The handwriting has been on the wall for quite some time that New York wouldn’t be able to the requirements laid out in 2019’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.

That was the controversial – and ultimately unrealistic – legislation that requires 70% of the state’s electricity come from renewable energy by 2030 while also reducing greenhouse gas reductions of 40% from 1990 levels by 2030. By 2035 the state is supposed to be generating 9,000 megawatts of power from offshore windpower. The state’s electric grid is supposed to be 100% renewable by 2040 with the state having reduced greenhouse gasses 85% from 1990 levels by 2050.

The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), the independent nonprofit organization that operates the electric grid and oversees the state’s wholesale electricity market, has been warning about potential blackouts due to closing existing fossil-fuel generators before new generators come online. Reliability margins are narrowing – particularly in New York City – while industry officials clamor for dispatchable power that keeps power flowing when wind and solar aren’t generating power.

It is noteworthy, then, that Gov. Kathy Hochul opened the door just a bit to investing again in nuclear power to help decarbonize the state’s power grid. The state’s energy summit held earlier this month included the state’s release of its “Draft Blueprint for Consideration of Advanced Nuclear Technologies.” In other words, a few years after Gov. Andrew Cuomo forced the closure of the Indian Point nuclear power plant, the state is looking at nuclear investments because it is out of other options.

We think we can all agree that wringing carbon out of the state’s power generation mix is a good thing. The biggest arguments about the CLCPA have long been its cost – no one knows how much it’s going to cost, and early estimates are proving to be wildly inaccurate – and its reliance on wind and solar, which don’t produce power consistently. Nuclear power has its detractors, as evidenced by the protesters outside the state energy summit. But nuclear power does provide a source of energy that is more dependable than wind and solar and is cleaner than coal.

Give Hochul and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority credit on this one. It’s about time state officials took seriously the warnings being screamed by electric grid operators at the top of their collective lungs. It’s past the time for the state’s power brokers – pun intended – to put their eggs in a basket that isn’t wind and solar. Nuclear may provide an answer to the question we’ve been asking for five years – how will New York keep the lights on when it forces natural gas power plants into retirement.