The sweeping effects of closing a nuclear plant

Autopsy of a perfect policy failure: the closure of Indian Point: In April 2021, New York permanently closed the Indian Point nuclear power plant and profoundly altered the state’s energy landscape. FREOPP Resident Fellow Grant Dever analyzed energy data from 2017 to 2023 to assess what losing Indian Point did to energy prices, carbon emissions, and grid reliability. His findings? Since the closure, New York increased its reliance on natural gas and its carbon emissions, and the state became more vulnerable to extreme weather events—particularly severe or prolonged heat waves. What’s more, median electricity prices surged by 84%, with monthly household costs for New York families rising by $500—a crushing amount for those of limited means. Doing better for these families means keeping existing power plans online, streamlining the new reactor design approval process, and removing barriers to building new energy infrastructure and securing critical supply chains. The good news? Policymakers are starting to listen.

→ Read more about Indian Point in this New York Post editorial on the closure, which draws heavily from Grant’s paper. And hear from Grant directly on the Nuclear Barbarians podcast, where he appeared earlier this month to discuss Indian Point and America’s energy future.

Nuclear Barbarians

Unburdening Energy Prosperity ft. Grant Dever

Grant Dever 🌄 joined me to talk about his recent work on the loss of Indian Point, lowering energy costs in America, the vitality of energy prosperity for America’s future, and more. Autopsy of a Perfect Policy Failure: The Closure of Indian Point by Grant Dever…

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2 months ago · 16 likes · 2 comments · Emmet Penney

How executive authority can hold colleges accountable for outcomes: Student loans are back in the news this week, as federal courts in Kansas and Missouri blocked a Biden administration forgiveness plan. In a new paper for FREOPP, Senior Fellow Preston Cooper proposes a better way for the executive branch to help the students who need it most. The Higher Education Act, the principal law governing federal student aid, requires the secretary of education to ensure institutions using federal loans are upholding high standards of quality. Previous secretaries have neglected this critical duty, but Preston’s Quality Assurance rule could change that by imposing two tests on colleges: a debt-to-earnings test and an earnings premium test. This simple framework would protect more than two million students who would otherwise take on excessive debt for degrees that produce insufficient economic value.

To reduce drug prices, issue fewer weak patents: When it comes to high prescription drug prices, one important and often underappreciated driver is the artificial monopolies created by the U.S. patent system. As FREOPP President Avik Roy describes in Forbes, there are two key ways the patent system fails to live up to its ideal: One is the subjective nature of patent approval; the other is the system’s grants of uniform 20-year monopolies, regardless of the importance or innovativeness of what’s patented. The combination of these two problems is especially significant when it comes to minor tweaks to the manufacturing process or use of a particular drug. Patents are crucial for innovation, but they should not be immune from scrutiny, especially when they hinder competition and hurt consumers.

Reimagining the policy approach to homelessness: The evidence suggests that neither a “Housing First” strategy nor aggressive law enforcement tactics have been effective at solving America’s growing homelessness crisis. FREOPP Senior Fellow Michael Tanner argues that this is because the homeless population is highly heterogeneous, making a one-size-fits-all approach virtually guaranteed to fail. In a new research paper, Michael examines five strategies that take all the different subpopulations of homeless people into account and explains how adopting them has the potential to make a dramatic real-world difference. His proposals include improving our approach to institutional care, investing in treatment, building more housing, enabling state and local experimentation, and broadening social mobility policies. Read his full analysis of how these strategies can work at FREOPP.org.

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