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For more than half a century, the R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant has quietly generated carbon-free electricity along the southern shore of Lake Ontario, producing enough power for more than 400,000 homes. Its lone reactor is the smallest operating commercial nuclear unit in the United States, yet it consistently ranks among the nation’s most reliable, operating with a capacity factor above 99 percent.
Now, New York wants to build something far bigger.
Gov. Kathy Hochul last year directed the New York Power Authority to begin developing at least one new advanced nuclear power plant in Upstate New York while charting a course toward what she calls a statewide “nuclear reliability backbone” totaling 8.4 gigawatts of nuclear generation. That vision includes New York’s existing reactors, a planned 1-gigawatt advanced nuclear facility and another 4 gigawatts of future development—a buildout unlike anything attempted in the U.S. in decades.
Among the possible locations for the proposed 1-gigawatt advanced nuclear facility: Wayne County, home to the Ginna plant, and a site only a few miles from downtown Rochester.
State officials argue the investment in nuclear energy is essential. Artificial intelligence, semiconductor manufacturing, electrification and economic development are driving electricity demand upward just as New York struggles to meet its ambitious climate goals.
But before a single reactor is built, New York faces a question that could determine whether the governor’s vision ever becomes reality: Who pays for it?
The state’s own financial modeling estimates that making a 5-gigawatt advanced nuclear buildout commercially viable could require between $15.4 billion and $23.9 billion in public support, depending on how the projects are developed. Separate construction cost estimates suggest the full price tag could approach $45 billion.
Those figures have transformed what might otherwise have been a debate over energy policy into one of the state’s most consequential political fights—drawing labor unions, economic development officials and local governments eager for investment into conflict with environmental organizations that see nuclear as an extraordinarily expensive gamble at the very moment New York is retreating from portions of its landmark climate law.
Whether New York’s next generation of nuclear plants ever gets built may depend as much on politics and public acceptance as engineering.
The financial reality of 5 new gigawatts
When the Department of Public Service and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority released the 2026 New York Advanced Nuclear Policy Options Paper in June, the document offered the clearest picture yet of the financial challenge ahead.
Its conclusions were sobering.
Private investors remain reluctant to finance nuclear construction because of the industry’s long history of delays and cost overruns. Wholesale electricity markets alone cannot generate enough revenue to make new reactors economically viable. Before construction even begins, developers would likely require hundreds of millions of dollars simply to reach a final investment decision.
The report concludes that substantial public intervention will almost certainly be necessary.
Among the options under consideration:
■ Cost-overrun guarantees, allowing the state, federal government, reactor developers and engineering firms to share the financial risk of construction delays and budget overruns.
■ Advanced Nuclear Zero Emission Credits,a proposed subsidy modeled after New York’s Zero Emission Credit program for existing nuclear plants. The paper also contemplates allowing large technology companies operating energy-intensive data centers to voluntarily purchase those credits or negotiate direct power purchase agreements.
■ Public ownership and construction grants, including direct state equity investments designed to reduce financing costs.
■ Federal financing through the U.S. Department of Energy, which could cover as much as 80 percent of construction costs through long-term, low-interest loans.
The report also acknowledges another difficult question: What exactly should New York build?
State officials are weighing traditional large light-water reactors against a new generation of small modular reactors, or SMRs, that promise lower upfront costs and greater siting flexibility but remain largely unproven commercially.
Rather than issuing a traditional request for proposals based primarily on price, the paper recommends an open-book negotiation process that would allow developers and the state to jointly evaluate financial risk before selecting a technology.
Why New York Is betting on nuclear again
The state’s renewed embrace of nuclear represents one of the most dramatic shifts in New York energy policy in a generation.
Standing at the Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant in June 2025, Hochul announced that New York would pursue construction of a new advanced nuclear facility in the upstate region—the first major state-backed nuclear project proposed anywhere in the country in more than 15 years.
The announcement came as electricity forecasts were changing dramatically.
Massive semiconductor manufacturing projects such as Micron’s planned campus outside Syracuse, rapid expansion of AI infrastructure and broader electrification efforts have all fueled expectations that electricity demand could rise significantly over the coming decades. State officials increasingly argue that renewable energy alone cannot provide enough around-the-clock generation to maintain reliability.
