidy it received as a unique ship. The nuclear-powered Savannah was conceived by President Eisenhower to promote the "Atoms for Peace" program (a program that also led to the building of the first U.S. nuclear power plant. The ship was launched in 1962 and retired in 1979.

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