ML12306A415
| ML12306A415 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Indian Point  |
| Issue date: | 10/24/2012 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| SECY RAS | |
| References | |
| RAS 23690, 50-247-LR, 50-286-LR, ASLBP 07-858-03-LR-BD01 | |
| Download: ML12306A415 (252) | |
Text
Page 2919 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD PANEL 5 + + + + +
6 HEARING 7 --------------------------------x Docket Nos.
8 In the Matter of: : 50-247-LR and 9 ENTERGY NUCLEAR OPERATIONS, INC.: 50-286-LR 10 (Indian Point Generating Units 2:
11 and 3) : ASLBP No.
12 --------------------------------x 07-858-03-LR-BD01 13 Wednesday, October 24, 2012 14 15 DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Tarrytown 16 Westchester Ballroom 17 455 South Broadway 18 Tarrytown, New York 19 20 BEFORE:
21 LAWRENCE G. McDADE, Chair 22 MICHAEL F. KENNEDY, Administrative Judge 23 RICHARD E. WARDWELL, Administrative Judge 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2920 1 APPEARANCES:
2 On Behalf of Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.:
3 KATHRYN M. SUTTON, ESQ.
4 PAUL M. BESSETTE, ESQ.
5 RONALD J. TENPAS, ESQ.
6 JONATHAN M. RUND, ESQ.
7 of: Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP 8 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
9 Washington, D.C. 20004 10 (202) 739-5738 (Sutton) 11 (202) 739-5796 (Bessette) 12 (202) 739-5435 (Tenpas) 13 (202) 739-5061 (Rund) 14 ksutton@morganlewis.com 15 pbessette@morganlewis.com 16 rtenpas@morganlewis.com 17 jrund@morganlewis.com 18 and 19 WILLIAM GLEW, ESQ.
20 Assistant General Counsel 21 Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.
22 440 Hamilton Avenue 23 White Plains, New York 24 (914) 272-3360 25 wglew@entergy.com Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2921 1 On Behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory 2 Commission:
3 SHERWIN E. TURK, ESQ.
4 BETH N. MIZUNO, ESQ.
5 Office of the General Counsel 6 Mail Stop - O-15 D21 7 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 8 Washington, D.C. 20555-0001 9 (301) 415-1533 (Turk) 10 (301) 415-3122 (Mizuno) 11 sherwin.turk@nrc.gov 12 beth.mizuno@nrc.gov 13 14 On Behalf of the State of New York:
15 JOHN J. SIPOS, ESQ.
16 Assistant Attorney General 17 Office of the Attorney General of the 18 State of New York 19 The Capitol 20 State Street 21 Albany, New York 12224 22 (518) 402-2251 23 john.sipos@ag.ny.gov 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2922 1 On Behalf of Riverkeeper, Inc.:
2 DEBORAH BRANCATO, ESQ.
3 Riverkeeper, Inc.
4 20 Secor Road 5 Ossining, New York 10562 6 (800) 21-RIVER 7 dbrancato@riverkeeper.org 8
9 On Behalf of Hudson River Sloop 10 Clearwater, Inc.:
11 MANNA JO GREENE, Environmental Director 12 KARLA RAIMUNDI 13 Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc.
14 724 Wolcott Avenue 15 Beacon, New York 12508 16 (845) 265-8080 17 mannajo@clearwater.org 18 karla@clearwater.org 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2923 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 9:02 a.m.
3 JUDGE McDADE: On the record. Before we 4 get started, there are a couple of housekeeping 5 matters that I wanted to discuss very briefly. One, 6 I believe at the conclusion of Riverkeeper-TC-2, I had 7 indicated that the pending motion in limine that we 8 had held in abeyance until the conclusion of the 9 testimony so we would have a fully robust record on 10 which to decide was denied. My recollection I'm not 11 certain whether or not I made the announcement or not.
12 But in the event that I did not do it then, I'm doing 13 it not in sort of a belt-and-suspenders approach. But 14 the motion in limine is denied.
15 The second thing that I wanted to do is to 16 raise an issue and have the parties contemplate it 17 during the course of today. And we will take it up 18 before we close this evening.
19 In our scheduling order of July 2010, we 20 indicated that post-trial briefing, findings of fact 21 and conclusions of law, your proposals, would be due 22 60 days after the close of the evidentiary hearing.
23 At that time, we certainly didn't anticipate a 24 bifurcated and here a multi-bifurcated proceeding that 25 we have.
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Page 2924 1 So what I would like you to do is to 2 consider and then offer your views as to what the 3 trigger date should be for that 60 days. In other 4 words, were all of the contentions but 37 that we've 5 heard in the past two weeks should it be today?
6 Alternatively, should it be for all of these first 7 contentions after we hear from that session with 8 Commissioner Bradford? Or alternatively should it be 9 at the end of our December hearing for the track 2 or 10 the track 1 contentions? Or if you have some other 11 alternatives to express those?
12 But what I would like to do at the 13 conclusion of today's session to get input from all of 14 the parties as to what that trigger date should be.
15 As I said, our scheduling order just says 60 days from 16 the conclusion of the evidentiary hearing.
17 Are there any other housekeeping matters 18 to be taken up before we get started here today?
19 MR. SIPOS: Your Honor, John Sipos for the 20 State of New York. There are recently some documents, 21 two documents in particular, which have been issued.
22 And the State has disclosed them shortly after they 23 had been issued. And the State believes that they are 24 relevant or could pertain to Contention 37.
25 I have informed counsel for Entergy and Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2925 1 counsel for NRC Staff that the State's experts have 2 reviewed these two documents. One is dated I believe 3 October 11 or 12. And it is a report issued by 4 Synapse Economics that was commissioned by Riverkeeper 5 and the Natural Resources Defense Council. And the 6 second is a blueprint document issued by the New York 7 State Energy Highway Task Force that was issued this 8 past Monday, October 22nd.
9 The State disclosed each of those 10 documents within a day or two after they were issued.
11 And the State also recognizes that both those dates 12 were either at the very eve of the first day of the 13 hearing or in the midst of the hearing.
14 The State also recognizes that Entergy's 15 counsel and experts and likewise NRC's counsel and 16 experts likely have not had an opportunity to review 17 those documents. In addition, the State wishes to 18 inform the Board that the State's experts have 19 reviewed those documents and it is possible that 20 discussion of them could ensue today.
21 But as of this time we have not tendered 22 them formally to Your Honors. And we have paper 23 copies of them with us. And we also have the 24 electronic copies as well, PDF copies. And in the 25 interest of full disclosure, I wanted to put that on Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2926 1 the record.
2 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. At this point, we 3 haven't seen the documents. We don't know what, if 4 any, significance the documents are going to have.
5 I'm certainly not going to delay the proceedings here 6 today because of those documents recently coming into 7 existence. We will go through it at the conclusion.
8 If Entergy believes that they have not had 9 an adequate amount of time to have their counsel and 10 their experts review the documents and to comment on 11 the significance of it, I would anticipate that we 12 would give Entergy an opportunity after the hearing to 13 supplement the record either through the introduction 14 of documents that would tend to in their view explain 15 or contradict those documents or by the way of a 16 declaration of testimony from their experts that could 17 give their contrary opinion or elaboration on the 18 import of those documents.
19 But at this point it's difficult to assess 20 not having seen them, not having hear how that 21 testimony is going to be addressed or come from the 22 witnesses. Any objection to that by Entergy?
23 MR. TENPAS: Well, Your Honor, we 24 appreciate that being extended. I will note just 25 briefly we do object to any reference by the witnesses Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2927 1 to these documents at the hearing, notwithstanding any 2 later opportunity we might have. We are prejudice in 3 our ability to deal with follow-up today on the spot 4 with the witnesses as any comments that they may make 5 about these.
6 I would like to clarify for the record the 7 precise dates of the disclosure. The Synapse report 8 was disclosed or received by Entergy on Friday, the 9 12th of October. So that is the Friday immediately 10 before these proceedings began. This is what's 11 sometimes called the Synapse Report. It's 12 approximately 168 pages.
13 I believe it's worth noting also that in 14 the second sentence of that document in the Executive 15 Summary it makes reference to the fact that the 16 hearing will be commenced on the 15th. It was also a 17 document that references the fact that Riverkeeper, 18 one of the parties to this proceeding, is the party 19 who initiated the report.
20 And finally, I think it's worth noting 21 that Dr. Schlissel who will be testifying today was 22 with Synapse when he prepared his original report and 23 this report indicates that it's a follow-on. So the 24 sequence suggests very closely that this is intimately 25 related to his prior work.
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Page 2928 1 And if he then references it today we'll 2 be prejudice as to the Entergy Highway document.
3 Again simply for the record that is a document that we 4 first received by email Monday night, October 24th.
5 It is sufficiently large in its composition that we 6 understand there has actually been difficulty in 7 trying to transmit it electronically. And so I think 8 that largely speaks for itself in terms of our 9 inability to have any meaningful time to prepare for 10 review and be able to examine witnesses today with 11 respect to any reference they make.
12 Thank you, Your Honor.
13 MR. SIPOS: And, Your Honor, could I?
14 Sorry.
15 JUDGE McDADE: Well before you do, two 16 things. One, you indicated you received it on Monday, 17 the 24th. Monday is the 22nd. Mr. Sipos indicated it 18 was the 22nd.
19 MR. TENPAS: I'm sorry, Your Honor. Yes, 20 Monday the 22nd. And very late in the evening, 21 roughly 11:30 p.m.
22 MR. BESSETTE: 11:30 p.m.
23 MR. TENPAS: 11:38 p.m.
24 JUDGE McDADE: The other thing I was going 25 to say is I recognize the late arrival because of the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2929 1 late existence of these documents does create issues 2 for Entergy. But yet if these documents in some way 3 inform the opinions of the experts who are going to be 4 testifying here today, I don't see how I can direct 5 the witnesses to give us your opinion but exclude 6 information that you have and try to give us your 7 opinion but not accurately, not fully, but based on 8 just some of the information you have.
9 I think that would be inappropriate. I 10 think it would put the witnesses in an impossible 11 position. And I think that the only way we really can 12 handle this in an equitable way is to have them 13 testify on their basis of knowledge as of today when 14 they're testifying, but then to allow Entergy the 15 opportunity after you have fully reviewed the 16 documents and have your experts fully review the 17 documents if you believe it appropriate.
18 Now it may turn out -- I've not seen these 19 documents -- that they're not going to add anything or 20 significantly change the landscape at all. But in the 21 case that you do, you'll have the opportunity both 22 through the submission of additional exhibits and/or 23 through the submission of additional testimony to 24 fully develop the record in this area.
25 MR. SIPOS: Thank you, Your Honor. We Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2930 1 understand the Court's ruling.
2 MR. TURK: Your Honor, for the Staff.
3 JUDGE McDADE: Yes, Mr. Turk.
4 MR. TURK: The Staff as a party in the 5 proceeding and as the publisher of the EIS also has a 6 stake in this issue. We would request the same 7 opportunity that you're affording to Entergy. We 8 would also like to receive immediately a paper copy or 9 two paper copies of the documents that Mr. Sipos 10 referred to so we can understand what it is that his 11 witnesses may be citing.
12 JUDGE McDADE: You didn't receive the 13 email copies back on the 24th and on the 12th.
14 MS. MIZUNO: We did, Your Honor. The 15 problem is downloading and printing very large 16 documents. It's very difficult and some of us prefer 17 paper copies.
18 JUDGE McDADE: Particularly since you're 19 offsite and you're here. It appears that Mr. Sipos is 20 prepared to furnish the hard copies to the Staff and 21 now has. And certainly the Staff would be given the 22 same opportunity as Entergy after you've had an 23 opportunity to review these documents and have your 24 experts review the documents to, if you believe, an 25 appropriate supplement the record in the same way I Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2931 1 explained for counsel for Entergy.
2 MR. TURK: For the record, Your Honor, Mr.
3 Sipos handed me one document entitled, "New York 4 Energy Highway Blueprint." He did not hand me the 5 other document.
6 JUDGE McDADE: Do you have the other 7 document available in hard copy, Mr. Sipos?
8 MR. SIPOS: I believe we do. And I will 9 go look in my litigation bag.
10 Your Honor, may I just briefly clarify a 11 couple of points. Okay. When we speak of the size of 12 the second document, it's not so much the number of 13 pages. I count them at approximately 111. But the 14 documents contains several photographs and charts 15 which makes it large from a PDF memory size, not it's 16 volumes and volumes. And the first document, the 17 Synapse document I believe is approximately 64 pages.
18 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Thank you.
19 Are we ready to proceed?
20 MR. TENPAS: Your Honor, could we simply 21 ask for the courtesy of a hard copy that was also 22 provided to the NRC?
23 MR. SIPOS: Yes, we will arrange to do 24 that.
25 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. And to see if we can Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2932 1 do that at the first break.
2 Good morning.
3 (Chorus of good mornings.)
4 Before we get started here, let me just 5 explain a couple of things. We have a new panel of 6 witnesses here. Some people we haven't seen before.
7 Basically, what the purpose of this 8 hearing is to allow us to ask you questions. We have 9 had the opportunity to read through the testimony that 10 you have submitted. We have read through the 11 documents, the exhibits, that have been submitted 12 along with that testimony. And our purpose now is to 13 ask you questions so that we can make sure that we 14 accurately understand the impressions you are trying 15 to convey and that we fully understand the issue that 16 is being presented.
17 In that regard, this is going to be a 18 dialogue between you and us. We're going to ask you 19 questions. You're going to give answers to us. In 20 some instances, the opinion offered by one expert may 21 significantly differ from the opinion offered by 22 another expert.
23 But you're not arguing back and forth 24 between each other. You're going to be directly your 25 answers to us. And if we feel a follow-up is Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2933 1 necessary, we will do the follow-up questioning to the 2 other witnesses. You're not going to be asking 3 questions back and forth and among yourselves.
4 Likewise, counsel are going to be 5 addressing their questions to us even if they're 6 really intended for you. But in any event, the 7 dialogue is basically through us, your statements to 8 us, counsel statements to us, and us, the members of 9 the Board, talking to you and to counsel.
10 The other thing I just want to mention is 11 we are in a somewhat formal setting here. But if for 12 any reason you feel that a recess is necessary, don't 13 sit there and suffer in silence. Either ask us 14 directly if you could have a few moments and we can go 15 into recess. Or alternatively if you can't catch our 16 eye, try to catch the eye of your counsel who then 17 won't be shy about bringing that to our attention.
18 Are there any questions at this point by 19 any of the prospective witnesses?
20 PARTICIPANT: No sir.
21 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. The testimony that 22 you will here today will be under oath. Would you 23 please raise your right hand? Do you swear that the 24 testimony you will give in this proceeding will be the 25 truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2934 1 help you God?
2 (Chorus of I dos and yeses.)
3 Okay. Thank you.
4 It's been our practice before we begin 5 with the taking of testimony on a contention to go 6 through it and summarize it a little bit at least so 7 you all understand what we think the contention is 8 about and putting your testimony then in that context 9 to the degree that you can.
10 This contention is brought under NEPA, the 11 National Environmental Policy Act. Now NEPA is not 12 intended to direct a decision. Rather it is intended 13 to ensure that the decision maker and the public are 14 accurately informed of the environmental consequences 15 of a proposed Federal action.
16 Here that proposed Federal action is the 17 licensing or relicensing or not of the Indian Point 18 facility for an additional 20 years. To comply with 19 NEPA and the circumstances present here, the NRC is 20 required to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement 21 and part of that Environmental Impact Statement is a 22 discussion of the No Action Alternative. In other 23 words, what is the environmental impact in the event 24 that the proposed license is not granted.
25 New York is challenging the adequacy of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2935 1 NRC's analysis of the No Action Alternative in the 2 Environmental Impact Statement. Specifically, New 3 York claims that the NRC did not adequately identify 4 and analyze the cost benefits and feasibility of 5 energy conservation and the availability of other 6 energy sources in their analysis. And, as a result, 7 the Environmental Impact Statement improperly skews 8 the environmental analysis in favor of relicensing by 9 basically overstating the demand for electricity and 10 understating the generating alternatives.
11 Also New York has alleged that the 12 Environmental Impact Statement, the Draft 13 Environmental Impact Statement, on which public 14 comments were solicited does not adequately address 15 those public comments. That's the contention, the 16 issue, as we view it, whether or not these issues have 17 been adequately addressed in the Environmental Impact 18 Statement so that the decision makers and the public 19 will be properly informed of the environmental 20 consequences of the action or the proposed action.
21 That said let's get started with the 22 questioning. Judge Wardwell, do you want to start?
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: I would be happy to.
24 I've got a series of questions that are broken down 25 really into about eight different categories. And Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2936 1 I'll quickly go through them just so you see where 2 we're going with this this morning.
3 We're going to start off by talking about 4 the need to replace Indian Point's base load 5 generation of the 2158 megawatts of electric under the 6 No Action Alternative.
7 Then we'll probably group a bunch of 8 questions into a discussion of the challenges if there 9 are any for the need for power and whether that's 10 relative or not.
11 We'll move on then to looking at what were 12 Entergy's alternatives and components of combination 13 alternatives for the license renewal.
14 The fourth topic area will be the 15 significance of renewables and their environmental 16 impacts.
17 Five, we'll talk about some of the energy 18 market forces and the importance of minimizing costs.
19 Six, I'll kind of look at the combination 20 between what is baseline conditions and what is the No 21 Action Alternative to discuss that a little more in 22 depth. Then just concentrate next on alternative 23 actions under the No Action Alternative actions 24 associated with it.
25 And then just finish up with a short Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2937 1 section dealing with the particular model that was 2 used, the NEMS model, and what was involved with that 3 and why that was used. It's kind of a footprint of 4 where we're going this morning.
5 I'll start off with the need to replace 6 Indian Point's base load generation of 2100 megawatts 7 of electric other than a No Action Alternative. And 8 I'll start off with New York referencing New York 9 000046 which I believe Mr. Schlissel.