As of 2024, nearly half of New York’s in-state electricity generation came from zero-emission sources, with 21% from nuclear generation and 26% from renewable sources: hydroelectric, solar, and wind. Combustion generation—which uses natural gas, oil, biofuels, or solid waste as fuel—produced 53% of in-state bulk electricity. Coal is no longer used for electricity generation in New York.
In her 2026 State of the State address in January, Hochul expanded her vision for nuclear’s future in New York.
“I’ve decided to raise the bar to 5 gigawatts,” she told lawmakers. “That’s more nuclear energy than has been built anywhere in the United States in the last 30 years.”
The governor framed nuclear not as a replacement for renewable energy but as the dependable backbone needed to support it—a source of emissions-free electricity capable of operating regardless of weather conditions.
This view is mirrored by Kristy Hartman, senior director of state policy and external affairs at the Washington, D.C.-based Nuclear Energy Institute, which promotes the use and growth of nuclear energy. She notes that the surge in interest is a nationwide phenomenon.
“New York is a leader in this space,” Hartman says. “There are a lot of states coming up with innovative policy and regulatory concepts to support the future of nuclear. We’ve seen a complete change in that landscape. Last year, 350 bills were introduced across state legislatures across the country. We’re halfway through the year this year and we’re on track for that number again.”
That argument has resonated across much of Upstate New York, where communities already hosting nuclear facilities see an opportunity to build on decades of experience while attracting billions of dollars in new investment.
Others, however, see something entirely different.
To critics, New York is preparing to spend tens of billions of dollars on technology they believe remains too expensive, too slow to deploy and burdened by an unresolved radioactive waste problem.
Few have emerged as more outspoken critics than Tim Judson, executive director of the Maryland-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service, an information and advocacy organization that supports efforts for a nuclear-free planet and a sustainable energy future.
“It’s hard to see what the upsides would be to the governor’s plan,” Judson says. “Nuclear power is extremely expensive. It takes a really long time to build nuclear plants. The technologies, some of the ones they’re considering, are, at best, nascent but certainly unproven. We have a lot more effective ways to provide energy, including renewable energy, which the governor seems to be undermining.”
Judson argues the state’s newly released policy paper should become the focus of public scrutiny rather than simply the governor’s announcement.
“The Public Service Commission opened up a public comment period for people to weigh in on this,” he says. “It includes a study or a report that the PSC staff and NYSERDA produced, laying out their proposed options. All of which are really terrible.”
For Judson, the financial modeling itself raises serious questions about whether the projects can ever become affordable for ratepayers.
While critics emphasize high upfront costs, proponents argue these figures fail to capture the long-term value of nuclear assets.
“It is expensive to build nuclear,” Hartman says. “But what sets us apart, and I don’t think we have a great way to value this, is that you’re building energy assets for your kids and grandkids. There is no energy source where you’re building it out for 80 or 100 years. When we spread those costs over the life cycle of a nuclear power plant, it’s actually pretty low.”
Others see broader implications.
Ethan Gormley, legislative coordinator for Citizen Action of New York, argues the debate cannot be separated from New Yorkers’ growing concerns about utility bills.
“Nuclear energy is one of the, if not the, most expensive forms of energy out there,” Gormley says.
He notes that the governor’s proposal comes as households continue to struggle with rising utility costs.
“More nuclear is just going to create higher bills for a lot of people who are already struggling to keep the lights on,” he contends.
Gormley frequently points to Georgia’s Plant Vogtle expansion—the nation’s largest recent nuclear construction project—as a warning. Cost overruns totaling roughly $7.6 billion ultimately resulted in higher monthly electric bills for customers, in addition to years of construction surcharges.
“A lot of people are either unaware of Gov. Hochul’s reckless pursuit of new nuclear power or they’re not sure how it’s going to affect them yet,” he says.
For his organization, the strategy is straightforward: Raise public awareness before New York selects host communities.
As state officials refine the financial framework, another question is beginning to dominate the conversation: Where, exactly, should New York build its next nuclear plant?
The state Power Authority has not selected a site, but its requests for information last fall drew responses from 23 nuclear developers and eight communities interested in hosting the state’s first advanced reactor.
