Carbon emissions and costs associated with subsidizing New York nuclear instead of replacing it with renewables

Abstract

We compare the cost of maintaining a proposed subsidy for New York's three upstate nuclear power plants with the cost of replacing the plants with renewable technologies from 2016 to 2050. Keeping nuclear operating with subsidy until 2050 is the most expensive option, costing $32.4 billion (2014 USD) over that period in the base business as usual case. The least expensive option is to shut down nuclear today and replace it with onshore wind, saving $7.9 billion. All analyzed renewable scenarios lead to 20.1 to 27.4 Mt CO2 greater life-cycle emission reductions. In addition, re-investing the cost savings of the renewable scenarios into additional onshore wind increase CO2 savings up to 32.5 Mt.