10 MR. SCHLISSEL: Schlissel. Don't worry.
11 By lunchtime, you'll be saying it great.
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: How about Mr. S.
13 MR. SCHLISSEL: That's fine. If it were 14 proper, you could call me David. But I'm sure that's 15 probably not allowed.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: Oh, it's allowed. We 17 call -- We're pretty loose up here. I would like to 18 try to call you Mr. S.
19 On page eight of your testimony, that's 20 New York-046, you state that the Synapse Report 21 concluded that the capacity and energy provided by 22 Indian Point Units 2 and 3 can be replaced if the 23 units are not relicensed. You agree that Indian Point 24 2 and 3 provide approximately 2100, close to 2200, net 25 megawatts electric of base load generation capacity.
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Page 2938 1 And that base load power would need to be replaced in 2 the No Action Alternative.
3 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: Do you think it's 5 realistic to assume that demand could reduce 6 sufficiently to lower that base load power?
7 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: And to what degree?
9 MR. SCHLISSEL: Both the power and also 10 the energy that the plant produces.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: And do you have -- To 12 what degree do you think that might be reduced? Could 13 all of it be replaced by that?
14 MR. SCHLISSEL: I think in the long term 15 the answer is yes. In the short term, the answer is 16 no. I don't think that it's feasible to think about 17 retiring a large generating unit or in this case two 18 large generating units in three or four years and 19 instantly replacing them by energy efficiency.
20 I think that there needs to be more --
21 There needs to be a realization that electric grids 22 and resource planning are dynamic, not static. And 23 with all courtesy and respect to Staff witness, I 24 think that's a problem with the scenarios he set up is 25 that they're static. One of them -- The combination Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2939 1 has -- One of the combinations has a new gas CC, some 2 renewals, some energy efficiency and it stays the same 3 over time. And that's not the real world.
4 What will actually replace Indian Point 5 will change over time as new resources are added, as 6 there are outages of some plants. So electric system 7 operation and planning as I say is a dynamic process.
8 JUDGE KENNEDY: Judge Wardwell. Could I?
9 A couple of questions based on that statement. This 10 is Judge Kennedy. You used a couple of terms that I'm 11 wondering if you could provide some definition to.
12 First of all, you used the concept of 13 power and the concept of energy in regard to the 14 capacity of Indian Point Units 2 and 3. And the other 15 thing is the concept of short term versus long term.
16 If you could give us a time frame on which in your 17 mind is short term and what would constitute in the 18 long term.
19 MR. SCHLISSEL: Sure. With regards to 20 power and energy, power is the capacity of the plants, 21 the 2158 megawatts we're talking about, the 22 instantaneous output from the plant.
23 Energy is power over time. The simplest 24 way of thinking of it is power times time. But 25 actually it's integrated because the power levels of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2940 1 any power plant change fluctuate over time. So you're 2 really integrating over a time period.
3 When look at resource planning you need to 4 consider both. You need to have capacity so that when 5 people turn on their lights or want to start a motor, 6 you have enough power at that moment. But you're also 7 concerned with how much energy is being used.
8 JUDGE KENNEDY: So capacity is measured in 9 terms of power. Is that your concept?
10 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes, sir. Megawatts.
11 JUDGE KENNEDY: Megawatts. And the power 12 concept, does that get to the reliability of the 13 station or? I mean I haven't quite thought of it in 14 terms of energy I guess.
15 MR. SCHLISSEL: They're both related to 16 energy. With regards to the power level, reliability 17 will affect whether the plant can operate at its full 18 power and whether there are extended periods when the 19 plant operates either in a derated mode which means 20 for Indian Point let's assume 1,000 megawatts for each 21 unit.
22 So reliability will affect whether the 23 plant operates, each unit operates, at 1,000 megawatts 24 or whether there are forced or unforced outages or 25 deratings that the plant either doesn't operate or Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2941 1 operates at lower outs.
2 JUDGE KENNEDY: So as we look at the No 3 Action Alternative, is it your testimony that we need 4 to be considering both power and energy?
5 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes, sir. I believe you 6 do.
7 JUDGE KENNEDY: All right. Thank you.
8 JUDGE McDADE: And the short term versus 9 long term.
10 MR. SCHLISSEL: Thank you. Short term, 11 well, it depends on the context.
12 JUDGE McDADE: As you used it.
13 MR. SCHLISSEL: As I used it, I would say 14 three to five years is short term. Five to ten is 15 medium term. Long term can be ten. In some context, 16 short term is a lot shorter and long term is a lot 17 closer in time. So it's really context.
18 JUDGE McDADE: As you used it in your 19 context, short term three to five years. Long term 20 greater than 10.
21 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes, and a medium term in 22 the middle.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: So in the short term how 24 would you consider replacing the 2100 megawatts of 25 power if, in fact, the license renewal wasn't to Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2942 1 proceed?
2 MR. SCHLISSEL: Well, I believe that 3 replacement power in the short term could come from 4 any number of sources, some existing generation, some 5 new generation that's in the licensing process now, 6 energy efficiency that is being developed as part of 7 the various efforts that the State of New York has 8 already taken and is in the process of taking.
9 And the same is true for renewables, 10 either renewables that are in place, renewables that 11 are in the pipeline or renewables that will be 12 developed over the next three to five years as a 13 result of the New York State 45 by 15 Plan.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: I'll hold off on that for 15 later. Of those renewables, which do you believe are 16 suitable to handle base load replacement power?
17 MR. SCHLISSEL: The renewables in my mind 18 are mostly for energy as we talked about. But also 19 wind does have some contribution to capacity. I don't 20 know if you're familiar with the term "capacity 21 credit." The Staff witness included the concept in 22 his rebuttal testimony.
23 It's basically analyses are done and find 24 that if you build 100,000 megawatts of wind depending 25 on where you are maybe you can count for 10 megawatts Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2943 1 to be available on peak. Some places it's up to 20.
2 Some it's a little bit lower than 10. So you get 3 what's called a capacity credit of 10 percent.
4 You do get some -- You can rely on wind 5 for some contribution to peak. But basically wind is 6 with -- Wind is a contributor to replacing energy.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: If I understand you 8 correctly, if wind had a 30 percent capacity factor 9 and a nuclear power plant had a 90 percent capacity, 10 meaning there's a difference of a factor of about 11 three, that means in order to generate, say, 2,000 12 megawatts of base load power you would have to 13 actually generate somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 6,000 megawatts of wind power to replace it. Is that 15 a good understanding of how that works?
16 MR. SCHLISSEL: With all respect, yes and 17 no. Your numbers are correct. Given your example, 18 you would probably need three times as much wind.
19 JUDGE WARDWELL: That's what I was driving 20 at.
21 MR. SCHLISSEL: But capacity factor is a 22 measure of energy. It's how much does a power plant 23 actually produce in a year compared to what it would 24 produce if it generated 100 percent power for 100 25 percent hours. So it's not capacity factor I'm Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2944 1 talking about. It's capacity credit.
2 JUDGE McDADE: But talking about base 3 load, what is --
4 MR. SCHLISSEL: So -- Sorry.
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: But still isn't it 6 correct that you would have to have three times as 7 much wind generating capacity over what a nuclear 8 power plant would if you're using wind to replace it 9 entirely for base load power?
10 MR. SCHLISSEL: That's correct, but that's 11 not a real world situation, certainly not in New York 12 where there's plenty of dispatchable capacity. So 13 again my view of the wind is some contribution to 14 capacity, but a big benefit in terms of replacing 15 energy.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: But still you could only 17 take credit for the 30 percent of whatever wind you 18 did have to add to the mix to get 2100 if you were 19 mixing it with other sources.
20 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes. And actually I think 21 the Staff witness is correct. In New York, it's 22 somewhere around 10 percent rather than 30 actually.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay.
24 JUDGE McDADE: But getting back to the 25 concept of base load, you're talking about the use of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2945 1 wind as energy, power over time. But base load is 2 just what could be generated at particular point in 3 time. Wind doesn't have that capacity as a reliable 4 source of base load power, does it?
5 MR. SCHLISSEL: Base load really means the 6 power -- A base load power plant is one that you want 7 to run as much as you can because of operating costs.
8 That's base load. Your power plants are divided 9 generally into three kinds of bins. Base load of the 10 plants you want to operate as much as you can, flat 11 out. Indian point if it's in operation.
12 The second bin of intermediate plants that 13 you kind of turn on and off, you increase or decrease 14 the power level depending on the load.
15 And then the third bin are your peakers 16 that you run during the hottest hours of the summer or 17 in some places in the U.S. the coldest hours of the 18 winter.
19 Indian Point, yes, is a base load plant.
20 You want to get as much energy out of the plant as you 21 can while operating it safely and efficiently.
22 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. But looking at it as 23 a source of supply, a base load source of supply, the 24 facility at Indian Point provides that base load.
25 Wind would not. Wind may be available at some point.
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Page 2946 1 It may be unavailable at other points.
2 If you have an access capacity on one day, 3 it doesn't make up for the fact that you have a 4 shortage on another day. So when you're looking in 5 the Environmental Impact Statement of comparing Indian 6 Point as a source of base load power to wind, what was 7 wrong with the way that the Staff did it?
8 MR. SCHLISSEL: Well, I agree that you 9 can't replace a base load power plant only with wind.
10 I've got no argument with that. As I mentioned 11 before, wind does make some contribution to meeting 12 power needs. But I have no argument with saying that 13 it's got to be wind plus something else.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: Wind is eligible as a 15 component of that base line taking into account its 16 appropriate capacity factor. Is that a fair 17 assessment?
18 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes, sir. Capacity 19 credit, yes.
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: Capacity credit, I can 21 remember that. On page 11 of your testimony, I 22 believe you said that "Moreover, New York's projected 23 energy requirements and peak demand have been reduced 24 significantly since November 2007's Synapse Report was 25 submitted as a result of the ongoing economic Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2947 1 recession." In your testimony that you submitted, how 2 much and for how long did you take credit for this 3 economic recession and the lower demand associated 4 with it?
5 MR. SCHLISSEL: I hope I don't get credit 6 for the recession.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: They're going to blame 8 you if you have projected it out too far.
9 MR. SCHLISSEL: Then I would be a 10 presidential candidate. I think it's effected demand 11 -- The immediate effect is for three or four years.
12 But what it means is that as we sit here today in 2012 13 and look towards the future, the loads we project both 14 megawatts of power and megawatt-hours of energy, 15 those loads are a lot lower than we would have 16 predicted in 2006 or 2007 before the recession. So it 17 had an immediate short-term effect in that loads in 18 New York State were flat, sometimes decreased others.
19 But it will have a long-term impact compared to what 20 the world would have been -- the world in New York 21 State would have been prior to 2007.
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: Just by having a lower 23 amount for a finite period of time will be reflected 24 on as we move forward.
25 MR. SCHLISSEL: And a lower base. I don't Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2948 1 know anyone -- Sometimes when you have an economic 2 recession, there's a prediction that energy sales will 3 pop to where they would have been before. I don't 4 know anyone who is predicting that energy sales 5 especially not in New York State and especially not 6 with its 45 by 15 plans -- I don't know anyone who 7 expects loads and energy sales to pop back to where 8 they would have been as they were projected in 2007.
9 JUDGE McDADE: Putting aside the 45 by 15 10 program for a moment and focusing just on the impact 11 of the recession I believe that you anticipated or 12 testified that there was about a 4.1 drop in demand 13 that would be directly attributable to the recession.
14 Wouldn't it be prudent to view that only as a short-15 term, temporary setback and that any draw down due to 16 the recession would be basically absorbed by the 17 coming recovery?
18 MR. SCHLISSEL: I would hope that the 19 economy will pick up and that, in fact, what you 20 suggest will happen. But again, it's not that the --
21 I agree the economy will grow and electric use absent 22 the 45 by 15 would increase. My point is that it's 23 going to increase from the lower level.
24 So if it increased, say, 1.5 percent back 25 from 2007 on without an economic recession you'd have Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2949 1 one set of growth lines and projections. But now that 2 it's been flat or gone down for a few years you get a 3 different set of lower projections even if it still 4 grows in the future at the 1.5-1.6 percent per year.
5 JUDGE McDADE: But much of this involves 6 speculation, anticipation, of what is going to occur.
7 How should the Staff have taken this into 8 consideration in the preparation of their FSEIS given 9 the speculative nature of it?
10 MR. SCHLISSEL: Well, all resource 11 planning is speculative because we're talking about 12 the future. Yogi Berra must have said something like 13 that. I think the way you deal with -- I don't think 14 it's speculation. I think of it in terms of 15 uncertainty and in terms of risk.
16 Yes, there's uncertainty in the future.
17 And the way you deal with uncertainty is you look at 18 range of possible futures. You don't say, "I know 19 what the answer is..." I'm not suggesting Staff did 20 this. But you don't say, "I know the answer to what 21 the future is going to be." If I'm questioned about 22 this, my joke is "If I knew what the future is going 23 to be I would be in Las Vegas and not in Tarrytown."
24 But the reality is you look at a range of 25 possible futures. And I think that in order to inform Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2950 1 the Commission that that's a process that should be 2 done in these kinds of analyses by Staff is to say we 3 don't know what the future is going to look like. We 4 think it's going to be bounded. It's reasonable to 5 expect it will be bounded by certain conservative or 6 nonconservative scenarios.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: So if I understand your 8 testimony correctly, as we move forward, you would 9 take advantage of the slower energy demands that we've 10 had during this recession, but then grow them through 11 the period of an extended operation starting from that 12 lower base level that has been achieved because of the 13 recession. But you would grow them at some rate that 14 wouldn't accelerate such to the degree that we'd pop 15 back up to get back on the old line that we may have 16 been on in the previous forecast.
17 MR. SCHLISSEL: That's correct except it 18 would have to be measured and would be affected by the 19 State's 45 by 15 plan.
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: We might as well talk 21 about this. I ran across this 45 by 15 just recently.
22 I knew of the 30 by 15 and I knew of the 15 by 15.
23 And I'd ask you to explain both of those, but then 24 explain the 45 by 15. Is it merely the addition of 25 those two?
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Page 2951 1 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes, you can think of it 2 that way. The 15 by 15 is energy efficiency.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: And what do the 15s stand 4 for?
5 MR. SCHLISSEL: Produce energy usage by 15 6 percent over what it would have been in 2015.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: By using energy 8 efficiency.
9 MR. SCHLISSEL: Energy efficiency.
10 There's an energy efficiency portfolio standard.
11 Prior to that, the State had energy efficiency 12 programs as well. Think of it as saving 15 by 15.
13 Did Judge Kennedy want to ask something?
14 JUDGE KENNEDY: I guess I just want to 15 have you clarify. Are we talking about electrical 16 energy or energy?
17 MR. SCHLISSEL: I apologize. Every time 18 I use the word, I'm talking about electric energy 19 unless I mention natural gas energy.
20 JUDGE KENNEDY: Thank you.
21 MR. SCHLISSEL: The 30 by 15 are 22 renewables. The State of New York prior to the 23 initiation of the 30 by 15 plan I think had something 24 like 16-17 percent of its energy came from renewable 25 sources, mainly I believe the dams along the Niagara Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2952 1 and St. Lawrence Rivers. Now the State has a plan to 2 increase that to 30 percent again by 2015. You add 3 them together and it's 45 by 15.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: You add the 15 by 15 and 5 the 30 by 15.
6 MR. SCHLISSEL: 30 by 15.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. Regardless of 8 the recession, isn't base load generation capacity 9 pretty insensitive to long range changes in recession 10 effects? We still need that base load. Have we seen 11 much of a drop in the base load demands during the 12 recession?
13 MR. SCHLISSEL: You would have thought --
14 I would have thought the answer would be no. You 15 don't see much drop. But at the same time we've had 16 the recession, we've had a game changing collapse of 17 natural gas prices. And both of those are acting in 18 -- are complementing each other such that a lot of 19 base load coal plants and now it seems a base load new 20 Dominion's Kewaunee plant are falling victim to the 21 economics of not being used as much as they had been 22 prior.
23 So I don't think Indian Point itself has 24 been effected. But I think that when you generally 25 talk about base load the combination impact of the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2953 1 recession and the collapse of natural gas prices has 2 affected a lot of base load plants around the country.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: So if Indian Point hadn't 4 been affected, then there's probably not much reason 5 to consider that should be affected by the recession 6 and that we'd be looking under the No Action 7 Alternative to replace all of the 20-81 as we move 8 forward.
9 MR. SCHLISSEL: That's correct, sir. But 10 you're looking at replacing it and this is another 11 criticism I have of the Staff methodology is you 12 really don't look at isolation at replacing one unit 13 with one unit or even three units. You're talking 14 about replacing a resource plan, a resource system, 15 that includes Indian Point with a new resource system 16 that will not include Indian Point.
17 And as I mentioned before that will change 18 over time. Even if Indian Point continued to operate 19 for the next 20 years, new plants would be built as 20 load grows, as older plants get older. Transmission 21 lines will be added. Things will happen.
22 What you want to do is you want to then 23 compare that resource future with the resource future 24 that would develop if Indian Point is not relicensed.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. On page 27 of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2954 1 --
2 JUDGE McDADE: Judge Wardwell, before you 3 move on, one quick question. You talk about the New 4 York Control Area.
5 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes, sir.
6 JUDGE McDADE: What do you mean by the New 7 York Control Area?
8 MR. SCHLISSEL: The State of New York.
9 JUDGE McDADE: The entire state.
10 MR. SCHLISSEL: The entire state.
11 JUDGE McDADE: Not just the down state 12 area.
13 MR. SCHLISSEL: Correct. Generally, you 14 would talk about -- New York is divided into 11 zones.
15 Generally down state you might include G, but 16 generally you would include zones H, I, J and K, K 17 being Long Island, J being the City, H and I being the 18 area around here. And J is north of us. I used to 19 live here, but I can't remember. Is that Dutchess 20 County area?