For some upstate communities, the proposal represents a once-in-a-generation economic opportunity. For others, it has become a flashpoint.
Support for the governor’s goal is also coming from advocacy groups. Scott Cicora, co-executive director of Nuclear New York, says his group felt validated by the state’s move.
“We were ecstatic,” Cicora says. “We formed in 2019 primarily to oppose the closing of Indian Point (near Peekskill). We obviously failed there. But we’ve been working on public outreach and educating legislators around nuclear and trying to demystify all of the things that have happened with the messaging in the past.”
Wayne County looks to build on Ginna’s legacy
Few communities are more familiar with nuclear power than Wayne County.
For more than 50 years, the Ginna nuclear facility has operated along Lake Ontario, providing hundreds of high-paying jobs while serving as one of the country’s most reliable generating stations. Constellation Energy is already seeking to extend Ginna’s operating license to 80 years, reinforcing the company’s long-term commitment to the site. That would extend the current license, which runs through 2029, another 20 years to 2049. The company is one of the developers that responded to the Power Authority’s RFI.
Wayne County Administrator Mark Humbert believes that history gives the county a distinct advantage if New York decides to expand nuclear generation.
“We’ve built a lot of infrastructure, community support, and essential services related to nuclear being in our neighborhood,” Humbert says. “For instance, we do annual drills with the plant. There is already good transmission capacity throughout the region of the state from the plant. So, it already exists.”
Rather than starting from scratch, Humbert sees existing nuclear communities as logical places to grow.
Cicora agrees, identifying Wayne and Oswego counties as the most practical options.
“Wayne County and Oswego County are the low-hanging fruit,” Cicora says. “They have the land. And actually before the governor’s announcement, all of the town supervisors in Wayne County had already weighed in about wanting new nuclear. The fact that there is community support, that’s huge for both Wayne County and Oswego County.”
The emergency planning systems are already in place. Transmission infrastructure already exists. Residents understand the industry because they’ve lived alongside it for decades.
For local officials, the conversation is about more than electricity. It is about jobs, tax revenue and long-term economic stability.
The same argument is being made 60 miles to the east.
Oswego County already hosts three operating reactors at the Nine Mile Point and James A. FitzPatrick nuclear plants, making it one of the country’s largest concentrations of nuclear generation.
State Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay, whose district includes Oswego County, has called Hochul’s nuclear initiative “a positive step forward,” arguing the region has both the workforce and public acceptance necessary to accommodate future development.
Communities that have lived with nuclear power for decades generally see less uncertainty than places being introduced to the technology for the first time.
That dynamic could shape the state’s eventual siting decisions.
Eastman Business Park becomes a lightning rod
No potential site has generated more controversy than Rochester’s Eastman Business Park.
Among the eight community responses submitted to the Power Authority was one from RED-Rochester, the nonprofit utility operator serving the sprawling industrial campus just three miles from downtown Rochester.
The submission immediately drew criticism from anti-nuclear advocates, who argue the park’s proximity to residential neighborhoods makes it an inappropriate location for a reactor.
“It’s opened up the opportunity for crazy ideas like what RED-Rochester is proposing—to put a nuclear power plant in an urban neighborhood three miles from downtown Rochester,” Judson says.
“This has been illegal for the past 60 years in the U.S., to put a nuclear power plant in a densely populated area,” he adds. “But the nuclear industry has been pushing this crazy idea that these new designs for small reactors are so small and inherently safe that the radiation, even in an accident, wouldn’t get beyond the site boundary. This is just all fundamentally untrue.”
When asked about those criticisms, RED-Rochester declined an interview, saying the process remains too preliminary.
“At this early stage, we do not believe there are sufficient project-specific details available to warrant an interview,” Paul Tyno, RED-Rochester’s director of client and market development, wrote in an email.
Instead, the organization emphasized that its participation has been limited to responding to NYPA’s request for information and a subsequent informational meeting.
“Our submission reflects the capabilities of Eastman Business Park as an industrial energy and infrastructure platform, not a defined project,” the statement said. “There is no specific project, site design, development plan, or siting decision associated with Eastman Business Park at this time.”
The organization also stressed that Eastman Kodak Co. is not part of the submission and that nuclear represents only one of several possible decarbonization technologies being evaluated for the campus.
