New York Democrats forced the closure of Indian Point — the nuclear plant that powered 25% of New York City — and now New Yorkers are paying 58% more for electricity than the rest of the country. Governor Kathy Hochul’s brilliant solution? Build brand new nuclear plants. You genuinely cannot make this stuff up.
Somebody get these people a mirror. And maybe a calculator.
Here’s the short version of this fiasco. Andrew Cuomo spent years calling Indian Point “a ticking time bomb.” Environmental groups like Riverkeeper popped champagne and called the closure “a landmark victory.” Hochul stood right there next to Cuomo as his lieutenant governor while they killed a plant that had operated safely for 91 reactor-years without a serious incident.
The plant closed in April 2021. It powered 1.3 million homes on 239 acres of land. And do you know what replaced all that cheap, clean nuclear energy? Natural gas. Three brand new gas-fired power plants were built to fill the hole. New York’s natural gas dependency jumped from 39% to over 50% of state electricity generation.
So the “environmentalists” shut down a zero-emission nuclear plant and replaced it with fossil fuels. Over 95% of downstate power generation now comes from natural gas. Indian Point’s closure added more than 8 million metric tons of CO2 emissions per year — roughly equal to the entire annual output of Costa Rica.
Save the planet!
But wait — it gets better. Remember that corruption-free bastion of good governance known as the Cuomo administration? A federal indictment revealed that Cuomo’s top aide, Joseph Percoco, was bribed by a natural gas company called Competitive Power Ventures to advocate for — you guessed it — closing Indian Point. CPV donated $75,000 to Cuomo, bribed his aide starting in 2010, and then built a 650-megawatt natural gas plant to soak up the demand that Indian Point used to fill.
So the “environmental” shutdown of Indian Point was pushed by natural gas lobbyists who bribed the governor’s staff. The green energy revolution, ladies and gentlemen. Brought to you by methane and corruption.
Now let’s talk about what this little adventure has cost you. New York electricity prices spiked 83.8% above the seven-year median in 2022. New Yorkers paid an extra $258 to $304 million that year alone. The average New York family got hit with roughly $500 per month in additional energy costs between 2021 and 2022. And New York City residents are now paying 68% above the national average per kilowatt-hour.
Former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, who actually filed a lawsuit to keep the plant open, put it perfectly: “It was the safest nuclear power plant in the country. Closing it was ridiculous and insane — and now we’re paying the price.”
“The Democrats in charge — from Cuomo to Hochul to legislators — made this mess,” Astorino added.
He’s not wrong.
And now — in the most predictable plot twist in the history of progressive governance — Governor Hochul has announced that New York needs to go nuclear. Big time. Her January 2026 State of the State address called for building 5 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity, bringing the state’s fleet to 8.4 gigawatts. “Go big or go home,” Hochul declared, apparently without a single trace of self-awareness.
She wants to build “more nuclear generation than has been built anywhere in the United States in the last 30 years.” New York is dedicating $40 million per year for nuclear workforce development. This is the same state government that just spent five years and untold billions getting rid of nuclear power.
Where This Is Going
Here’s the part that should have you laughing and crying at the same time. Germany did this exact thing. Same playbook, same result, same panicked reversal.
Germany shut down all its nuclear reactors in April 2023 after years of green activist pressure. Today, German households pay the highest electricity prices in the entire European Union — 39.6 cents per kilowatt-hour. Their steel factories are shutting down because they can’t afford to keep the lights on. Nearly 70% of Germany’s energy comes from international imports. Chancellor Friedrich Merz called the nuclear phase-out “a serious strategic mistake.” The head of the International Energy Agency called it “a historic mistake.”
Mistake. Historic mistake. Serious strategic mistake. Gee, it’s almost like shutting down perfectly functioning nuclear plants is a bad idea every single time anyone tries it.
And it’s not just Germany having the epiphany. Belgium reversed its nuclear phase-out in May 2025. Japan is restarting the world’s biggest nuclear plant after a 15-year shutdown. Italy, Denmark, Switzerland, and Spain are all scrambling to undo their anti-nuclear positions. Twenty-five U.S. states took pro-nuclear action last year. President Trump signed four executive orders on nuclear energy and called for 10 new reactors.
The whole world figured out that the “green energy” crowd was wrong. Congratulations to New York for being one of the last to the party.
Now here’s the math that really stings. Indian Point was 2,083 megawatts on 239 acres. Hochul wants to build 5,000 megawatts of new nuclear — roughly 2.5 times what Indian Point produced. She’s basically admitting that closing Indian Point was a catastrophe without ever saying those words out loud. The policy announcement IS the confession.
And the kicker? Holtec International, the company decommissioning Indian Point, said they could reopen it in four years for $8 to $10 billion. Hochul’s response? “No plans to reopen Indian Point. We’re focused on safe decommissioning.”
So they’ll spend tens of billions building new nuclear plants from scratch — which will take a decade or more — instead of spending $10 billion to reopen the one they just closed four years ago. That’s not energy policy. That’s a pride tax. New Yorkers are going to pay through the nose for another decade because the Democrats in Albany can’t bring themselves to admit they were wrong.
Mark my words: ten years from now, when those new plants are still “under review” and New Yorkers are paying double the national average, someone will suggest reopening Indian Point. And the politicians will act like it’s a brand new idea. Because that’s how the circle of progressive life works — break it, ignore it, spend ten years making it worse, then announce you’re going to fix it and expect a standing ovation.
At least the environmentalists can take comfort knowing they replaced clean nuclear energy with natural gas and corruption. Mother Earth thanks you.