21 JUDGE McDADE: But when you're talking 22 about statistics, generally speaking you're talking 23 about the entire New York Control Area, not just down 24 state unless you state otherwise.
25 MR. SCHLISSEL: That's correct, sir.
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Page 2955 1 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Thank you.
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: On page 27 of your 3 testimony, you talk about the State's current energy 4 goal is to reduce the electrical use by 15 percent as 5 we talked about primarily through the expansion of 6 energy efficiency activities while simultaneously 7 meeting percentage of the State's electrical supply 8 needs through renewable resources. Do you have a 9 handle on what percentage of the 30 by 15 goal has 10 already been met with hydro or other renewables when 11 it was first proposed?
12 MR. SCHLISSEL: When it was first 13 proposed, I think it was 16-17 percent. It might have 14 been a little bit higher. And again the goal is to 15 get it up to 30 percent by 2015.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: So the 16-17, a little 17 over a half has already been reached. Is that 18 correct?
19 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes, if you go further 20 down that page, I cite a document as indicating that 21 the amounts of energy generated from in-state 22 renewable resources had increased from 16 percent to 23 over 23 percent by 2009.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: And during the same 25 period, of course, Indian Point is still operating, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2956 1 right?
2 MR. SCHLISSEL: That's correct.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: And so that 16-17 percent 4 can't really be used, can it, in a future projection 5 for replacing the Indian Point should the No Action 6 Alternative take place?
7 MR. SCHLISSEL: Well, it might operate 8 differently. That's why you need to do a system 9 simulation as I mentioned before of two different sets 10 of resource plans, one with Indian Point and one 11 without Indian Point, to see what the model would tell 12 you as to what the system looks like without Indian 13 Point.
14 There might be instances where renewable 15 generation is higher with Indian Point than without.
16 I've not done the analysis. I can't vouch for that.
17 But that's the kind of analysis that you would want to 18 do.
19 JUDGE WARDWELL: I guess you've confused 20 me a little bit.
21 MR. SCHLISSEL: I apologize, sir.
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: No need to. People would 23 be apologizing to me forever.
24 MR. SCHLISSEL: I am apologizing to people 25 forever.
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Page 2957 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: It's more on this end I 2 believe. If Indian Point is operating now and there's 3 16-17 percent being produced of that 30 percent, even 4 if the State moved ahead and was successful in 5 achieving the 30 percent at the end of the current 6 licensing period, if we are trying to just do a 7 tabulation of what additional energy resources we 8 needed, we could not take into account, could we, that 9 17 percent of the 30 percent goal that we're trying to 10 achieve under the assumption that even that goal is 11 100 percent met?
12 MR. SCHLISSEL: Okay. I can agree with 13 that. But what I'm saying is that without Indian 14 Point those same renewable resources might have 15 generated 19 percent using your example of 16-17.
16 Without the power from Indian Point, the market would 17 be more open and perhaps other renewable -- I mean 18 those same renewables would operate more hours of the 19 year. A model could answer those kinds of questions.
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: Do you know of any 21 renewables that are not operated because the energy is 22 not needed from them?
23 MR. SCHLISSEL: I've not done that study.
24 No, sir.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: Would you expect that, in Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2958 1 fact, the renewables are probably putting out as much 2 as they possibly can and that they would keep on 3 trying to do that as often as they can given it wind 4 or solar or whatever else was being used?
5 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes, I would expect --
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: When the sun is shining, 7 they're going to produce electricity. And when the 8 wind is blowing, they would want to put electricity 9 and put it into the grid. They wouldn't shut down and 10 say, "A nice windy day, but we're shutting down 11 because." They're operating.
12 MR. SCHLISSEL: That's true. That's what 13 I would expect. And at the price they're bidding into 14 the market they probably are operating at almost full.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: Are they involved with 16 any subsidies associated with it? And how does that 17 enter into all of this mix? Any subsidies that are 18 provided to the renewable companies from any 19 governmental policy, more economic recovery program?
20 MR. SCHLISSEL: Well, there's the Wind 21 Production Tax Credit, but all energy sources are in 22 this country subsidized. Nuclear as well. Nuclear, 23 coal, oil, they're all subsidized.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: And how are those 25 subsidies provided to say nuclear or coal? And then Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2959 1 how do they relate to the renewables in regards to 2 percentages of the cost or something?
3 MR. SCHLISSEL: I don't have the numbers 4 in my head, but I've read that the subsidies to the 5 nuclear industry and the coal industry dwarf what has 6 been given to the wind industry. The nuclear through 7 the governmental research. A cap on liability for 8 accident insurance. I know there are others. I'm 9 sorry. I didn't prepare. I didn't think I'd be 10 talking about that subject today.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: That's fine. You gave me 12 a feeling for that.
13 MR. SCHLISSEL: But all energy sources are 14 subsidized.
15 JUDGE McDADE: Before we move on, I just 16 want to clarify one thing. You said already achieved 17 are 17 percent of the 30 percent.
18 MR. SCHLISSEL: Roughly.
19 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Does that mean 20 almost half? Or does that mean one-sixth? In other 21 words, 17 percent of 30 percent is more than half.
22 MR. SCHLISSEL: No, I apologize. The 23 numbers here are of the 30 percent, 23 percent had 24 been achieved by 2009. So that's roughly -- What's 25 that? It's roughly 70 percent, say, closer to 80 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2960 1 percent.
2 JUDGE McDADE: Of the goal.
3 MR. SCHLISSEL: Of the goal had been 4 achieved by 2009.
5 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. I just wanted to be 6 sure of what the percent was a percent of.
7 MR. SCHLISSEL: Confusing percent 8 percentage points, yes.
9 JUDGE McDADE: Okay.
10 And, Judge Wardwell, are you going to 11 getting into the Demand Response Program?
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: I believe so. If I 13 don't, then chime in. I'll touch upon it, but I don't 14 know if it's to the degree you want or desire or have 15 other questions.
16 Does New York State provide any direct 17 subsidies for the 30 by 15 program?
18 MR. SCHLISSEL: I believe they do.
19 JUDGE WARDWELL: Are you knowledgeable on 20 those and can you speak to those?
21 MR. SCHLISSEL: No, I'm not knowledgeable 22 on those.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: Is there anyone else here 24 on the panel that is knowledgeable about any subsidies 25 that the New York State does provide for that? Yes, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2961 1 Mr. Meehan.
2 MR. MEEHAN: Yes, Eugene Meehan for 3 Entergy. The State provides subsidies to renewables 4 by NYSERDA. The New York State Energy Research and 5 Development Authority holds RFPs. And essentially the 6 bidders into those RFPs bid for the subsidy that they 7 require to build the plant.
8 So they'll build the plant under a long-9 term contract. They'll get $1 per megawatt-hour 10 subsidy for each megawatt-hour they generate. In 11 addition, they'll sell their capacity and their energy 12 to the market. But NYSERDA will pay them above what 13 they get from the market sales of their products.
14 NYSERDA will pay a fixed dollar per megawatt-hour 15 subsidy over the long-term life of the contract. And 16 the way this ran with contracts in December 2011, that 17 subsidy was $28 per megawatt-hour.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: Do you have any reason to 19 doubt that representation?
20 MR. SCHLISSEL: No.
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: Why don't you go into 22 your demand now?
23 JUDGE McDADE: Could you just briefly 24 explain the concept of the Demand Response Program?
25 How it's established? How it works?
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Page 2962 1 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes, sir. Demand Response 2 means that people get paid to stop consuming power 3 when the call goes out from the New York ISO. There 4 are two programs, one in which it's voluntary. So 5 they get paid some amount in order to be willing to 6 turn off their power if the State says so.
7 And the other is a I guess you'd use the 8 word compulsory. The power level goes up. New York 9 ISO says shut off your power and your lights go out.
10 So one is voluntary. The other one is required. And 11 they bid in prices and are selected.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Who bids in the prices?
13 MR. SCHLISSEL: The company that is 14 willing to participate in the Demand Response Program.
15 I believe some of them are aggregations of they find 16 a number of other businesses to participate. And they 17 all get paid for being willing to shut their power.
18 JUDGE McDADE: And how much of that is on 19 the voluntary side and how much is on the involuntary 20 side?
21 MR. SCHLISSEL: I think most of it is 22 voluntary. But the New York ISO still counts on them 23 as to help meet peak loads.
24 JUDGE KENNEDY: And how much of the 25 decrease in demand would you attribute to these Demand Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2963 1 Response Programs?
2 MR. SCHLISSEL: Well, the Demand Response 3 Programs, I think there are little over 21oo megawatts 4 in total. New York State's peak in 2011 was I think 5 33,000 and change without calling on demand response.
6 They're only called upon in situations when they 7 really need it. So potentially it's two-thirty-8 thirds which is six percent. A way to reduce peak load 9 by six percent when necessary.
10 JUDGE KENNEDY: This is Judge Kennedy. I 11 wonder if you could explain the relationship between 12 the concept of peak loads versus a base load number 13 and how we would relate those two concepts.
14 MR. SCHLISSEL: Peak loads are as the name 15 suggests the loads during the highest hours of the 16 year. In New York State, I think it's generally late 17 afternoon in July and August in down southeastern New 18 York. The office buildings, machineries running in 19 factories, homes with air conditioning, I think that's 20 generally the highest loads.
21 You're not talking about a single peak 22 hour2.546296e-4 days <br />0.00611 hours <br />3.637566e-5 weeks <br />8.371e-6 months <br />. You're talking about maybe a significant number 23 of hours over a significant number of days. That's 24 one definition of peak hours.
25 Now it gets a little confusing because you Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2964 1 sometime talk about market prices being either peak 2 hour2.314815e-5 days <br />5.555556e-4 hours <br />3.306878e-6 weeks <br />7.61e-7 months <br /> or off-peak. And that's a different concept of 3 peak hours that I don't think is relevant here.
4 So when I'm using it, I'm really talking 5 about the hottest hours of the year in New York State 6 when you use the most power. And I'm sorry. What was 7 the second?
8 JUDGE KENNEDY: The concept of base load 9 and its relationship to the peak load.
10 MR. SCHLISSEL: When the load is the 11 lowest, you're going to operate your base load units.
12 Those are the units you want to operate as much as you 13 can.
14 When the loads go up some more, you'll add 15 some intermediate units, units that have the ability 16 to -- It's called load following. They ramp up and 17 they ramp down in power fairly quickly so that if the 18 power goes up you can turn the switch and you get 19 power from them.
20 When it starts to get the hottest hours of 21 the day, of the year, excuse me, they will then go to 22 peaking units. Generally, they're your less efficient 23 units and the most expensive to operate. But you need 24 them for that short period of time. So the base loads 25 again are the ones you want to keep operating as much Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2965 1 as you can.
2 JUDGE KENNEDY: Earlier you talked about 3 I guess I think of it in terms of developing options 4 or scenarios. I think I have a two part question.
5 One is you introduced the concept of risk in terms of 6 scenarios. And I believe we're talking about 7 scenarios to meet some objective. And I guess I'm 8 wondering if you're doing resource planning in the 9 nature of this No Action Alternative and trying to 10 identify what the replacement power options would be 11 is the scenario development focused on or the option 12 development focused on the peak loads, the base loads?
13 I know we've been talking a lot about base 14 load here. But I guess you've now introduced the 15 words "the peak concept." I guess I'm wondering if 16 you could walk through this concept to developing 17 scenarios to meet certain demands. And then talk to 18 us about what risk means in that concept.
19 You introduced the word "risk" when you 20 started talking about scenario or option development.
21 That sounds confusing.
22 MR. SCHLISSEL: Okay. Let me try to 23 explain. Basically when you're doing resource 24 planning you've got to do everything you mentioned.
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Page 2966 1 to provide -- Sorry. Has to have enough resources to 2 provide enough power to meet the peak demand while 3 having an adequate reserve. New York State used to be 4 18 percent. Now I believe it's down to about 15.5 5 percent.
6 What that allows for is that it's hotter 7 than normal, hotter than you expect in the summer. Or 8 some power plants are offline when you have your peak 9 loads. So you need to meet the peak demand and you 10 need to have a reserve.
11 At the same time, you want to have a low 12 cost system. So you plan to see what is the lowest 13 cost units you can operate and you want to operate 14 those as much as possible.
15 JUDGE KENNEDY: And the concept of risk.
16 MR. SCHLISSEL: I actually said risk and 17 uncertainty. Uncertainty is you don't know the 18 future. You don't know what the weather is going to 19 be. You don't know when power plants are going to be 20 out. You don't know if you're going to have 21 transmission problems. When they're going to happen.
22 How long they're going to be. Where they're going to 23 occur.
24 So far we've been talking about 25 uncertainty. Risk is financial and economic.
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Page 2967 1 JUDGE KENNEDY: Not risk of meeting the 2 objective of your scenario development.
3 MR. SCHLISSEL: I guess you could think of 4 it that way. I generally think of it as financial or 5 economic. But yes. You could consider it as what's 6 the risk that one of the scenarios -- I mean different 7 scenarios have different risks associated with them.
8 That's a fair way to look at it.
9 JUDGE KENNEDY: And I guess what I was 10 trying to do is take us back to the No Action 11 Alternative and the replacement power. I mean we're 12 really talking about a range of scenarios to meet an 13 objective. And maybe if you could bring us back 14 around to how the options and the development of 15 scenarios or plans to meet a certain objective is 16 relevant in this proceeding. I mean how it factors 17 back into what we're here to discuss the remainder of 18 today.
19 My concern is I'm hearing a lot of cost 20 discussion. And ultimately we're going to be I think 21 talking about balancing environmental benefits for 22 various scenarios. So I'm worried we're starting to 23 drift into cost and all that sort of thing.
24 And I'd like to bring it back to 25 developing scenarios that have a high probability of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2968 1 meeting an objective. That's where I picked up on 2 your risk concept. And then trying to refocus it back 3 to scenarios that we're going to ultimately I believe 4 balance -- At least what I perceive the Staff has done 5 is tried to balance the environmental consequences of 6 various scenarios to meet an objective.
7 And I don't know if risk entered into it 8 or not. But you brought it up and it made me think of 9 it. I'm not sure there was a question in there. I 10 guess to bring your scenario development in this whole 11 concept of the 15 by 15, 30 by 15. Can you talk a 12 little bit about how that plays back into the 13 development of scenarios to be investigated as part of 14 the Staff's Final Supplemental Environmental Impact 15 Statement.
16 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes, sir. Clearly, with 17 the different options there are different risks that 18 either a new plant will be built or that goals will be 19 achieved. And you can't pretend there's not a risk 20 associated with alternatives. At least I can't.
21 I think there's a high probability that 22 new capacity would be built if Indian Point were not 23 relicensed. I think there's a high probability that 24 the goals that have been established by the State of 25 New York will be achieved. Maybe they won't be Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2969 1 achieved exactly by 2015. But I think looking at the 2 work that's done and the commitment that's been made 3 I think it's reasonable to expect that they will be 4 achieved. Again, I'm not staking my retirement funds 5 on the exact time line.
6 JUDGE KENNEDY: I think that begins --
7 That's where it starts to trouble me. And I look at 8 some of the options that have been put forth by the 9 State and there's to-be-built, to-be-developed, to-be-10 to-be-to-be. And it seems to me that there's a risk 11 component to everything that isn't as existing 12 capacity.
13 I mean if you're talking about enhancing 14 the capacity of say a hydro facility on the Niagara 15 River or the St. Lawrence, maybe that's more doable 16 than siting and building a new gas turbine facility 17 somewhere in the State of New York or somewhere in New 18 Jersey.
19 I guess I'm really struggling a little 20 bit. We've got sort of a battle of scenario 21 development here going on. Ultimately, it's going to 22 be balanced by a series of economic benefits. I guess 23 I was really trying to get your perspective of do you 24 think risk should enter into any of the development of 25 scenarios.
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Page 2970 1 MR. SCHLISSEL: And the answer is yes. To 2 reassure you, power plants are retired all the time.
3 Maine Yankee retired. Shoreham I guess you could say 4 it retired, but it barely was operating. But it was 5 in the resource plans. Connecticut Yankee. Yankee 6 Atomic in Western Mass., but they were tiny. SMUD, 7 Rancho Seco, it retired. Large coal plants are being 8 retired now.
9 The system accommodates retirements. So, 10 yes, there is risk. But it's nothing out of the 11 ordinary and especially here. The benefit here that 12 reduces the risk is that the State of New York is 13 taking a very proactive approach. They are trying to 14 develop the Energy Highway which is a series of steps 15 to improve the grid, make sure new capacity is built 16 both fossil-fired and renewable. Combine that with 17 the 45 by 15 program and you've got a very large 18 commitment to improving the electric grid and making 19 it capable of handling a non-relicensing, if that's 20 that right term, of Indian Point without undue risk.
21 JUDGE KENNEDY: So I take from that 22 testimony that it would be your position that the 23 renewed license would not have to be granted and that 24 the State is ready and sees no risk in replacing that 25 capacity. Is that what I just heard?
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Page 2971 1 MR. SCHLISSEL: Not no risk. Little risk.
2 Entergy could decide tomorrow that they don't want to 3 relicense the plant for their own reason for whatever 4 reasons they wanted. And the State of New York would 5 not close up shop and go away. The State would make 6 an effort and with NYISO and with other generators, 7 transmission owners.
8 A plan would be evolved to deal with the 9 absence of Indian Point. I think that that would 10 happen if the -- The same exact thing would happen if 11 Indian Point were not relicensed. Except again here, 12 we're talking about having a state already taking 13 action several years in advance of the event.
14 JUDGE KENNEDY: And to bring it back into 15 this proceeding and to move away from risk, there is 16 an environmental consequence or benefit of those 17 actions. And I guess as we move through the day I 18 presume we'll look at that balancing of the 19 environment benefit or the environmental consequences 20 of the various actions.
21 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes.
