To the Editor:

New York Governor Kathy Hochul is on a wild-nuke-chase.

During her January State of the State speech, she announced her intention to have New York construct five billion watts of new nuclear electricity generating capacity in the coming decades.

Based on a half century of perpetually soaring nuclear station construction costs — most recently two nukes in Georgia costing almost $37 billion — constructing 5,000 megawatts would likely cost at least $100 billion dollars, leading to massive electricity price increases.

The new nuclear stations would be even more uneconomical than the four operable ones along Lake Ontario that are now a combined 200 years old ….

Other existing energy technologies are far less costly, put more people to work per million dollars invested, and can be built quicker.

Pouring a fortune into new nukes will divert funds from renewable and safer energy, retard the safe energy transition, and extend New York’s considerable dependence on fossil fuels.

Carefully investing tens of billions of dollars into renewable energy could revitalize upstate, something nuclear can never do. A large-scale radiation release could render entire counties uninhabitable.

Tom Ellis

Albany