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

In 2008, the State of New York ranked 4th in nuclear capacity and 4th in nuclear generation. Monthly and cumulative nuclear generation and annual nuclear capacity for each State and each reactor is reported in a table elsewhere on this site.

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.

In 2007, natural gas accounted for nearly a third of the electricity generated by the State, and nuclear power slightly less than that. The percentage of electricity generated by coal, gas, nuclear, and hydropower for each state with at least one commercial reactor is reported in the Electricity Market table.

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

Total greenhouse emissions for the electric power industry of each of the 50 States and the District of Columbia, are reported for the most current data year.

Of the 50 States plus the District of Columbia, the electric industry of the State of New York ranked 18th highest in carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in 2007. The State's electric industry ranked 21st highest in sulfur dioxide (SO₂) emissions and 12th highest in nitrogen oxide (NO_x) emissions.

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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