22 JUDGE KENNEDY: Is that where we need to 23 be here today?
24 MR. SCHLISSEL: Well, I think that's 25 ultimately where you want to be. But I still think Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2972 1 there's a question of whether Staff looked at 2 reasonable set of ultimates especially in terms of 3 today's conditions, today's circumstances and likely 4 future circumstances from today's perspective.
5 JUDGE KENNEDY: I have a lot of confidence 6 we're going to walk down that path as we keep going.
7 It seems like we're starting to creep into some cost.
8 And I just wanted to bring us back to the 9 environmental. Thank you.
10 MR. SCHLISSEL: I've been trying to stay 11 away from cost.
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: Follow-up questions on 13 this thought. You mentioned about the new capacity 14 that you were confident that would be built should 15 Indian Point shut down. Do you agree that the 16 environmental impacts associated with the construction 17 of that new construction should be considered in the 18 Environmental Impact Statement under the No Action 19 Alternative?
20 MR. SCHLISSEL: Sure. The environmental 21 impacts of all alternatives have to be considered.
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: A question for Staff. I 23 don't care who necessarily addresses it.
24 MR. STUYVENBERG: I'm actually the only 25 Staff member. So I'll be answering the question.
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Page 2973 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: I was going to say "Dr.
2 Harrison, are you with Staff or Entergy?" And so 3 we've got that narrowed down pretty much, Mr.
4 Stuyvenberg.
5 MR. STUYVENBERG: Stuyvenberg. But you 6 can call me Mr. S. also if you'd like.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: No. I'm going to get 8 some of these. I'm going to get Mr. Schlissel's 9 pronouncement right.
10 MR. SCHLISSEL: Getting better.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: Getting better. Guess I 12 wasn't there. Damn. Stuyvenberg.
13 MR. STUYVENBERG: Wonderful. That was 14 pretty good.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: Mister, comma mister.
16 Just a quick question before I get back to the main 17 train of thought and that is do you remember whether 18 or not and to what degree you might have incorporated 19 any grid constraints as you prepared the EIS for 20 Indian Point.
21 MR. STUYVENBERG: Certainly. It was an 22 issue that we had I think addressed in more depth in 23 the Draft SEIS. But based on some comments that we 24 received particularly from the State of New York about 25 the notion that there were improvements anticipated to Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2974 1 the grid, in the Final SEIS we ultimately didn't hold 2 grid constraints against any alternatives. We didn't 3 rule any alternatives out because of grid constraints.
4 I hope that's a responsive answer. It's 5 to say that it was not something that prevented us 6 from considering alternatives.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: So you considered that 8 was why you had all the capacity of the grids that you 9 needed to transmit any of the energy sources and 10 ignored any potential constraints that may occur.
11 MR. STUYVENBERG: We did have a discussion 12 about some of the hypothetical types of projects that 13 could occur to relieve grid issues and where 14 historically there were some grid issues. But we 15 ultimately didn't again use the grid to rule anything 16 out.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. In the 18 Staff's testimony, the Staff's 000133 answer 14 on 19 page 10, they state that "New York State's 2009 20 comments on the DSEIS were the primary drivers of 21 Staff's inclusion of a conservation energy efficiency 22 alternative and that these comments also strongly 23 influence the Staff's combination alternatives which 24 included substantial quantities of energy efficiency 25 and conservation."
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Page 2975 1 Mr. Schlissel, say it again for me.
2 MR. SCHLISSEL: Schlissel.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: Say it louder.
4 MR. SCHLISSEL: Schlissel. When I think 5 about saying, I mess it up, too.
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: So you can't say it 7 louder.
8 MR. SCHLISSEL: Don't be embarrassed 9 please.
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: Schlissel, okay. I'm 11 going to just hack away at it anyhow. I refuse to 12 give up. With that statement, have you read the 13 statement and did you hear what I was saying as I read 14 it also?
15 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: What, if any, is a 17 residual problem that you might have with the EIS if 18 it, in fact, did consider your comments and seemed to 19 incorporate much of those into the analysis?
20 MR. SCHLISSEL: Residual concerns about 21 the EIS are the following. It's dismissal of combined 22 heat and power. There's no scenario that looks at a 23 combination of energy efficiency and renewables 24 perhaps with a small amount of gas at least initially.
25 Hold on one second. I had a feeling you Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2976 1 were going to ask me this. And not enough renewable 2 capacity in combination alternative 2.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: And alternative 2 not 4 enough what? Say it again.
5 MR. SCHLISSEL: Renewable capacity.
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: But they did have some 7 capacity.
8 MR. SCHLISSEL: They did have some.
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: Just you thought there 10 should be more.
11 MR. SCHLISSEL: They did have some. And 12 then as I had discussed earlier I think you need to 13 have scenarios that reflect that circumstances will 14 change over time and that what you start out with as 15 the replacement for Indian Point I believe will change 16 over time.
17 I believe that to not coin a phrase that 18 gas will be a bridge to a renewable future. So that 19 over time the contribution of renewables and the 20 contribution of energy efficiency to the New York 21 State grid including the replacement of Indian Point 22 will increase.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: You first mentioned 24 something about heat and power.
25 MR. SCHLISSEL: Combined heat and power.
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Page 2977 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: What did you mean by 2 that?
3 MR. SCHLISSEL: Combined heat and power is 4 a facility that generates electricity and then rather 5 than wasting the excess heat by releasing it to the 6 environment either directly or through a condenser you 7 use that for heating.
8 JUDGE McDADE: Did the Staff exclude that 9 and, if so, why?
10 MR. STUYVENBERG: The Staff did exclude 11 combined heat and power. And they excluded combined 12 heat and power because it serves in part a purpose 13 they need not serve by the current Indian Point 14 facility. And that would be providing heat.
15 JUDGE McDADE: But doesn't it serve the 16 base load electric generating capacity that Indian 17 Point does? The fact that it does something else as 18 well, why would that cause it to be excluded?
19 MR. STUYVENBERG: One thing I would point 20 out is that combined heat and power facilities are 21 often purposefully built to supply certain balances of 22 heat versus power. So in many cases it may not simply 23 be that you have the highly efficient prime mover 24 front end to which you simply capture waste heat.
25 Although that certainly can be an option for combined Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2978 1 heat and power.
2 So it's not necessarily as efficient as 3 solely in terms of producing electricity as a solely 4 say gas-fired alternative because most electrical 5 sector combine heat and power plants are gas-fired as 6 we looked at it in the natural gas combined cycle.
7 I'm sorry. I think I'll stop right there.
8 I think that's responsive but please follow up if 9 there's something additional.
10 JUDGE McDADE: If the issue is what are 11 the environmental impacts of alternatives to Indian 12 Point and this generates base load capacity 13 electricity, why wouldn't you just look at it and look 14 at all of the environmental impacts of it, not 15 subtracting out those that may be more related or less 16 related to the heat aspect of it? But just look at 17 how much electricity it generates base load and what 18 its economic impact is or its environmental impact is 19 and compare it to Indian Point?
20 MR. STUYVENBERG: I think you can say 21 that's what our first alternative is in the scenario 22 just presented. As I said, we're looking at natural 23 gas combined cycle facility. And so if you were to 24 subtract off the heat portion of that facility, it 25 would look a lot like a natural gas combined cycle Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2979 1 power plant if you wanted a very efficient gas-fired 2 power plant that perhaps you could also harvest some 3 waste heat from to do something else. So I would say 4 the base load aspect of that has been addressed in our 5 EIS.
6 MR. SCHLISSEL: Could I --
7 JUDGE McDADE: Yes. Thank you.
8 Sir.
9 MR. SCHLISSEL: I have a problem with 10 that approach. The usage of the waste heat is a major 11 environmental benefit. It's not something that you 12 kind of take out of the process. It's something that 13 is a major benefit to combined heat and power plants.
14 Instead of just wasting the excess heat, 15 you're using it. That's good. So just kind of 16 considering the natural gas portion of it, one of the 17 alternatives is not enough. It's not the right way to 18 go. You need to look at heat.
19 I'm trying to figure out how to articulate 20 this. And I was watching the Giants beat the Redskins 21 on Sunday and I was --
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: You don't have to bring 23 that up.
24 MR. SCHLISSEL: Actually, I do because it 25 think it's a great -- I won't tell you who I rooted Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2980 1 for though.
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: I could tell by the gleam 3 in your eye.
4 MR. SCHLISSEL: You got me there. This 5 wonderful quarterback of the Washington Redskins, 6 RGIII, is a wonderful quarterback. Okay. You don't 7 take away from him the fact that he also runs like the 8 wind. It's an added benefit.
9 What Staff's done and what he's proposing 10 is that you only look at the quarterback part of RGIII 11 and you don't count the benefit of this kid's 12 incredible ability to run. And that's just not the 13 way you do it. You count all of the benefits.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: But do you know of any 15 combined heat and power plant that is producing their 16 power at full efficiencies and just tapping off the 17 residual heat or do they, in fact, sacrifice some of 18 the their abilities for the power aspect in order to 19 make it more cost effective approach to capture the 20 heat?
21 MR. SCHLISSEL: The City of Holland, 22 Michigan has a coal plant. And in the winter they use 23 the excess heat to melt the snow on the streets and 24 the sidewalks. I don't have sitting here the names of 25 them, but I've heard of power plants that use the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2981 1 excess. The excess heat is then used in refineries 2 that are next door to drive the refining process.
3 Combined heat and power is widely used.
4 It's not a new technology. It's just combining two 5 technologies into one.
6 JUDGE McDADE: And as part of the decision 7 making process, you're saying that if you look at the 8 environmental consequences it is appropriate in making 9 a decision to look at both the negative environmental 10 consequences and the positive environmental 11 consequences.
12 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes, sir. If it's 13 providing heat that would otherwise have to be 14 provided by some other source, then that's a benefit 15 to combined heat and power.
16 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. And in context your 17 analogy was of the Redskins playing the Giants, not of 18 the Giants beating the Redskins.
19 MR. SCHLISSEL: That's correct. I correct 20 the record. Yes, I correct the record. How about the 21 Redskins almost beating the Giants?
22 JUDGE McDADE: Just playing. I'll stick 23 with playing.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: Staff, could you explain 25 a little bit of how you run this No Action Alternative Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2982 1 and consider the environmental impacts compared to the 2 differences in the various alternatives that you 3 looked at specifically in relationship to the fact 4 that these are really incremental impacts because 5 whatever alternative you are selecting when we're 6 dealing with license renewal has the potential and may 7 very well likely occur at the end of the period of 8 extended operation? So we're really only looking at, 9 aren't we, an incremental period between the 10 termination of their current license and the end of 11 the period of extended operation for any of these 12 potential alternatives that are evaluated including 13 the No Action Alternative? So how does your analysis 14 incorporate that?
15 MR. STUYVENBERG: If I understand the 16 question you just asked, it's how does the Staff 17 evaluate that one of these alternatives would 18 essentially operate for approximately 20 years. Is 19 that correct?
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: No. I'll give you an 21 example. One of the alternatives, not under your No 22 Action -- Well, it may have fallen under your No 23 Action. I can't remember. But one of the 24 alternatives is to replace this power need with a gas-25 generating plant.
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Page 2983 1 One of the environmental impacts of course 2 is the construction of that plant if it was a new 3 plant. However, those environmental impacts are going 4 to be felt at the end of the period of extended 5 operation if you assume the same alternative was going 6 to be adopted or if you were evaluating the same 7 alternative once the period of extended operation was 8 over.
9 And so the difference between the 10 environmental impacts now occurring should only be 11 assigned to the license renewal period for the 12 integral period during that period of operation 13 because those same environmental impacts are going to 14 be felt then. Does that make sense to you or do you 15 want me to say it again in another fashion?
16 MR. STUYVENBERG: I think I understand.
17 But let me be sure. What you seem to be saying is 18 that at some point somebody will build or operate or 19 do something with an alternative to replace the 20 current Indian Point facility. And the question is 21 does it happen at the end --
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: The Indian Point facility 23 has to be replaced in some time frame.
24 MR. STUYVENBERG: Sure.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: It's either going to Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2984 1 happen in 2015 or it's going to happen in 2035 in 2 rough numbers.
3 MR. STUYVENBERG: Sure. The action we're 4 considering right now -- this will be a little bit of 5 a roundabout answer and I apologize -- is whether the 6 license should be renewed for the 20 year period of 7 extended operation. So we're looking at impacts that 8 would occur during that time period.
9 When we look at what might otherwise 10 happen to address to replace that plant, we look at 11 the impacts that might be incurred in an alternative 12 to the Indian Point unit. So I think you could say 13 that that could be an accurate characterization, 14 although at this point I don't know for sure whether 15 that's accurate because certainly things may change by 16 2035. But certainly I think you could say that if we 17 were to do another analysis 20 years from now we'd be 18 looking at alternatives as well at that time. I think 19 that your premise that it has to be replaced at some 20 point based on our approach would be correct.
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: I'm still not clear that 22 you have any factor in there to account for the 23 situation I'm presenting and then you're saying the 24 situation I'm presenting is a bogus approach or that 25 we just haven't analyzed for. And that situation is Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2985 1 the fact that we're really looking at the incremental 2 difference, are we not, between the fact of the plant 3 closing now or closing 20 years from now which we all 4 know is not that long in the future anymore the way 5 these decades go by?
6 If you have something to contribute that 7 may help because in your response it may clarify what 8 I'm driving at.
9 MR. HARRISON: Yes. David Harrison. I 10 think I understand what you're saying. You're saying 11 if you looked solely at the construction impacts there 12 would be a difference in construction impacts between 13 say 2015 or 2035. I guess what that of course doesn't 14 take into account is the fact that over those 20 years 15 there would be differences in the generation. So the 16 environmental impacts of the No Action Alternative are 17 really due in large part to the generation that would 18 replace Indian Point generation over that 20 years.
19 And so I think what you were focusing on 20 as I understood it was the fact that the construction 21 impacts would be in 2035, if there were to be a 22 replacement generation for example. Suppose you just 23 took the assumption of one unit replacing the Indian 24 Point capacity in energy. The construction impacts 25 would be similar, but it would be pulled forward in Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2986 1 time.
2 Of course, that doesn't take into account 3 the fact that you've got the 16.3 million megawatt-4 hours that would need to be replaced over that 20 5 years. So it's the environmental impacts of those 6 16.3 million megawatt-hours that would be different in 7 that case. There would be no energy alternative --
8 The No Action Alternative is really looking or at 9 least in terms of the analysis that we were doing 10 primarily at those differences in the generation.
11 Is that getting at the issue that you're 12 referring to?
13 MR. SCHLISSEL: If I might take a stab.
14 It's a great question. It's akin to do cost analyses.
15 There's a time value of money.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: Exactly.
17 MR. SCHLISSEL: A dollar today is worth 18 more than -- $1.00 in 2015 is worth more than $1.00 in 19 2035. And your point that there will be construction 20 consequences impacts in 2035 is absolutely true.
21 There's a whole literature of how do you 22 discount future impacts to today's circumstances. I'm 23 not an expert in there. But I do know that all sides 24 agree that you do need to discount them somehow. You 25 should consider them. And, of course, as with Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2987 1 everything there's an argument about exactly how you 2 do that.
3 But, yes, you're right. There are 4 construction impacts. Something will replace Indian 5 Point at some point.
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: And that's where I'm 7 driving at. I think maybe we'll get into it more when 8 I talk the baseline versus the No Action. But again, 9 just to say it another way is under the baseline 10 condition if we're looking at one alternative 11 replacing it with natural gas, under baseline we will 12 do it in 2035 if we move forward with the proposed 13 action. That's going to have an impact.
14 Under the No Action Alternative, we're 15 going to terminate the license. That means in 2015 we 16 will build that same. That has an impact. However, 17 whatever that impact is should not we subtract off the 18 present worth of the construction costs of those 19 impacts in 2035 as it brought back to this date 20 because we will have to build it anyhow in the future 21 some time?
22 We certainly wouldn't want to ignore 23 saying we have no impacts because we're building it 24 now because we've got to build it later. Fine. We're 25 building it sometime. There's no impacts. Well, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2988 1 there is. But isn't it the difference between what it 2 would cost, the impacts associated with the building 3 now, compared to the present worth of the costs that 4 would be in the future? And have you considered that 5 in your analysis?
6 MR. STUYVENBERG: No, the present worth of 7 the future potential impacts have not being 8 considered.
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: So you've considered it 10 only as the total impacts that are occurring right 11 now.
12 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct. And in 13 doing so we've followed the approach taken in the 14 license renewal GEIS, NUREG-1437, where it describes 15 construction and impacts from operations of those 16 alternatives.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: Does that prohibit you 18 from considering the present worth of the impacts in 19 the future with the same alternative knowing that it's 20 potentially going to have to be replaced anyhow?
21 MR. STUYVENBERG: No, Your Honor.
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay. So the GEIS is 23 silent on that. You could have still used the GEIS 24 and used this approach. Is that fair to say?
25 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct.
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Page 2989 1 Although I would also point out that during the course 2 of our Environmental Impact Statement process, no 3 commentors had raised that particular issue to us 4 either. So it's something that perhaps we could have 5 considered had it come up during the process. And it 6 hasn't yet. But I appreciate Your Honor's question.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: So I should have read 8 that and commented.
9 MR. STUYVENBERG: No, not you by any means 10 with all due respect.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: And by doing it your way 12 it will show more impacts associated with terminating 13 a license against the No Action Alternative than you 14 would if you discounted some portion of the cost from 15 the future.
16 MR. STUYVENBERG: I'd say hypothetically 17 that's correct. But I would also point out that when 18 we look at the impacts that we assigned to No Action 19 they were small in all areas but one. And that was 20 with regard to issues that had to do with payment 21 specifically from Indian Point to the surrounding 22 communities.
23 And certainly it would have been possible 24 to apply the particular approach that you suggested 25 here. But in general No Action was a very low impact Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2990 1 alternative. And we found similarly that conservation 2 energy efficiency was a very low impact alternative.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you.
