Energy: The Dilemmas of Power

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In addition, Con Ed planned to boost its generating capacity with nuclear plants along the Hudson at Indian Point and Montrose. These units were to take the load off city coal-and oil-burning plants. The utility relied on support from Storm King opponents, who had argued that Con Ed should rely on nuclear power, and from city clean-air advocates. One plant was built at Indian Point, but then antinuclear critics argued that the damage to marine life from thermal pollution—excessive volumes of hot water discharged by nuclear plants—was far worse than the smog caused by smoke-belching power plants that use fossil fuels (oil and coal). They also voiced fears about possible harmful radiation effects.

While construction problems set back a second nuclear plant at Indian Point for two years, opponents opened fire on a third Indian Point plant, delaying it until at least 1973. Meantime, the Hudson River Fishermen's Association and the Kolping Society (a Roman Catholic lay group) forced Con Ed to abandon the Montrose nuclear plant. Now the company has negotiated deals for two oil-fired plants—and irked clean-air crusaders by announcing plans for more fossil-fuel power in New York City.

Pros and Cons. To some degree, every utility in the country shares Con Ed's dilemma. Says P. G. & E. Chairman Robert Gerdes: What lies ahead for the utilities? There may be ways to eliminate steam turbines and reduce pollution, such as magnetohydrodynamic power generation (direct conversion of certain gases to electricity) but such methods are far off. It is hard to choose between the pros and cons of current methods. Fossil fuels now produce 85% of the nation's electricity, but they also produce 50% of the country's sulphur-oxide emissions, 25% of its particulates and 25% of its nitrogen-oxide releases. Even cleaner fossil fuels and combustion controls bring a new problem. As the burning gets cleaner, great amounts of nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide are released. The former endangers health, and many ecologists say that increased carbon dioxide threatens the earth's oxygen cycle.

New federal and state laws may soon regulate thermal pollution and make nuclear plants more acceptable. Yet many scientists fear the long-term effects of radiation as well as the site dangers of bigger nuclear units. While aggressively promoting atomic energy, which may provide more than 40% of the nation's power by 1990, the Atomic Energy Commission has been unconvincing and often smug in replying to criticism.

Lee White, the retired FPC chairman, maintains that "existing procedures for reconciling the need for new facilities and environmental protection are inadequate." Pending in Congress are various proposals that would create a legal framework by which federal and state regulatory agencies, regional and local planning bodies and environmental protection groups would consult with the utilities during the earliest planning stages.

Con Ed's Luce agrees that new mechanisms are sorely needed to allow firm long-range planning. "Our best hope," he said in an interview last week, "is to get more public understanding of the growing demands for power and of the fact that any plant we build will have some impact on the environment."