State regulators approved a deal Wednesday that clears the way for decommissioning the recently idled Indian Point nuclear power plant north of New York City.
The state Public Service Commission approved the transfer of the plant from Entergy Corp. to Holtec International subsidiaries, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Decommissioning of the site along the Hudson River is projected to cost $2.3 billion and to take at least 12 years.
Cuomo and other opponents had fought for years to close the plant, which they claimed was a safety threat to the millions of people living in the surrounding suburbs and the city 25 miles away.
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“This is a win for the health and safety of New Yorkers, and the protection of our environment,” Cuomo said in a prepared release.
Indian Point Energy Center’s Unit 3 reactor was shut down April 30 under the terms of a 2017 agreement involving the state. The plant’s Unit 2 reactor was shut down a year ago under the agreement.
Entergy has said low wholesale energy prices and operating costs factored into its decision to close Indian Point.
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The two reactors, which went online two years apart in the mid-1970s, were once an important source of electricity in New York City and the lower Hudson Valley. The first reactor at the site went online in 1962 and was retired in 1974.