4 Moving on now just so if you wonder where 5 we are I was going to charge into discussing this need 6 for power and how it relates to the license renewal.
7 Let me start again with Mr. Schlissel. I'll go back 8 to the Giant fan and ask him a question.
9 MR. SCHLISSEL: Probably the only one in 10 the room.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: I think there is probably 12 a lot charge of them. We may even be outnumbered.
13 Although I did grow up as a Giant fan I must confess 14 in the Y.A. Tittle days.
15 On page five of your testimony, that's New 16 York-046. You stated that "I have also reviewed and 17 analyzed that section of FSEIS and identified 18 significant deficiencies in its consideration of 19 conservation, renewable energy, purchased electric 20 power, transmission constraints and the need for power 21 as these relate to the No Action Alternative." And I 22 might point out that similar comments were made in Mr.
23 Lanzalotta's -- Did I get that right?
24 MR. LANZALOTTA: Absolutely.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: Lanzalotta, good.
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Page 2991 1 Testimony and yours was Exhibit 047 I believe. And 2 then Mr. Bradford's who is not here with us on page 3 five of 08.
4 So I ask both of the two witnesses present 5 for New York these questions. Are you aware that the 6 current regulations under 51.95(c)(2) states that "a 7 Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for 8 license renewal is not required to include a 9 discussion of the need for power"?
10 MR. SCHLISSEL: I am. But to be honest 11 which I guess I have to be because I'm under oath.
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: As opposed to what you've 13 been doing earlier.
14 MR. SCHLISSEL: I know that's the problem.
15 Now I have to apologize. I'm somewhat confused by 16 exactly what is excluded from the discussion of need 17 for power and what we've been talking about for the 18 last hour and forty minutes.
19 JUDGE WARDWELL: Hopefully, these lines of 20 questioning will bring you to the land of instant 21 clarity.
22 MR. SCHLISSEL: Enlightenment, yes.
23 Because in my work in resource planning, everything 24 we've talked about so far is within the domain of need 25 for power and reasonable alternatives, retirement Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2992 1 versus life extension of any power plant.
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: Mr. Lanzalotta, are you 3 aware that the regulation has this prohibition against 4 discussing the need for power?
5 MR. LANZALOTTA: I'm not intimately 6 familiar with the regulation. I was looking at it 7 from the perspective of the system planner, the 8 transmission planner. And from that perspective, need 9 for power is always relevant.
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: Do you believe you're 11 challenging this regulation in any fashion in some of 12 the comments and objections you have in regards to the 13 No Action Alternative?
14 MR. LANZALOTTA: I'm approaching this as 15 an engineer.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: And this is from a 17 technical -- This is not from a legal basis.
18 MR. LANZALOTTA: Okay.
19 JUDGE WARDWELL: I'm doing it strictly as 20 from a technical basis. What does that mean to you 21 and how are you approaching it? And do you believe 22 you are not following those words that you are not 23 required to include a discussion of the need for 24 power?
25 MR. LANZALOTTA: I've already said I Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2993 1 wasn't familiar with the regulation and exactly what 2 is stated. But when you look at system adequacy, the 3 need for transmission, the need for system 4 reinforcement, the need for power is an intimate 5 factor. And I felt it difficult to do this without 6 addressing at least to some extent whether there was 7 a need or what was happening with it.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: I'll turn to Staff.
9 What's your interpretation of that prohibition against 10 discussing the need for power? And how is it applied 11 in license renewal?
12 MR. STUYVENBERG: My understanding of that 13 prohibition is that it means that when Staff considers 14 alternatives, Staff does it without regard to 15 establishing a particular need for power or some 16 amount of power. And so our alternatives then tend to 17 focus on a placement for the existing facility.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: And so is it still fair 19 for one to look at demand side activities that may 20 reduce the demand associated with power and not really 21 violate this prohibition against justifying the need 22 for power?
23 MR. STUYVENBERG: In my view you can. And 24 in my view you can do that for a variety of reasons.
25 First of all, the GEIS, the License Renewal Generic Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2994 1 Environment Impact Statement, considers that it is an 2 option available to planners. It looks in some way at 3 the issue. Also in this particular EIS we received a 4 lot of comments and input from various parties, but 5 particularly from the State of New York about the 6 value and the extent to which the State viewed that to 7 be an important part of its energy policy and its 8 processes.
9 I think in light of that kind of input 10 especially from a party like the State we thought it 11 was appropriate to consider as an alternative. And I 12 think in this case because we looked at it as a 13 complete replacement we didn't go into specific 14 amounts that would be needed. We simply relied on 15 their assertions about the effectiveness of their 16 programs and the types of plans that they had and 17 their clear interest in it to say "Let's consider 18 this."
19 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you.
20 Entergy, any of the witnesses feel free to 21 chime in on this. But is it possible that the purpose 22 of this regulation was really to prevent any 23 discussion of the original need for the plant being or 24 for the plant's existence and then specifically for 25 the plant's existence right where it is? Isn't that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2995 1 really what is possibly the intent of that regulation 2 and not to address looking at alternatives that may 3 affect the amount of energy that's required in a given 4 time frame?
5 MR. CLEARY: Donald Cleary for the 6 Applicant. The intent of omitting need for power as 7 a requirement in the regulations goes back to concerns 8 that the states had raised on the Draft GEIS. And 9 basically the intent is to do an environmental impact 10 -- look at the environmental impacts of relicensing 11 against the environmental impacts of a reasonable set 12 of alternatives that could replace the capacity. And 13 then to leave the decision as to whether the plant 14 continues to operate, whether there really is a need, 15 whether it's cost effective to energy planners 16 including the utility, that was the intent of 17 eliminating need for power as part of the relicensing 18 exercise.
19 JUDGE WARDWELL: Would you agree that if 20 there was a reduction in demand that could be pointed 21 out and it could be reasonably projected to exist in 22 the long term that it should be included as part of 23 the mix of the alternatives and not be assumed to be 24 an attack on a need for power? Say, energy 25 efficiency, isn't that a viable alternative? Is that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2996 1 a part of the mix in the alternatives as we do the 2 EIS?
3 MR. CLEARY: Well, conservation is looked 4 at.
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: I guess it's a reasonable 6 one.
7 MR. CLEARY: But it's the environmental 8 impacts associated with conservation programs that are 9 compared.
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: Sure. Whatever is being 11 done still needs to be looked at for the environmental 12 impacts associated with that.
13 MR. CLEARY: Right.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: But that does not cause 15 a violation of addressing the need for power that is 16 prohibited by that regulation. Was that your 17 impression?
18 MR. CLEARY: That's correct.
19 MR. MEEHAN: If I could add to that 20 though.
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: Sure.
22 MR. MEEHAN: I think, Your Honor, you may 23 want to --
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: You're Mr. Meehan, right?
25 MR. MEEHAN: Yes, I'm Mr. Meehan for Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2997 1 Entergy.
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: You might just want to 3 introduce yourselves the first couple times around.
4 Then the court reporter gets pretty comfortable with 5 your voice.
6 MR. MEEHAN: Sure. I apologize. Eugene 7 Meehan for Entergy. There's a distinction there 8 between conservation or energy efficiency programs 9 that are already planned, already scheduled, already 10 funded and are going to take place whether or not the 11 plant retires. We may be hopping ahead here to your 12 baseline issue. But I don't think they really can 13 realistically be looked at a replacement alternative.
14 They are a part of the baseline and they're going to 15 happen. Additional conservation programs that would 16 occur just because the plant retires could fit into 17 that replacement mix.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: I think that completes.
19 And I'm ready to move onto a third section. But it 20 might be a good time to break now.
21 JUDGE McDADE: It's about 10:50 a.m.
22 Would a ten minute break be sufficient?
23 (No verbal response.)
24 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. We'll stand in 25 recess. And also if during the break if New York Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2998 1 could take care of getting those documents on the 2 Synapse Report and the New York State Highway report 3 documents to make sure we get copies to the parties.
4 MR. SIPOS: Yes, Your Honor.
5 JUDGE McDADE: We are in recess. Off the 6 record.
7 (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)
8 JUDGE McDADE: Mr. Sipos?
9 MR. SIPOS: Your Honor, just a 10 housekeeping detail. The State has provided paper 11 copies of the two reports to NRC Staff counsel, 12 Entergy counsel. I've also provided copies to the two 13 law clerks which are here. I also have three more 14 copies of them in paper for Your Honors.
15 JUDGE McDADE: And you'll be selling them 16 in the lobby?
17 (Laughter.)
18 MR. SIPOS: I will at a special price, 19 Your Honor. And I look for Your Honor's direction if 20 I may approach the bench and hand them up. I'm also 21 trying to get --
22 JUDGE McDADE: If you just furnish them to 23 the law clerks.
24 MR. SIPOS: Thank you. And I'm also 25 trying to get electronic copies for Mr. Wilkie should Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2999 1 that need arise.
2 MR. TENPAS: Your Honor, if I could, one 3 other housekeeping matter, really by way of apology 4 and clarifying the Board's record. I did make 5 reference to the Synapse report. I was speaking too 6 quickly and misread my own notes and said 168 pages.
7 It is 68 pages. Mr. Sipos corrected that and I just 8 want to acknowledge that is the correct 9 characterization. It's 68 pages. I apologize and 10 thank him actually for correcting my error.
11 JUDGE McDADE: No problem. Thank you.
12 Anything else?
13 Judge Wardwell?
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: Starting in on a look at 15 the alternatives that were evaluated, I'll then go to 16 New York 000046, page 16, where you say that the FSEIS 17 impact analysis of conservation does not consider New 18 York's demand response.
19 And I'll start off with Staff. Is that a 20 correct statement?
21 MR. STUYVENBERG: That does not consider 22 a specific demand response.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: Right.
24 MR. STUYVENBERG: It's correct insofar as 25 there's not a specific consideration of demand Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3000 1 response. To the extent that demand response is 2 included in New York State's other plans and supported 3 the comments New York State made to the Staff in 4 asserting that energy efficiency or conservation 5 should be considered in greater depth in the FSEIS, to 6 that extent it's considered.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: Mr. Schlissel, how did 8 you intend for that demand response to be included?
9 MR. SCHLISSEL: It's separate than the 10 general energy efficiency programs. The demand 11 response program is administered by New York ISO, not 12 the State of New York. It should be evaluated on its 13 own potential and environmental impacts.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: Is that quantified each 15 year in regards to the amount of energy that's been 16 conserved in the process of this demand response?
17 MR. SCHLISSEL: I don't know each year, 18 but I know that a number of the New York ISO reports 19 will talk about events during which the participants 20 were called upon to reduce their loads, so if you go 21 through the New York ISO annual reports, you can come 22 up with a history.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: Staff, is there any 24 reason that couldn't have been incorporated in?
25 MR. STUYVENBERG: You mean we couldn't Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3001 1 have specifically estimated the amounts of demand 2 response available from the reports, Mr. Schlissel 3 just described?
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: Right.
5 MR. STUYVENBERG: I don't have a reason 6 that it could not have been included. I think it's 7 something we could have included and tried to 8 specifically account for.
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. New York, on 10 page -- well, I won't necessarily address you. I will 11 eventually. But this will be a question for Staff, 12 but New York on page 25 stated that "Because NRC 13 Indian Point FSEIS does not define what energy 14 efficiency and/or energy conservation programs it 15 anticipates will be available to replace the power 16 generated by Indian Point, it is impossible to 17 determine site-specific impacts for the reasonableness 18 of, or the viability of NRC's energy efficiencies, 19 conservation, no action alternative."
20 And so staff, the question I have for you 21 is what energy efficient and conservation programs do 22 you anticipate being available to replace Indian Point 23 and have you included those in your analysis of no 24 action alternative?
25 MR. STUYVENBERG: Frankly, we didn't do a Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3002 1 specific analysis of all of the programs that could 2 potentially be used. We looked to in terms of 3 establishing New York specific viability or the 4 assertions from New York State about the effectiveness 5 and the reach of the programs, we did note that there 6 were at the time the FSEIS was published, a wide 7 variety of programs that had already been proposed or 8 potentially proposed at that point. And in previous 9 EISes, we did take a closer look at the specific types 10 of efficiency and conservation programs that typically 11 form the foundation for those kinds of reductions.
12 So the short answer is we didn't look 13 specifically at those programs, but based on our 14 experience in evaluating energy efficiency and 15 conservation in which -- starting with the GEIS and 16 going into the Three Mile Island SEIS and the Shearon 17 Harris SEIS, we've always found those impacts to be 18 small and we would anticipate that the impacts would 19 be small in this case as well, with the exception of 20 the loss and lost revenues to some communities around 21 Indian Point.
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: Sorry, could you say the 23 last bit again, except for?
24 MR. STUYVENBERG: Except for the potential 25 effects of some lost revenues from the plant itself Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3003 1 right around Indian Point, given that the targeted 2 effects of a plant retirement versus the more diffuse 3 effects of conservation programs that likely span a 4 much larger area than just the Town of Buchanan, the 5 Hendrick Hudson School District and a few other areas 6 that are particularly reliant on Indian Point's pilot 7 and tax payments.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. New York, any 9 of the witnesses, would you like to comment on what 10 you heard in regards to suggested alternatives that 11 you think should have been done?
12 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes. I think -- this 13 point came up before when we talked about combined 14 heat and power. I think there are a lot of positive 15 benefits of energy efficiency. It's hard to imagine 16 how energy efficiency can have a small to moderate 17 impact. It may be a negative impact because of all 18 the positives that occur from it. Jobs are created.
19 Less energy is used. Perhaps houses are improved.
20 Maybe that leads to a property tax increase --
21 property base increase. That's more speculative, but 22 there are jobs and socio-economic impacts.
23 Energy efficiency is done where people 24 work and live, so you'd have major positive benefits 25 in New York City, Long Island, Westchester County, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3004 1 other areas of the State. I think that those positive 2 impacts should be considered if you're going to look 3 at environmental impacts. If you're going to consider 4 the negative, you ought to consider the positive as 5 well.
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: Staff, how would you 7 respond to that? It seems to me that a lot of people 8 have put an awful lot of effort into this area and 9 it's liable to continue. Why is it now time to start 10 really seriously evaluating things like energy 11 efficiency in your analysis?
12 MR. STUYVENBERG: I'm sorry, could you 13 please repeat the question?
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: Mostly you've heard what 15 New York has stated and it seems to me it was a 16 selling point for the consideration of energy 17 efficiencies being looked at and the positive benefits 18 from them incorporated into the EIS. Is it not time 19 to take a look at that seriously in regards to being 20 a viable option as it's moved forward?
21 MR. STUYVENBERG: We definitely considered 22 it a viable option. We considered it as a stand-alone 23 alternative to license renewal. So yes, it should be 24 considered and we did consider it.
25 In terms of the specific benefits Mr.
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Page 3005 1 Schlissel named, when we look at some of the 2 underlying analyses for our conservation and energy 3 efficiency findings, if you go to the Shearon Harris 4 Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, or 5 the Three Mile Island Final Supplemental Environmental 6 Impact Statement, both of which are in evidence, 7 you'll find that we indicated that especially energy 8 efficiency programs that say increase efficiency of 9 homes can have positive benefits that can be 10 disproportionately good for minority and low-income 11 populations because they're specifically targeted to 12 those populations.
13 So one of the challenges with the Staff's 14 approach to impacts is presenting them because we have 15 a small, moderate, and large impact system. It's 16 presenting them in a way that tries to make them 17 comparable, but not to make it appear that a positive 18 benefit is somehow a bad thing. So typically small is 19 very good.
20 And we found in these cases that the small 21 impacts included those potential positive benefits to 22 some groups and from some programs and we looked at 23 things like appliance replacement programs.
24 So anyway, I think some of the things Mr.
25 Schlissel has discussed are actually baked in the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3006 1 Staff's analysis and we discussed -- I may have to 2 check the specific exhibit to be sure, but I do 3 believe at least one of those analyses also considered 4 jobs that could ensue from those types of programs.
5 So again, those were incorporated by reference in this 6 EIS. Just because those specific words didn't appear 7 here, didn't mean it wasn't something that went 8 through the Staff's mind as it reviewed this issue.
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay, but where would it 10 be articulated in the report? In the appendix?
11 MR. STUYVENBERG: I'm going to take a step 12 back, actually. One of the things we did and one of 13 the things NEPA encourages is incorporation of pre-14 existing analyses by reference. So we incorporated in 15 our analysis of conservation and energy efficiency by 16 reference the analyses of impacts that went into 17 Shearon Harris Final Supplemental Environmental Impact 18 Statement and the Three Mile Island Final Supplemental 19 Environmental Impact Statement. Those two 20 Environmental Impact Statements considered 21 conservation or energy efficiency, I don't remember 22 specifically which name it was under, as stand-alone 23 alternatives to license renewal. And so there's some 24 more discussion about the specific inputs to those 25 impacts there.
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Page 3007 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay, but would the 2 decision maker be able to glean that from your 3 discussion of those two reports?
4 MS. MIZUNO: If I may, Your Honor, we're 5 looking at the FSEIS Section 8.3.3. I think that's 6 the section of the FSEIS that we're talking about and 7 that would be at pages 8-41 to 8-43. I don't have the 8 Adobe page numbers.
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: Do you have the exhibit 10 number?
11 MS. MIZUNO: For the FSEIS?
12 MR. TURK: New York 000133B, I believe, 13 Your Honor.
14 MS. MIZUNO: Thank you.
15 MR. TURK: In particular, if you look at 16 page 8-43, in that section that Ms. Mizuno just 17 referenced, you'll see a discussion of Shearon Harris 18 and Three Mile Island FSEISes that Mr. Stuyvenberg had 19 just referred to.
20 MR. STUYVENBERG: So I'm sorry, it appears 21 you're looking for something more. I think what we 22 indicated here was the analyses in recent NRC license 23 renewal SEISes and we pointed specifically to those 24 SEISes had indicated those impacts from conservation 25 were small and we adopted those analyses. So I think Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3008 1 we expressly indicated that. I would hope a decision 2 maker could go see those, especially as the NRC 3 decision maker here has access to those documents.
