For Immediate
Release:
Contact:
Ed Smeloff – Pace Energy Project: 914-422-4221
Kyle Rabin - Environmental Advocates: 518-462-5526 ext.
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Consolidated Edison Must Bear the Costs Associated with Steam Generator Replacement
Consolidated
Edison Inc. has announced that it will replace the steam generators at its
idled 931-megawatt (MW) Indian Point 2 nuclear reactor in New York. This
decision came one day after Governor Pataki signed a bill forcing Con Ed to
take responsibility for its mismanagement of the Indian Point 2 nuclear plant
which led to the plant’s worst accident in its 26-year history. Since the plant broke down in mid-February,
Con Ed has been passing on the cost of buying replacement power — about
$600,000 per day — to its 3 million customers. Con Ed now needs to be held responsible for the cost of replacing the
aging and crack-prone equipment that caused the plant to break down.
“In
a genuinely competitive market the power plant owners should be responsible for
repairs, maintenance and upgrades to their property,” said Ed Smeloff,
executive director of Pace Law School Energy Project. “This way the shareholders of the corporation would be at risk
for deciding whether the repairs are worth making,” said Smeloff.
Incredibly, Con Ed claims that ratepayers should be
required to pay for repairs at Indian Point 2.
This would add several hundred million dollars of additional costs onto
consumers. Moreover, it would crowd out
competing power plant owners who do not have the opportunity to have ratepayers
subsidize their operations.
“It is up to policy makers in Albany to assure that
this injustice and distortion of markets does not occur,” said Kyle Rabin,
nuclear energy policy project director for Environmental Advocates. “The writing is on the wall for New York’s
nuclear industry. Ratepayer and nuclear
safety abuses will not be tolerated. For those not fully enraged by the threat
to public safety, there’s the added insult of Consolidated Edison and others
foisting the financial liability for this mistaken energy policy of the past
onto ratepayers, and in some cases taxpayers.”
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