That distinction matters.
An RFI is not a construction proposal, nor does it commit a community to hosting a reactor.
Rather, it is an early planning exercise designed to help NYPA understand which communities believe they possess the infrastructure, workforce and local interest necessary to support future development.
Still, the Rochester response illustrates how quickly the governor’s proposal has moved from an abstract statewide policy discussion to a locally focused issue. Even before a site has been selected, communities are already debating whether they want to become New York’s next nuclear hometown.
Kate Kressmann-Kehoe, New York state lead for Mothers for Nuclear, offers a nuanced take on the potential for new sites like the Eastman location.
“I think different things require different responses,” Kressmann-Kehoe says. “We’re at the very, very early stages of everything. To me, I am a geology major, I am a filmmaker. I am not a structural engineer, I’m not a nuclear engineer. Putting more nuclear in Wayne County where there is already nuclear, that seems relatively straightforward. Looking at new sites that may require new technologies is a process. It may be a great fit, it may not be. It’s something that you need to deliberately go through the site assessments and look at the technology.
“It could be a great source of stable, emissions-free power for the city,” Kressmann-Kehoe adds. “But we could be like, ‘No, this isn’t a good idea.’”
If environmental organizations have become the loudest critics of Hochul’s plan, organized labor has emerged as one of its strongest supporters.
Construction unions view advanced nuclear not simply as another energy project but as one of the largest potential public works programs in decades.
Vincent Albanese, director of policy and public affairs for the New York State Laborers’ Organizing Fund, says the labor movement has been preparing for precisely this moment.
“There are just thousands of jobs that would be created in the construction of new units, whether they be smaller SMRs or larger-scale units,” Albanese says.
The support extends beyond rhetoric.
Albanese says the Laborers’ union and Constellation Energy now co-chair the Future Energy Alliance, a coalition formed specifically to advocate for new nuclear development in New York.
The organization has also begun preparing workers for projects that may still be years away.
Using a portion of the governor’s recently announced $40 million NextGen Nuclear New York workforce initiative, apprenticeship programs are beginning to incorporate nuclear-specific training and certifications intended to ensure qualified workers are available if projects move forward.
Albanese rejects the notion that labor’s support for nuclear comes at the expense of renewable energy.
“We’re very supportive of renewables,” he says. “That’s creating a tremendous amount of jobs at the moment.”
The challenge, he argues, is scale.
Electricity demand is growing rapidly enough that no single resource can meet it alone.
“Our electricity demand is increasing,” Albanese says. “Combining all of these sources still is a challenge for us to meet that demand.”
That “all-of-the-above” philosophy increasingly reflects the position of many business and economic development organizations across Upstate New York.
Greater Rochester Enterprise president and CEO Matt Hurlbutt says his organization remains neutral on where a future reactor should be located, but he believes the broader need for additional generation is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
The region’s industrial expansion, housing development and economic growth all depend on one thing, he said: reliable electricity.
“The ability to get and think out of the box and to help things move forward as quickly as possible—and importantly, as safely as possible, and making sure we’re affordable, efficient—is something we’re working collaboratively with other partners to support,” Hurlbutt says.
For proponents, that is the central argument.
Whether the answer ultimately comes from conventional reactors, small modular reactors or another technology altogether, they believe New York cannot achieve its economic ambitions without significantly expanding reliable, around-the-clock power generation.
For opponents, however, that premise remains deeply flawed. To them, the question is not whether New York needs more electricity. It is whether nuclear power is the right—and affordable—way to produce it.
For critics like Citizen Action’s Gormley, the debate over nuclear power cannot be separated from a broader shift in New York’s climate policy.
The state’s 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act established some of the nation’s most ambitious emissions-reduction goals, requiring an 85 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 while setting interim benchmarks for 2030 and 2040.
Meeting those targets, however, has proven far more difficult than lawmakers anticipated.
This spring, as part of negotiations over the fiscal year 2027 state budget, Hochul secured changes that pushed back implementation of key emissions-reduction regulations, including the long-delayed cap-and-invest program, until the end of 2028—four years later than originally contemplated. Lawmakers also approved a change in how the state calculates methane emissions, shifting from a 20-year to a 100-year measurement window.
The governor has defended those changes as necessary to balance climate goals with affordability and economic realities.