4 And again, we used it because it was 5 something NEPA practice kind of encourages, 6 incorporation by reference.
7 JUDGE McDADE: But just simply looking at 8 your Environmental Impact Statement, the thought 9 process that you just went through, that you just 10 described, it isn't expressly articulated in the 11 Environmental Impact Statement for Indian Point. You 12 do believe that it would be referenced through the 13 Shearon Harris and the TMI, correct?
14 MR. STUYVENBERG: I believe that's 15 correct. I would point out however, Your Honor, that 16 in the combination alternatives and I'm going to flip 17 to there so give me just a moment, we actually did 18 briefly discuss and I may have to find a pin site for 19 you, but I did briefly discuss there can be positive 20 impacts from energy efficiency and conservation. I 21 think we specifically mentioned environmental justice.
22 JUDGE McDADE: The thought process that 23 you just went through, the description of what the 24 Staff considered in developing the Environmental 25 Impact Statement, that doesn't appear expressly in any Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3009 1 of the language in the Environmental Impact Statement.
2 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct.
3 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, and we'll probably be 4 getting into later some of the differences, for 5 example, I believe New York talks about the Shearon 6 Harris, that being whether it's a regulated electric 7 market or not a regulated electric market and we'll be 8 talking about other issues of why TMI may or may not 9 be an applicable analogy. I just wanted to get that 10 out.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: And so if I understand 12 you correctly, two points, one when you said it ends 13 up to be a small impact that could very well mean that 14 it's no impact to a positive impact, in addition to 15 being a small impact. There's no way to discriminate 16 between those three items?
17 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct, Your 18 Honor.
19 JUDGE WARDWELL: And that you've adopted 20 Shearon Harris without any -- and Three Mile Island, 21 I believe, without any consideration of adapting it to 22 any degree to reflect Indian Point's situation?
23 MR. STUYVENBERG: What we've done, Your 24 Honor, is we've adopted the analysis of impacts and 25 insofar as we did it with regard to the impacts, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3010 1 that's correct. Insofar as the analysis deals with 2 viability of the alternative, that's been New York 3 State's specific determination and it's based in large 4 part on input we've received from the State of New 5 York in that process.
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. Moving on, on 7 page 46 of 000046, Exhibit 000046, New York says that 8 "NRC Staff assumed with no supporting analysis of the 9 specific impacts that the environmental impacts of a 10 natural gas combined cycle plant would be essentially 11 the same for a repower facility as for a facility 12 constructed at Indian Point."
13 My question to Staff is what's the basis 14 for this opinion? Why do you feel that the impacts 15 would be the same for a repowered one as would be for 16 one started from scratch?
17 MR. STUYVENBERG: I would say that -- let 18 me start by saying it's not the same as one started 19 from scratch. The Indian Point site is not a 20 greenfield site. It's a facility that has existing 21 transmission, switchyards, it's already being 22 converted to industrial use. It also happens to have 23 a rather large natural gas pipeline that crosses it.
24 It has access to water. And it also has preexisting 25 structures that access the water.
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Page 3011 1 So there are advantages to the Indian 2 Point site that are similar to the advantages I would 3 expect at a repowered site in that I could reuse --
4 one, I'm not specifically building a power plant, but 5 one could reuse many of the elements at the plant 6 site. So that's part of the thinking.
7 I would also note that in, I believe it's 8 the 2007 SYNAPSE report, with all due respect to Mr.
9 Schlissel, he presents two alternatives for repowering 10 which could include either taking existing facility 11 and repowering that facility or building right next to 12 an existing facility a new power plant that would take 13 advantage of the existing site infrastructure.
14 And in his presentation as well, it 15 appears to be, I don't want to put words in his mouth, 16 but it appears to be an implication that those are 17 similar types of activities and both would constitute 18 repowering for the purposes of our analysis.
19 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. Switching 20 over to New York Exhibit 000047 of Mr. Lanzalotta's, 21 page 21, it says that "the FSEIS conclusion that 22 substantial new capital investments will be needed to 23 address reliability and transmission constraints in 24 the event the Indian Point units are retired, ignores 25 the developing realities of utility planning."
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Page 3012 1 My question for Staff is won't the need 2 for new capital investment be needed in two short 3 years, even with license renewal in this situation?
4 MR. STUYVENBERG: We didn't do a specific 5 analysis of that so I don't know for sure.
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: So similar to our earlier 7 discussion before the break in regards to the present 8 worth of impacts, likewise, the need to have capital 9 investment in -- at my advancing years, 20 years 10 doesn't seem so far in the future any more. You have 11 not incorporated that in your --
12 MR. STUYVENBERG: No, sir. And also I 13 would point out that we didn't hold any capital 14 investments as a reason not to consider an 15 alternative.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: And you're further 17 testifying it has nothing to do with the differences 18 in our ages either?
19 MR. STUYVENBERG: I'm sorry --
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: Strike that question.
21 In Mr. Schlissel's rebuttal, that's Exhibit 000437 on 22 page 17, "Entergy assumes that the following older, 23 dirtier, and less-efficient coal and oil-gas-steam 24 capacity that would be retired in the baseline 25 analysis would not be retired in the no action Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3013 1 alternative."
2 I'll ask New York of this. Didn't Staff 3 conclude that at least in their testimony on 000133, 4 page 21, that coal plants would not be restarted or 5 used in the future?
6 MR. SCHLISSEL: Page 21 of?
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: Of Staff's testimony on -
8 - Exhibit 000133, page 21. Maybe we can bring that 9 up. I should be bringing that up, too, so I can point 10 you to where it is.
11 (Pause.)
12 Just search for something like baseline.
13 MR. SCHLISSEL: It's near the quote, I 14 believe.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: Here it is, yes. Bring 16 the arrow down, good, across, across, too far, back.
17 There we go. Highlight that, starts with "The Staff."
18 That's one area that talked about remove the coal 19 analysis from the range of reasonable alternatives.
20 Should say something about not restarting, too. I'll 21 have to pull up mine.
22 Roll down further, search for restart. It 23 doesn't say it specifically.
24 MR. SIPOS: Your Honor, this is John 25 Sipos, excuse me. Is the premise of the question Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3014 1 something Entergy said or something Staff said?
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: It was something New York 3 says that these older plants would not be retired in 4 the no action alternative. And my question is was 5 Staff's conclusions on page 21 that plants would not 6 be restarted, would not lead one to believe that the 7 plants would not be restarted or used in the future.
8 Or either the no action alternative or for any of the 9 other baseline studies. That's the heart of the 10 question. Does that make sense to you?
11 MR. SIPOS: And so it's going to what 12 Staff said as opposed to what Entergy said in its 13 Environmental Report?
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: Right.
15 MR. SCHLISSEL: If I might, maybe I can 16 clear this up?
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: Yes.
18 MR. SCHLISSEL: I don't want to put words 19 in the Staff's mouth and if I misinterpret, my 20 understanding from this quote was a new generating 21 unit, not a continued operation of an existing unit.
22 I thought that that was what Staff was excluding the 23 building of a new coal plant somewhere.
24 JUDGE McDADE: Now when you say new coal 25 plant, are you talking about new from the ground up or Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3015 1 restarting existing plants or both?
2 MR. SCHLISSEL: My interpretation was 3 building a new unit. I assume you could also do the 4 same --
5 JUDGE McDADE: I'll ask Staff, from what 6 analysis do the coal plants -- what's the status of 7 the coal plants in your analysis? That's the heart of 8 this question.
9 MR. STUYVENBERG: The notion here was to 10 remove from consideration a new coal-fired plant as 11 Mr. Schlissel indicated. That is correct.
12 JUDGE McDADE: So this makes no reference 13 either to the continued operation of existing plants 14 or the restart of a closed plant or I guess furloughed 15 plant?
16 MR. TURK: I'm sorry, Your Honor. You say 17 "this makes no reference", you mean this part of the 18 testimony?
19 JUDGE McDADE: Yes.
20 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct.
21 JUDGE McDADE: Do you have something 22 further?
23 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes, sir. I was just 24 going to point out that the section of my rebuttal 25 testimony that you cited refers to an analysis of the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3016 1 outputs from the two computer runs that Entergy gave 2 us. One was their base case and then one was the no 3 action alternative. And in those runs --
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: Are these the economic 5 runs?
6 MR. STUYVENBERG: Well --
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: Pricing market runs or 8 what runs are you referring to, what model?
9 MR. STUYVENBERG: I mean they can talk 10 about their own modeling, but it was -- they ran two 11 scenarios and it showed -- the results of that show 12 emissions, generation, and cost from the different 13 plants year by year. And in terms of these 14 conclusions on page 17 of my rebuttal testimony that 15 you referenced, those are the conclusions that I 16 pulled -- I mean if you compare how much coal capacity 17 is operating in one versus retired in the other, it's 18 easy to do these calculations and come up with these 19 conclusions. It's directly out of their model ones.
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. And I'll turn 21 to Entergy, what model runs and what were you using in 22 this analysis?
23 DR. HARRISON: Yes, that -- the references 24 to the model that we used which is referred to as the 25 NEMS model, it's a model that was developed by the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3017 1 U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information 2 Administration over -- for many years. And as Mr.
3 Schlissel said, we use that model to estimate the 4 likely effects if Indian Point generation were not 5 available.
6 So one was a run that was the baseline run 7 and we did a second run where everything else was the 8 same, except that we removed the two units, the two 9 Indian Point units. And so that allowed us to 10 estimate what the effects would be of not having 11 Indian Point generation available.
12 So I guess one word that is different in 13 Mr. Schlissel's testimony, he says that we assume that 14 these various changes would occur, but as he has now 15 just said they're not assumptions, they're the results 16 of the model analysis. So what those differences were 17 were in terms of different types of generation that 18 would be replace the generation of 16.3 million 19 megawatt hours of Indian Point generation.
20 And relates to the issue of retirements, 21 the issue is that in some of the baseline cases, that 22 is the run with Indian Point in, there would be units 23 that would retire because of some of the developments 24 we've talked about, the lower natural gas prices. We 25 haven't talked about the environmental regulations, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3018 1 but those are major costs that someone else would 2 choose not to bear and therefore they would retire.
3 So but when you take Indian Point out, you 4 increase electricity prices. You make it more easy.
5 You make it possible for some of those units that 6 otherwise would have retired to stay in operation. So 7 it's those --
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: So in that statement on 9 page 17 is not an assumption of input parameters, but 10 as a statement of really the output of the model.
11 DR. HARRISON: That's precisely --
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: The model retired them 13 because of the cost analysis that was being done --
14 DR. HARRISON: That's precisely correct.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: -- and they didn't do the 16 no action alternative.
17 DR. HARRISON: That's correct.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you.
19 MR. SCHLISSEL: Could I respond for one 20 moment?
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: Sure. Please do.
22 MR. SCHLISSEL: I disagree that it's not 23 an assumption. Maybe acceptance is a better word.
24 It's at older, dirty, inefficient plants, some of 25 which have announced retirements and that the New York Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3019 1 ISO is taken out of its most recent reliability needs 2 assessment that they are anticipating would be 3 retired. Entergy assumes and again it is assuming 4 that these plants would be able to run for the next 20 5 years in an economic weight. And so I think it is an 6 assumption on Entergy's part. I think it's a very 7 incorrect assumption and it's one that very much 8 distorts the results of their analysis.
9 DR. HARRISON: I wonder if I could just 10 comment.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: Please do.
12 DR. HARRISON: As I mentioned, the NEMS 13 model is developed by the Department of Energy. So 14 this is an objective model. It's not our assumption 15 about what units would be available and what units 16 would retire under different market conditions. It's 17 what's embedded in this model that is widely regarded 18 as a state-of-the-art model for these in this case.
19 So -- and this, by the way, this issue of 20 retirement, what units would retire, this has been the 21 subject of a great deal of interest, partly because of 22 the lower natural gas prices, lower energy demand, and 23 the potential very expensive environmental 24 regulations. So this is an area that when, for 25 example, the U.S. Department of Energy runs this Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3020 1 model, they run different scenarios and they get 2 different retirements of different units under 3 different scenarios. That's the kind of analysis that 4 was done here and that's the usefulness of having an 5 objective model driven by markets. We're trying to 6 reproduce the effects of market conditions under these 7 circumstances.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: When you ran this model, 9 did you dictate that certain older plants be retired 10 or that was what the model ended up selecting for this 11 run?
12 DR. HARRISON: Not at all. Just to be 13 clear, we did not dictate anything. We used the 14 results from the model under the baseline conditions, 15 the baseline conditions that are developed by the U.S.
16 Department of Energy have a certain number of 17 retirements, not just in this region, but in other 18 regions and so that was a result of the analysis in 19 the baseline conditions and then we re-ran it. The 20 results were the differences based on this objective 21 market analysis.
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: And under that re-run and 23 that was a re-run where you retired Indian Point in 24 essence, is that correct?
25 DR. HARRISON: That's right. And the only Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3021 1 difference between those two runs was that Indian 2 Point, the two units were not in the analysis.
3 Everything else was exactly the same.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: I assume you saw some 5 output where you could see that, in fact, here are the 6 plants that were running with that and included some 7 of the older ones. Is that correct?
8 DR. HARRISON: We were sort of focused on 9 the environmental impact, so we didn't look at 10 individual plants, but what we did look at was the 11 mix, how the generation mix changed over time. So 12 what we saw between these two runs, not looking so 13 much at individual plants, but what we saw was that 14 virtually all of the replacement generation was fossil 15 fuel, a combination of some coal, and some natural 16 gas.
17 So that allowed us then and again as 18 output for the model to look at what that meant from 19 an environmental perspective. And so the model 20 included output, for example, in CO2 emissions. So we 21 could look at the increased CO2 emissions, due to 22 Indian Point's 16.3 million megawatt hours not being 23 available and replaced by this other generation.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. Mr. Schlissel 25 --
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Page 3022 1 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes, sir.
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: I'll just let you comment 3 on that rather than me ask a question.
4 MR. SCHLISSEL: With respect to Dr.
5 Harrison, the idea that coal plants which are already 6 old today, 50, 60 years old, 40, 50, 60 years old are 7 going to continue to operate for another 20 years is 8 quite honestly absurd. Coal plants today in the U.S.,
9 many, many of them are under attack due to the market.
10 It's not the EPA. It's the low price of natural gas.
11 And these -- this 323 megawatts of coal 12 capacity in Upstate New York, the outputs don't list 13 the exact plants, but that doesn't matter because just 14 about the owners of all the coal plants in Upstate New 15 York have announced they want to retire their units.
16 They've put a notice to New York ISO.
17 As I mentioned before, the reliability 18 needs assessment of 2012 that ISO just issued, 19 excludes some 1700 megawatts of capacity from its 20 analyses going forward because the owners have put in 21 notice that they want to retire their units.
22 Well, Entergy's modeling doesn't reflect 23 that. And I just think it gives an unrealistic 24 picture of what is likely to happen.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: And do you believe that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3023 1 that unrealistic picture is a result of how Entergy 2 provided input parameters or that the model is not the 3 appropriate -- is not performing the appropriate 4 analysis based on modern-day situation?
5 MR. SCHLISSEL: I think it's both the fact 6 that when Entergy got the -- I hope one of the Entergy 7 witnesses will correct me if I'm wrong, but my 8 understanding from their testimony report was they 9 used the same run that the -- the baseline was the 10 same run -- the base case was the same run that the 11 Department of Energy had used and the Department of 12 Energy didn't reflect the retirements or planned 13 retirements. So therefore, when Entergy ran it, the 14 units were still in there.
15 Part of it also is the NEMS model, I don't 16 want to jump ahead in your questions, but the NEMS 17 model is a nationwide model. Actually, it's used for 18 all of North America, has thousands of power plants 19 and what they do is they -- because it's such a large 20 geographic area, they simplify it. They bunch some 21 units together. They have very simplistic 22 transmission links between units, so that the results 23 of the NEMS model, the Entergy results, no action 24 alternative, you have really -- bizarre is about the 25 only word that pops in my mind -- results. You end up Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3024 1 building capacity. You retire Indian Point and you 2 don't build anything in Downstate New York. Instead, 3 you build it in New England.
4 Other results of the NEMS model, you 5 retire Indian Point and renewable generation in the 6 Midwest goes down, and coal generation in Texas goes 7 up. I mean the model is good for its purpose which is 8 evaluating proposed regulations, changes in policy.
9 You read DOE's website, you look at -- read the 10 studies they've used. They predict gas prices on a 11 nationwide basis.
12 As I mentioned in my testimony, I've seen 13 nobody use it to model the retirement of one or two 14 units. I looked. I've been involved in a lot of 15 cases involving a lot of retirements of plants the 16 last seven years. Nobody has used NEMS. No utility 17 or plant owner has used NEMS. It's a good model for 18 its stated purpose which is not what Entergy has used 19 it for.
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. Some last 21 comments on this?
22 DR. HARRISON: Yes. In terms of the model 23 as we talked about before, the assumptions that we 24 made were objective. They're based on DOE's 25 assumptions, not assumptions that we made.
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Page 3025 1 In terms of the appropriateness of the 2 model, there's one term that I wanted to add to the 3 discussion which is market. In order to determine 4 what the effects would be if Indian Point generation 5 were not available, you need to understand market 6 conditions and what the results of those changed 7 market conditions mean for generation.
8 So you need a model like NEMS that models 9 new editions, that models replacement. And it does 10 include replacement decisions. But it takes the point 11 as you see in the real world that decisions on 12 retirements can change if market conditions change.
13 And that's what we see. So we see retirements 14 changing, announced retirements changing as market 15 conditions change including natural gas prices and 16 other factors.
