New York nuclear plant shutdown proves liberals are unscientific and unserious

Despite winning an Emmy, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has a long history of making the wrong call when it comes to science.

In 2015, he banned fracking in New York under pseudoscientific pretenses. In 2020, his actions led to thousands of needless COVID-19 deaths at nursing homes, and today, his administration is allowing the closure of Unit 3 at the Indian Point nuclear power plant, which produces more electricity in New York than wind and solar, combined.

Unlike wind and solar, nuclear power works virtually all the time. In 2019, New York nuclear plants produced 95 percent of their potential output, whereas wind produced just 25.6 percent, and solar just 16.5 percent. Because nuclear plants work almost all the time, they are available to generate electricity when it is needed most, not just when the weather cooperates.

This is why the electricity generated at Indian Point Unit 3 will largely be replaced with electricity generated from natural gas power plants. This natural gas will be imported from Pennsylvania because New York does not allow fracking in its own borders. Replacing a nuclear plant with a natural gas plant will necessarily increase carbon dioxide emissions relative to continuing to use the Indian Point nuclear plant, which produced zero.

Actions like these are why it is impossible to take liberal politicians and activists seriously when they claim they are following “the science.”

On the one hand, they claim that climate change is an existential crisis that is responsible for nearly all of society’s ills, from violent crime, international conflict, poverty, and racism. But on the other hand, they actively work to shut down the most reliable, affordable, sources of emissions-free power on the planet.

Liberal lawmakers in Minnesota won’t even go so far as to lift the current moratorium on building new nuclear power plants in the state that was enacted the year after the Northstars left Minnesota.

This begs the question: why the hell should Minnesotans pay more for electricity, pay more to buy a car, or impose new, onerous green new permitting requirements on our economy when the liberal Governors in liberal states, who supposedly care the most about the environment, can’t even keep an existing nuclear plant open until the end of its useful lifetime? They absolutely should not stand for it.

Liberals often paint conservatives as unscientific by pointing to the fact that many of them are religious, but being anti-religion does not make one pro “the science.” Despite their own self-image, liberals do not have a monopoly on science, and many of their beliefs, such as wind and solar, organic food, veganism, etc., bear a stronger resemblance to astrology than astronomy.

At the end of the day, many of their preferred energy and environmental policies are unserious, and unscientific.