Environmental organizations see them differently.
More than 200 organizations signed a letter this spring urging Hochul to abandon both the proposed nuclear expansion and the changes to the state’s climate law, arguing that the two policies represent a retreat from New York’s commitment to rapidly deploy renewable energy.
To Gormley, the two issues are inseparable.
Whatever promise advanced nuclear may hold decades from now, he argues, it does little to address today’s affordability crisis.
“If anything,” he says, “it’s going to make it worse.”
Judson raises another concern that has followed the nuclear industry for generations.
Even if the economics eventually work, he argues, New York still has no permanent solution for the radioactive waste already being produced by its existing reactors.
“The cost issue is the one that’s going to affect everybody across the state,” Judson says. “But the reality is that we don’t have a solution for nuclear waste.”
Industry representatives argue, however, that the waste issue is frequently misunderstood.
“There just isn’t that much nuclear waste used fuel,” Hartman contends. “And I think that’s a misnomer. If your entire life was powered by clean nuclear energy, all of that waste would fit in a soda can. All of the used fuel that has been created by the existing nuclear reactors in the U.S. would fit in an Amazon warehouse or a Walmart or any of those types of big box store buildings.
“Of course, we’d like to see a permanent repository and a plan,” she adds. “But in the meantime as the government works through all these options, there is a lot of momentum and excitement. The nuclear industry is very safe. The used fuel is stored on-site. It can be stored indefinitely.”
For his part, Judson points to the closure of Indian Point in 2021 as an example. Although the Hudson Valley plant stopped generating electricity, its spent nuclear fuel remains stored on site because the U.S. still lacks a permanent federal repository.
“There is this crazy logical fallacy at play,” Judson says. “Essentially what they’re saying is that we can figure out how to keep nuclear waste out of the environment for a million years, but we can’t figure out how to keep the lights on.”
Supporters of nuclear power acknowledge those concerns but argue the alternative carries its own risks. Nationally, the industry points to decades of safe on-site storage of spent fuel in steel-and-concrete casks and is pressing the federal government to open a consolidated interim storage site as a bridge to a permanent underground repository, a position the Nuclear Energy Institute has outlined as its preferred path forward.
Without substantial new sources of reliable, around-the-clock electricity, they say, New York could struggle to accommodate the very industries state leaders have spent years recruiting. Semiconductor manufacturing, AI infrastructure and widespread electrification all depend on a grid capable of producing massive amounts of power regardless of weather conditions.
For them, the debate is less about choosing between nuclear and renewable energy than ensuring there is enough electricity to support both economic growth and the state’s long-term climate ambitions.
The fight over New York’s nuclear future has never really been about whether reactors can produce electricity. They already do.
For more than five decades, plants like Ginna, Nine Mile Point and FitzPatrick have generated carbon-free power while employing thousands of New Yorkers. The harder question is whether the next generation of reactors can be built on time, within budget, and at a cost taxpayers and ratepayers are willing to accept.
The state’s own policy paper offers no easy answers. It acknowledges that new nuclear construction is unlikely to proceed without significant public support. It recognizes that private investors remain wary after decades of cost overruns and abandoned projects. And it outlines a menu of subsidies, financing mechanisms and risk-sharing agreements that could require billions of dollars in public participation before a single watt of electricity reaches the grid.
For supporters, those costs represent a necessary investment in New York’s economic future and electric reliability.
For opponents, they are evidence that the state is preparing to spend tens of billions of dollars pursuing a technology that remains slower and more expensive than other clean-energy alternatives.
The next several months may begin to determine which vision prevails.
The public comment period on the Advanced Nuclear Policy Options Paper remains open through Aug. 10, after which the Department of Public Service and NYSERDA are expected to develop a formal white paper recommending specific policy actions to the Public Service Commission. At the same time, NYPA continues reviewing responses from reactor developers and communities interested in hosting the state’s first advanced nuclear project, with additional announcements expected later this year.
The decisions that follow will shape far more than where New York builds its next power plant.
They will determine how the state intends to power an increasingly electrified economy, how much the public is willing to spend to achieve that goal and whether one of the most ambitious nuclear expansions proposed in a generation ever moves beyond the drawing board.
Will Cleveland is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer.