17 So what you need in order to understand 18 what will happen in a market setting, really that's 19 what we're talking about. We want to describe 20 scenarios, alternative scenarios, but at the end of 21 the day what would replace Indian Point generation if 22 it were not available in 2013 and 2015 would be 23 determined by the market. And so we need a model that 24 looks at market conditions.
25 We've talked about the need -- what's Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3026 1 happening in natural gas markets. You also need a 2 market, a model that incorporates those interactions 3 with natural gas prices and with coal prices and 4 retirements and new generation. So if -- and we would 5 be glad to discuss more of the issue of models, but we 6 think that for purposes of this analysis with this 7 large unit, 16.3 megawatt hours, about 10 percent of 8 New York City's electricity demand, you need a model 9 that reflects these various market conditions and that 10 we think in terms of the analysis that was made that 11 the bulk of replacement generation would come from 12 fossil fuel generation is a very robust conclusion 13 based on those market conditions.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: Would that fossil fuel be 15 natural gas?
16 DR. HARRISON: Well, we did look at what -
17 - we did the model generates changes in natural gas 18 and coal, so the fossil fuel was a -- in the model run 19 that we did, the difference was represented by some 20 natural gas generation and some additional coal 21 generation.
22 MR. MEEHAN: And if I could add, I just 23 would like to say I disagree with the characterization 24 that the model is inappropriate and that the results 25 are not reasonable results. As Dr. Harrison stated, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3027 1 this is going to be a market response.
2 And Mr. Schlissel said, one of the things 3 the model shows is that units that are retired with 4 Indian Point are not retired without Indian Point.
5 That really contradicts his basic premise that the 6 model doesn't have retirements. It does have these 7 retirements in, but when you take Indian Point out, 8 the economics change and those units are able to 9 change their decision to retire.
10 Additionally, I think it's eminently 11 sensible that given the situation in the Northeast, 12 the amount of capacity that exists, that the basic 13 thing the NEMS is going to show is that the energy 14 replacement for Indian Point comes from increased 15 generation at existing plants. That is something Mr.
16 Schlissel said early on in this testimony that the mix 17 was going to include increased generation at existing 18 plants as well as new gas generation. The model shows 19 both those things.
20 And to model this without a model of the 21 scope of NEMS that could look at what happens on a 22 broad, regional basis, international basis, and could 23 look at what happens with respect to relative gas and 24 coal prices wouldn't be appropriate. You wouldn't get 25 the proper response.
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Page 3028 1 Today's gas prices are extremely low.
2 They're under coal. But when you look in the model, 3 and you look at forward markets as well and most of 4 the forecasts, you don't see that situation lasting 5 out to 2015 or '16. The expectation is that gas 6 prices are going to rise, not to historically high 7 levels or anything near those levels, but back up to 8 around $4 to $5 to $6 eventually and be above coal 9 prices in the time frame when we would look at Indian 10 Point not operating in the no action alternative.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you.
12 MR. SCHLISSEL: Since they've used my 13 name, could I just respond once more? Yes, I think 14 it's good to use a model. Again, I think NEMS is the 15 wrong model. Because it's so national in scope, it 16 simplifies. It doesn't replicate the New York system 17 or the New England system, transmission-wise, plant-18 wise.
19 One reason why there's so much generation 20 at fossil -- existing fossil units is after I got the 21 Entergy testimony I called the people at the DOE who 22 develop and use NEMS. And I said how did you include 23 the New York 15 by 15 or 45 by 15 energy efficiency 24 and renewable goals? They said we didn't. We don't.
25 It's not included in there. Okay?
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Page 3029 1 They said that they couldn't do it. That 2 the way -- I don't want to -- it's a tangent to 3 describe how they -- they have a module that does an 4 econometric analysis to come up with the load, the 5 projections of peak demand and energy efficiency. I 6 said well, how would you model whether going forward 7 there's more energy efficiency put in? And they said 8 the model doesn't do that. The model -- the NEMS 9 model, unlike a lot of other models, strategists, 10 PROMOD, the MAPS model that these gentlemen used in 11 2003 --
12 MR. TENPAS: Your Honor, objection at this 13 point. We're well beyond anything in evidence. We've 14 had no disclosures about any of these conversations.
15 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, the objection is 16 noted and overruled. Continue.
17 MR. SCHLISSEL: So the model -- these 18 other models do exactly what Mr. Meehan said and I 19 agree with him 100 percent, and Dr. Harrison, too.
20 These models do what they're saying they want to do.
21 NEMS is just not a good model at doing it because it's 22 simplifying things so much and you get these results, 23 plus it doesn't include the New York energy efficiency 24 and renewable goals and you cannot put in energy 25 efficient additional energy efficiency as a new Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3030 1 resource into NEMS.
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: I'll go to Entergy. Do 3 you agree that NEMS can't handle the energy efficiency 4 component for this?
5 DR. HARRISON: Well, let me address a 6 couple of those points. One is --
7 JUDGE McDADE: Let me just interrupt you 8 for a second, Dr. Harrison.
9 DR. HARRISON: Yes.
10 JUDGE McDADE: And again, try to mention 11 your names just so we make sure that the court 12 reporter puts the appropriate statement to the 13 appropriate expert.
14 DR. HARRISON: Yes, my apologies, Your 15 Honor. David Harrison for Entergy.
16 Let me address a couple of those issues.
17 One is whether the NEMS model accurately reflects the 18 electricity demand in New York based on the 15 by 15 19 goals. We actually looked at that and the sales goal 20 for the 15-15 program is 141 million megawatt hours.
21 Then we looked at what NEMS had as New 22 York's energy demand in 2015. It was 143 megawatt 23 hours2.662037e-4 days <br />0.00639 hours <br />3.80291e-5 weeks <br />8.7515e-6 months <br />, a difference of only 2 megawatt hours. So in 24 terms of the modeling, and again we'll get to perhaps 25 where you're going later in the baseline conditions, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3031 1 in terms of whether the baseline condition --
2 JUDGE McDADE: Excuse me, Dr. Harrison, 3 and I may have just misheard. Did you say 115 and 143 4 or was it 145 and 143?
5 DR. HARRISON: I believe I said that the 6 sales goal, the goal for sales was 141 million 7 megawatt hours.
8 JUDGE McDADE: One forty one.
9 DR. HARRISON: One forty one. And that 10 the NEMS projection for 2015 was 143 million megawatt 11 hours1.273148e-4 days <br />0.00306 hours <br />1.818783e-5 weeks <br />4.1855e-6 months <br />.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, thank you. I just 13 misinterpreted or misheard. I just wanted to make 14 sure --
15 DR. HARRISON: My apologies if I misspoke.
16 So the point is that in terms of the baseline 17 conditions in NEMS, and that's what this relates to, 18 that the 15 by 15 program is part of the baseline for 19 doing an analysis of what would replace Indian Point 20 if the Indian Point generation were not available, the 21 baseline is similar.
22 In terms of the NEMS model does 23 incorporate the effects of various federal and state 24 energy efficiency programs. What it doesn't do is 25 have a separate -- assume, it doesn't assume that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3032 1 there will be new state energy efficiency programs put 2 in place. So it does track the effects of higher 3 prices on energy consumption.
4 So as we reported in our results under the 5 no action alternative, there are some increases in 6 energy prices. Those result in lower energy demand or 7 conservation. So I guess I would conclude that the 8 model does appropriately take into account the current 9 baseline conditions in New York. It does take into 10 account the possibility of energy conservation in an 11 appropriate way.
12 MR. MEEHAN: And if I could add one thing?
13 Dr. Harrison talked about the small difference --
14 JUDGE McDADE: Mr. Meehan.
15 MR. MEEHAN: This is Mr. Meehan for 16 Entergy. Dr. Harrison talked about the small 17 difference between 145 million megawatt hours and 143 18 million megawatt hours. That's the difference in what 19 we're looking at at the baseline versus the 15 by 15 20 goal.
21 But if we look at what the real forecast 22 is, the New York ISO, the Independent System Operator, 23 who makes the forecasts for the State, would look at 24 over 160,000 megawatt hours for 2015 because based 25 upon their assessment of the programs, that's where Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3033 1 the demand is going to be. So I think to criticize 2 NEMS because it has 2,000 more gigawatt hours is 3 unrealistic. Doesn't recognize the fact that, in 4 fact, the NYISO has a much higher forecast.
5 JUDGE McDADE: Thank you.
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: Still staying with 7 Exhibit 000437 on page 23, Mr. Schlissel, you made the 8 statement that "I believe that the new generating 9 capacity that would be added would be clean and 10 efficient natural gas combined with combined-cycle 11 units."
12 My question to you, wouldn't natural gas 13 plants still have a higher impact than just continuing 14 with the operations of Indian Point?
15 MR. SCHLISSEL: They would emit some CO2.
16 They have very small emissions of NOx. So that's 17 true. They emit some small particulates, so that's 18 certainly true. They would use a lot less water. As 19 for Indian Point going forward, there are 20 environmental impacts. You have another 20 years of 21 radioactive waste that's likely to be stored on site 22 for anyone's guess how long. There are other 23 environmental impacts of continued operation of the 24 power plant. There's the uranium cycle, fuel cycle.
25 So I think there's no free lunch for any alternative.
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Page 3034 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: Staff, did you evaluate 2 the construction of the plant also in addition to the 3 no action alternative or just merely the impacts 4 associated with the plant itself as it is operating?
5 MR. STUYVENBERG: Let me make sure I 6 understand your question. You're asking whether we 7 analyzed the impacts of construction of Indian Point 8 as part of --
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: No, no. Construction of 10 a new gas plant in the no action alternative.
11 MR. STUYVENBERG: We assessed the impacts 12 of a natural gas combined-cycle facility both as a 13 stand-alone alternative and indicated that as a stand-14 alone alternative it could also be a consequence of no 15 action. So it's something that can be included in no 16 action. It's not specifically in that impact level 17 that we report for the no action alternative.
18 And the Staff takes this approach to 19 alternatives analysis because of comments it received 20 when it first promulgated it's license renewal rules 21 where Staff had initially posed alternatives as merely 22 consequences of the no action alternative based on 23 comments we received from a wide array of 24 stakeholders, including states, among them New York 25 State.
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Page 3035 1 We took their comments into consideration 2 and decided to consider those alternatives as stand-3 alone alternatives to the license renewal rather than 4 a solely consequences of no actions. So we 5 acknowledged the consequence of no action, but we 6 considered them as stand-alone alternatives.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: But my question is do you 8 include the construction of them also or just the 9 operational impacts of those plants?
10 MR. STUYVENBERG: We include construction 11 and operation, but we separate those out in how we 12 describe them. So we talk about what the impacts 13 would be from construction and what the impacts would 14 be from operation.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. Entergy's 16 Exhibit 000479 on page 16, it's Answer 24. I think 17 you stated that "Indian Point baseload generation 18 would be replaced primarily by fossil fuel generation 19 from existing natural gas and coal facilities."
20 The question I have is don't your results 21 show in part that coal facilities would be developed 22 to compensate for Indian Point shutdown -- strike that 23 whole question. That's misinterpretation.
24 Let's go to page 29, Answer 24, where New 25 York states that "Section 8.3.1 of the FSEIS evaluates Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3036 1 the environmental impacts of natural gas fire 2 generation." Table 8-3 of the FSEIS summarizes the 3 environmental impacts from natural gas fire 4 generation.
5 And my question is to Staff is there any 6 requirement for any federal agency to issue an EIS for 7 natural gas plants that you're aware of? And if so, 8 do you have any information about what an EIS for 9 natural gas plant might look at when it compares to 10 say a nuclear power plant in it's alternative 11 analysis?
12 MR. STUYVENBERG: To the first question, 13 I'm not aware of a requirement to use -- to implement 14 EIS. Now if it's a federal agency, for example, like 15 Tennessee Valley Authority who might be undertaking 16 the action, they would have to consider it -- the NEPA 17 ramifications of its action. I'm familiar with a TVA 18 environmental assessment for a natural gas fired plant 19 where it conducted extensive mitigation and got to a 20 mitigated Finding of No Significant impacts. But 21 there's not a specific EIS requirement per se.
22 MR. SCHLISSEL: If I might just add, if 23 you look at the State of New York, Wisconsin, numbers 24 of states do equivalence of the Federal Environmental 25 Impact Statements in licensing of gas-fired units.
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Page 3037 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: I was just curious --
2 JUDGE McDADE: And also again preface by 3 saying Mr. Schlissel.
4 MR. SCHLISSEL: Oh, I'm sorry. Mr.
5 Schlissel.
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: On page 31, this still is 7 with Entergy's testimony that Section 8.3.4 of the 8 FSEIS discusses alternative generated sources that 9 were eliminated as reasonable alternatives that a 10 proposed action has stand-alone alternatives.
11 And have you limited any alternatives to 12 the one single source when dealing with a no action 13 alternative?
14 MR. STUYVENBERG: I'm sorry, is this a 15 question for Staff?
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: I was addressing it to 17 Entergy in regards to their input that you took, but 18 if not, then we'll move on to you if they have no 19 contribution to this question.
20 MR. CLEARY: Donald Cleary for the 21 Applicant. Would you rephrase that question?
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: Yes, I was wondering, you 23 stated that the FSEIS discusses alternative generation 24 sources that were eliminated as reasonable 25 alternatives to the proposed action as stand-alone Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3038 1 alternatives. Just a single stand-alone alternative.
2 I was wondering whether you've eliminated 3 any of those when dealing with the no action 4 alternative?
5 MR. CLEARY: In the Entergy ER we did.
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: Can you reference where 7 that list -- the numbers that you had and what you did 8 eliminate from the no action alternative?
9 (Pause.)
10 MR. CLEARY: That would be -- let's see.
11 I believe that would be in the ER which --
12 MR. TENPAS: Your Honor, could I suggest 13 perhaps the witness might want to review Section 8.3 14 of the ER which identifies various sources that were 15 considered, but eliminated as reasonable alternatives.
16 MR. CLEARY: Yes, that's where it's from.
17 MR. TENPAS: I'm sorry, that's Entergy 18 000479 to assist the Court. I believe if the PDF page 19 29 were brought up -- I'm sorry, there's relevant 20 testimony that may be helpful around page 29.
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: But the section -- again, 22 I don't think we need to look at them now. The 23 Section is 8.3 of the ER would list those that were 24 eliminated.
25 MR. CLEARY: Correct.
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Page 3039 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: And Staff, did you follow 2 along with the same approach that was presented in the 3 ER in regards to this?
4 MR. STUYVENBERG: In terms of this thing 5 from consideration from potential no action 6 alternatives?
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: That's correct.
8 MR. STUYVENBERG: I'm trying to think 9 about the question, Your Honor. Just one moment.
10 What the Staff determined under the no 11 action alternative was that other steps were likely to 12 be necessary and would be similar to the types of 13 alternatives considered in this section.
14 I don't recall the Staff specifically 15 excluding all of the considered, but dismissed 16 alternatives from being things that could potentially 17 happen. But we didn't expressly include them as part 18 of the no action alternative. So our attempts to 19 consider combinations, our attempts to consider sole 20 source replacements were efforts to address some 21 possible range of alternatives, certainly as the GEIS 22 noted to consider all of the possible alternatives or 23 all of the possible combinations is unwieldy and 24 outside the scope of this inquiry.
25 I apologize for kind of a long response, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3040 1 but I hope that gets to --
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: That helps. Thank you.
3 MR. TENPAS: Your Honor, referring back to 4 the assistance of the Court in terms of the document 5 reference, the ER is Entergy 000015B discussion of the 6 alternatives at Section 8.3 is found at PDF page 1116.
7 That is 1116 of the PDF. On the document itself it 8 would be the page labeled at the bottom 8-50.
9 JUDGE McDADE: Thank you.
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: Would you mind coming to 11 my office as we're writing up our opinions so that 12 when I'm searching for something I can find it?
13 (Laughter.)
14 MR. TENPAS: Happy to assist in whatever 15 way the Board requests.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: On Staff's Exhibit 17 000133, page 13A14 and Andy, it might be worthwhile to 18 bring this up at this point. I'll need it for this 19 question anyhow, so bring up page 13A14, if you could.
20 (Pause.)
21 MR. STUYVENBERG: Did you mean New York 22 000133, Your Honor. Are you looking at the FEIS?
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: No, hang on just a 24 second. No, Staff 000133 is what I'm after. I 25 believe that's actual page number, not PDF page Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3041 1 number. There you go. And yes, that whole middle 2 paragraph.
3 My question to New York is in that 4 paragraph it describes what they've done for various 5 combinations. I was going to read it, and I thought 6 that's silly, I'll just bring it up and show what's 7 here in regards to the various combinations. And my 8 question to you is, for both of you, why isn't this a 9 reasonable attempt to address conservation and 10 efficiencies in a NEPA analysis? Isn't this a pretty 11 good whack at it?
12 JUDGE McDADE: Is that for Mr. Schlissel?
13 JUDGE WARDWELL: It's for either one.
14 It's for both in essence. Both can answer or one can 15 answer. None can't answer.
16 MR. SCHLISSEL: David Schlissel. As I 17 indicated before, I believe, NRC Combination 2 is a 18 good step in the right direction, that I would think 19 that it would include perhaps some additional 20 renewable generation, but it is a good step in the 21 right direction.
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: Is Staff required to look 23 at all possible combinations of alternatives in a NEPA 24 analysis?
25 MR. SCHLISSEL: I don't know for a fact, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3042 1 but I imagine the answer is no, they are not.
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: In fact, they're just 3 reasonable alternatives as a requirement for NEPA?
4 MR. SCHLISSEL: That's what Staff's 5 witness said in his testimony. I have no reason to 6 doubt it.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: Mr. Lanzalotta, do you 8 have any reason to doubt the statement that a set of 9 reasonable alternatives is what's required of NEPA?
10 MR. LANZALOTTA: I have no reason to doubt 11 that.
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: And this is their list of 13 their reasonable alternatives that they evaluated. Do 14 you have any comments on those particular combinations 15 that they used?