The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. See “Leave a Reply” below to comment on this post. Comments of a general nature may be submitted to the Letters page by emailing [email protected].
The labor argument deserves more weight than it typically receives in these debates. The construction workforce required for a project of this scale represents a genuine and sustained economic investment in communities that have seen manufacturing employment decline for a generation. Wayne County and Oswego County in particular have built entire local economies around the nuclear industry — the workforce, the emergency infrastructure, the supply chains, the institutional knowledge. Dismissing that as special interest politics misses the point. These are communities that have already demonstrated they can host nuclear facilities responsibly, and their support is not incidental to the siting question.
The Georgia Plant Vogtle comparison is the most important data point in this entire debate, and it should be front and center in every public conversation about this proposal. A project that came in billions over budget and resulted in higher monthly bills for customers is not an outlier — it is the most recent example of a pattern that has defined nuclear construction in this country for decades. The state’s own financial modeling acknowledges that private investors remain reluctant to finance new construction precisely because of that history. Before New York commits to this path, the public deserves a clear and honest accounting of who absorbs the risk when costs exceed projections.
The Eastman Business Park submission is the part of this story that deserves the most scrutiny, and I am glad the article addresses it directly. Three miles from downtown Rochester is a fundamentally different proposition than expanding capacity at an existing rural site like Ginna or Nine Mile Point. The distinction between an RFI response and a construction proposal is technically accurate, but the history of these processes suggests that early expressions of interest have a way of becoming harder to walk back once economic momentum builds. The public needs to be engaged now, not after a site decision has effectively been made.
Solar and wind are no longer weather dependent. Why is there no discussion of the new fire proof, long lasting batteries and the safe storage of electricity from the surplus generated by wind and solar on long sunny, windy days? Storing this surplus and releasing it as needed would eliminate the need for additional generation of any kind. It is certainly the quickest, cheapest, greenest way forward.
Marilyn Elie
What a great article. I just wanted to thank you for laying this information out so well. It’s great to see so many New Yorkers who care about where our energy is going to come from.
Thoughtful story. Just the fact that this IS a story reflects more of a acceptance of reality in Albany. IF you believe in theoretical global warming, and the theory that man made emissions is a cause, then nuclear the only practical reliable 24/7 solution for power generation. Of course the irony here is that the southern tier of the state sits on a dome of natural gas via the Utica shale formation. (until recently the State wouldn’t even allow gas to be piped through the State let alone fracked). Somebody must of changed the brand of coffee the Gov drinks because in addition to realizing nuclear checks all of her boxes, she defaulted to letting Greenridge continue and will now have its own power for a Data Center. I’m sure the City of Rochester will have no problem with new reactors for its use parked in Wayne Co. The waste can be managed; there is technology out there that will be able to reprocess spent fuel rods. As the article points out, you’re getting zero air pollution and a minute amount of waste compared to burning something for power. Solar & Wind are inefficient , weather dependent and have their own environmental issues. I’d rather live next door to a new nuclear plant than the new Chip plant being built in Clay (and the Gov + the DEC gang couldn’t wait to approve it) from a environmental basis. Also well put, NYS can’t grow w/o power, given the State is dying from population flight, that makes such a project as this a necessity.
Always entertaining to realize that the people who claim that global warming is a hoax are the same ones who believe Trump won the 2020 election, that illegal aliens (from Earth, not outer space) were eating pets in Ohio, that Ukraine stated the war in 2022 by attacking Russia, and that Donny’s reflecting pool swamp (now drained) was vandalized.
Lol- Its easy to spot a parishioner in the Church of Climate Change. If you read my post carefully, you’d realize I neither affirmed or denied Climate theory. Thus attaching the rest of the world’s conspiracies to my post is immaterial (at best).
So Tom, far be it for me to brand someone as a science denier, even when their posts make clear that they are. So tell us, what is your position on climate change. Do you believe that the activities of humanity have had an impact on the planet’s climate over the years? A straight answer please. No more pretense, no more diversion and no more failed attempts to be cute.
So the individual who blew $600,000,000+ to build a football stadium is pushing more dangerous nuke plants for New York to satisfy the projected electricity needs for AI facilities that will be draining our above and below ground water reserves. What could go wrong?