16 MR. LANZALOTTA: That's more Mr.
17 Schlissel's area.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. Let's go to 19 page 19A, Table 9. This is kind of a summary --
20 Staff, this is a summary table of the environmental 21 significance of license renewal and alternatives?
22 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: Is this the best table to 24 look at after that summary? Is this the key table 25 that kind of presents the results of your analysis or Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3043 1 is there a better one out there?
2 MR. STUYVENBERG: I think this is the best 3 table.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: And as we look at this we 5 see over the top that there's proposed actions of 6 license renewal, the no action alternative where the 7 plant is shut down is the next column, and then 8 license renewal with closed-cycle cooling is the next 9 one, and IP site or repowered site under the natural 10 gas alternative and then as a new site for natural 11 gas. Those are the columns that we're dealing with, 12 right?
13 MR. STUYVENBERG: Yes.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: And for each impact 15 category that runs along the lefthand side, you have 16 a qualification for the significance of any impact.
17 And I look at those and I say boy, that's all over the 18 place. Some of these range fairly widely. How do you 19 deal with that?
20 MR. STUYVENBERG: What we go back to, Your 21 Honor, is the decision standard for NRC in this 22 process. Really, what an Environmental Impact 23 Statement does is provide in comparative format the 24 potential impacts of various alternatives for 25 achieving a certain purpose and need. And so in that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3044 1 process as codified in 10 CFR 51.95.(c)(4), we look to 2 whether or not the adverse environmental impacts of 3 license renewal are so great that preserving the 4 option of license renewal for energy planning decision 5 makers would be unreasonable.
6 So it looks like they're all over the 7 place because in different areas we found different 8 kinds of impacts for different alternatives. We use 9 this then as a way to are those impacts so great that 10 preserving the option of license renewal would be 11 unreasonable. And in so doing whether license 12 renewal's impacts are really different than way what 13 some of the alternatives are.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: So you take land use, 15 let's not take land use. Let's take ecology and 16 aquatic. The license renewal is moderate and it's 17 small to large. Now there's a footnote and what does 18 that footnote say to that?
19 MR. STUYVENBERG: I think it refers to the 20 differences in impingement and entrainment impacts 21 versus thermal shock impacts. So that because of the 22 specific issue breakdown for license renewal as 23 contained in the GEIS and codified in Table B1, there 24 are several separate issue areas that fall into 25 aquatic ecology. So we captured that because they Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3045 1 were different and we thought it was important to 2 present that for different issues those impacts 3 varied.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: When I look at this 5 table, so you've got a full range, moderate, small to 6 large aquatic impacts. And I look at no action 7 alternative and gee, everything there is small except 8 the socio-economics is small to moderate. Well, if I 9 was quantifying that as an engineer, I might actually 10 put some numbers on these and add up the numbers and 11 see and if I did, it would show that the winner would 12 be the no action alternative. So how do you reach a 13 different conclusion?
14 MR. STUYVENBERG: I don't think we reached 15 a different conclusion. I think the conclusion we 16 reached was that the no action alternative had 17 smallest impacts, but may necessitate other actions.
18 Now remember that the Staff's decision 19 isn't which alternative to implement, but whether to 20 preserve license renewal as an option that other 21 energy planning decision makers may consider or may 22 rely upon. So if we were to -- so let me take that 23 back a step. NRC isn't in a position to say you must 24 do just plant shutdown and nothing else. Certainly as 25 we've heard testimony from the other witnesses today, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3046 1 there are potentially a variety of other things that 2 occur if a plant shuts down. None of those are under 3 NRC's control.
4 We look at alternatives, other 5 alternatives, other ways of reaching the same purpose 6 and need to compare what other types of impacts might 7 occur in replacing that power plant. And so our 8 analysis is really to say if it goes away, what are 9 the other likely impacts from that decision?
10 So it's not simply if the plant shuts 11 down, but it's all the other things that might come 12 after it which are contained elsewhere in this table 13 that the Staff also has to consider. Does that answer 14 your question?
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: So are you saying that, 16 in fact, it's the no action isn't by itself, but in 17 fact, you're evaluating what happens if Indian Point 18 disappears by, for instance, the impacts associated 19 with a new closed-cycle cooling?
20 MR. STUYVENBERG: What I would propose is 21 if we go to the Staff's Final Supplemental 22 Environmental Impact Statement on page 820.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: And what's the exhibit 24 number for that?
25 MR. STUYVENBERG: I think it's one of the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3047 1 NYS000131s, but I'm not sure which one. I know there 2 are a number of alphas that come after that.
3 MR. TURK: New York 000133B, Your Honor.
4 MR. STUYVENBERG: 000133B, Your Honor.
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: Can we pull that up.
6 MR. TURK: Your Honor, if I may point 7 something out, maybe this will get us to the bottom 8 line quicker. This table continues on page 20 of Mr.
9 Stuyvenberg's testimony. That first footnote that you 10 referenced, that footnote A which talks about the 11 aquatic impacts, that's explained at the bottom of the 12 table on page 20. And then also the no action 13 alternative which has, you'll notice at the top of 14 page 19, there's a reference to footnote B. If you 15 look on page 20, you'll see what footnote B and that's 16 where the statement that Mr. Stuyvenberg just referred 17 to that no action alternative does not exist apart 18 from other things. You'll see that testimony. There 19 are other things that would happen in the event that 20 no action was the chosen alternative.
21 So perhaps we can look at this table still 22 in the testimony without having to go to the EIS.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: And what are those other 24 things?
25 MR. STUYVENBERG: At page 822 of the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3048 1 FSEIS, we talk about what those might be. And I can 2 read them if we'd like to go to that exhibit which is 3 again NYS000133B.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: Have we got it up?
5 What's the page number?
6 MR. STUYVENBERG: I'm after page 8-22. It 7 might be in one of the subsequent 000133s. It was 8 broken into several pieces. I don't know if any one 9 of my counsel can help.
10 MR. TURK: Your Honor, with your 11 permission may I hand the FEIS to the witness so he 12 can find what he's looking for.
13 MR. STUYVENBERG: I have the FEIS.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: And what page number are 15 you after?
16 MR. STUYVENBERG: It's page 8-22 of the 17 FSEIS.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: 8-22?
19 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct.
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: So we've got to get to 21 Section 8. What's the last page of B, is this the 22 last page of B, Andy? No.
23 MS. MIZUNO: The last page of B is in 24 Section 5. This is Beth Mizuno, so we're going to 25 need to C.
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Page 3049 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: We've got to go to at 2 least C.
3 MR. STUYVENBERG: I apologize for the 4 confusion.
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: No problem.
6 MR. TURK: I think I'm responsible for 7 that. I apologize as well.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: That had crossed my mind.
9 MR. TURK: You can point the finger at me 10 whenever you want, Your Honor.
11 MR. STUYVENBERG: So let's go to the 12 paragraph beginning at line 5. And here we discuss 13 what else happens in case of no action.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: And this discussion is 15 not reflected in the Table 9-1 under no no action 16 alternative?
17 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct, and if 18 the primary reason it's not reflected is because these 19 other types of alternatives are the other items we 20 considered throughout Chapter 8.
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: And where that would be 22 reflected would be in the full discussion of Chapter 23 8. Does Chapter 8 have a similar chart just for the 24 no action alternative and various components of it, 25 options for it, or however else you might word it?
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Page 3050 1 MR. STUYVENBERG: Well, to be clear, Staff 2 didn't develop a range of potential combinations or 3 scenarios that would occur, only in the instance of no 4 action. Staff developed that range of alternatives 5 and those combinations and considered them as 6 alternatives in whole and also has been indicated 7 there are potential consequences of no action as well.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you.
9 JUDGE McDADE: Can we focus out on this 10 for a second? What page number is this again?
11 MR. STUYVENBERG: I'm sorry, this is 8-22 12 of the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact 13 Statement.
14 MS. MIZUNO: Beth Mizuno for the Staff.
15 You are looking at Adobe page 49 of 153 of New York 16 State 000133C.
17 (Music playing.)
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: Music moves some people 19 more than others.
20 JUDGE McDADE: Do we know where that's 21 coming through?
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: I thought it was 23 celebrating your coming up with the site so quickly.
24 (Laughter.)
25 MS. MIZUNO: Or so slowly, Your Honor.
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Page 3051 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay.
2 JUDGE McDADE: I thought you were still --
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: I was waiting for you.
4 JUDGE McDADE: We could have sat here for 5 a long time.
6 (Laughter.)
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: Moving on, that's all the 8 questions I have on that, thank you.
9 MR. STUYVENBERG: Thank you.
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: Moving on to page 21 and 11 I believe I'm in Staff's 000133 page 21. Strike that.
12 Pages 859 to -- I'm sorry. Answers A59 to A72 on 13 pages 44 to 55. So just go to 44 for now, Andy, A59.
14 You might just zoom out because I think 15 people will want to refer to their own. Come all the 16 way up. Fill the page. Now scroll through to page 17 55. There's a number of issues that Staff addressed 18 that covered many of the concerns that New York State 19 raised. And my question to New York State is and I 20 think I'll ask the question and then maybe we will 21 break and you can answer it after the break. This 22 will be a good way to do it because from 44 to 55, 23 Staff addressed many of your concerns.
24 My question is has not Staff commented on 25 most of your specific concerns and shown how they've Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3052 1 addressed them? It just may take you a while to look 2 through that again to refresh your memory and rather 3 than sit here and wait, I perceived there was some 4 interest in breaking for lunch at this time, so maybe 5 it's an appropriate time.
6 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, it's now about 12:20.
7 Shall we break until 1:20? Any matters to be taken up 8 before we break?
9 From the Staff?
10 MS. MIZUNO: No, sir.
11 JUDGE McDADE: Clearwater?
12 MS. RAIMUNDI: No, Your Honor.
13 JUDGE McDADE: Riverkeeper?
14 MS. BRANCATO: No, Your Honor.
15 JUDGE McDADE: New York?
16 MR. SIPOS: Your Honor, I'm endeavoring to 17 get that second report PDF file out to the folks here 18 in the room. I'm breaking it up into smaller sizes, 19 but we seem to have some Internet connectivity issues 20 as well. I'll endeavor to continue that throughout 21 the lunch.
22 JUDGE McDADE: Entergy?
23 MR. TENPAS: No, Your Honor. Nothing from 24 Entergy.
25 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, so we'll stand in Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3053 1 recess then for lunch until 1:20. Thank you.
2 (Whereupon, at 12:21 p.m., the hearing was 3 recessed, to reconvene at 1:20 p.m.)
4 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. The hearing will come 5 to order. Any administrative matters before we get 6 started?
7 MR. SIPOS: Just briefly, Your Honor, John 8 Sipos for the State of New York. At the lunch break I 9 was able to provide that document in four parts to Mr.
10 Andrew Wilkie on a stick and so he does have it in 11 electronic form.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, thank you. Okay. Judge 13 Wardwell.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: I think we left off at 15 Staff Exhibit 133, pages 44-55 where Staff addressed 16 many of New York State's concerns. And I'm asking New 17 York State to comment on whether or not they have 18 addressed most of your concerns. And if not, why not.
19 MR. SCHLISSEL: David Schlissel. Sorry.
20 Thank you. I agree with a lot of what Mr. Stuyvenberg 21 says. I can't see where in the FSEIS he explains how 22 he considered a lot of these factors. Let me go 23 through them quickly, if I might. That might be the 24 best way to do it.
25 I agree that if you're doing a need for Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3054 1 power analysis --
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: What page are you on now?
3 MR. SCHLISSEL: Sorry.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: If you can just reference 5 us, we can just go on.
6 MR. SCHLISSEL: Pages 44-47.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay.
8 MR. SCHLISSEL: I agree with his comments 9 about the need to consider a capacity credit for wind 10 as you and I discussed this morning. Also, to consider 11 wind capacity factors if you're doing a need for power 12 analysis. I did not see, and I apologize if I missed 13 it, how he explained, or the FSEIS explains how those 14 were taken into consideration. But I agree that if 15 you're going to do a need for power analysis where 16 you're looking at the economics of different 17 alternatives and the need for power from those 18 alternatives that you do consider those factors.
19 At page 47 Mr. Stuyvenberg discusses that 20 he believes the outlook for future wind power 21 development may soon be somewhat less rosy due to the 22 expiration of the production tax credit at the end of 23 2012. And he may be right. I would just -- in response 24 I would note that the -- as Mark Twain said, his death 25 was greatly exaggerated, and the death of the wind Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3055 1 production tax credit has been greatly exaggerated 2 each time it's come up for renewal.
3 It's a large industry that has production 4 facilities in many Congressional districts, including 5 Republicans and Democrats both, so I'm not so sure 6 it's going to be expire, or not be renewed.
7 With regard to Mr. Stuyvenberg's comments 8 about my mistake about the Beacon Flywheel Facility, 9 he's absolutely correct, and I apologize to everyone 10 for that mistake.
11 I'm just trying to highlight the most 12 important comments here because I generally, again, do 13 agree with what he's saying. As to whether my 14 September 2007 Synapse report was or was not submitted 15 a comment on the DSEIS, I'm sorry. I only wrote it. I 16 believe it was either attached or quoted in the 17 comments. That's the state of my knowledge with regard 18 to that.
19 As to solar, I don't understand his 20 comments. I don't think that he misstates anything 21 from my analysis. My analysis was just that solar 22 should be part of the portfolio of renewables. And I 23 think from looking at the combination scenario that he 24 may agree with that, that it's part of the portfolio.
25 But certainly not a standalone alternative, and I did Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3056 1 not mean to imply that. I apologize if he took it that 2 way.
3 As to -- on page 52 of his testimony 4 regarding the difference between repowering at Indian 5 Point versus repowering at another site, I think there 6 could be significant differences in two ways. First, 7 repowering an existing site in New York City or on 8 Long Island is sitting right in the middle of the 9 load. Some of the sites that are now being considering 10 for repowering in Astoria or on Long Island are right 11 in the middle of major loads. I think that is 12 different than Indian Point, which while close to the 13 loads is not exactly in them. And the second is --
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: Excuse me, if I may 15 interrupt.
16 MR. SCHLISSEL: Sorry.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: And that's a problem being 18 right in the middle of the loads?
19 MR. SCHLISSEL: No, I don't think it's a 20 problem. I think it's a benefit that you would get 21 from repowering a unit in the city or on Long Island 22 versus at Indian Point. And that that would provide 23 additional environmental benefits, or avoid 24 environmental impacts.
25 And the second major difference is that if Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3057 1 you repower an existing unit at an existing site in 2 New York City or Long Island, you take that existing 3 dirty, inefficient unit out of the mix and replace so 4 it's not going to be running to any extent. Whereas, 5 if you built a new gas-fired unit at Indian Point, 6 those older units on Long Island, Barrett, Port 7 Jefferson, I forget the name of the third one that's 8 being considered for repowering, they would still be 9 potentially operable as dirty, inefficient units.
10 With regard to pages 53-59, I'm not sure -
11 - or 53-54, I apologize. I'm not exactly -- I don't 12 believe I disagree with what he's saying. The 13 Champlain Hudson Power Express is a potential -- a new 14 potential transmission improvement. It's going through 15 licensing now. I understand that it's in the briefing 16 stage, that many of the parties have discussed 17 settlement, so a permit may be issued for that. That 18 Hydro-Quebec has indicated an interest in perhaps 19 purchasing up to 75 percent of the capacity of the 20 line for maybe 40 years, so that is a real possible 21 transmission alternative. And that's why I mention it 22 in my testimony Other than that, I don't think I 23 disagree with his comments.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you, Mr. Schlissel.
25 MR. SCHLISSEL: Schlissel. Staff, would you Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3058 1 like to respond?
2 MR. STUYVENBERG: I would like to say one 3 thing, and certainly appreciate Mr. Schlissel's 4 comments. I would like to say one thing regarding 5 repowering at the Indian Point site versus sites in 6 the city. I would note that if you repower at the 7 Indian Point site you also end up reusing a retired 8 power plant site at that point. That retired plant 9 site would be the Indian Point site, so in some ways 10 the notion that you're reusing land and thus reducing 11 impacts applies to repowering Indian Point, as well.
12 As concerns locations in New York City, I 13 don't have any particular disagreement with that. I 14 would note, however, that one of the things we came 15 across as we wrote the EIS was that having some 16 generation at the Indian Point site was potentially 17 important for transmission reasons, and it was 18 something that we noted, it was something that the 19 National Academy of Sciences had identified. It was 20 one of the reasons why we had considered it there, as 21 well. So, that's not to say that's to the exclusion of 22 sites in New York City necessarily, but to say that 23 was one of the reasons we had considered that site.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. Moving on to 25 New York State Exhibit 046, or back to it --
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Page 3059 1 MR. STUYVENBERG: I'm sorry, Your Honor.
2 Your Honor, my apologize. I was just looking through 3 my notes that I took while Mr. Schlissel was talking.
4 Could I follow-up one other item, too?
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: Sure, please do.
6 MR. STUYVENBERG: One of the issues that he 7 raised at the start was the notion that capacity 8 factors might be important only if you were looking at 9 need for power. One of the challenges Staff has is 10 trying to find a replacement for Indian Point, and 11 finding a way to consider something like wind power 12 where there's a lot of public interest in it. We 13 receive a lot of public comments about it. We also 14 receive corresponding comments saying you can't count 15 that for its nameplate value.
16 So, one of the ways we attempt to address 17 those issues is by using something like either a 18 capacity factor, or a capacity credit to consider how 19 that amount of wind power might factor into the 20 combination or contribute to replacement for that 21 power plant. So, while I respect his comments that in 22 some cases you look at those things if you're doing 23 need for power. We also use those as a way to 24 determine how much wind power we might be able to rely 25 on in the combination of alternatives in those cases Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3060 1 where we consider a combination. Thank you. That was 2 my only other follow-up.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: Yes. Thank you. New York 4 046 on page 29 states that, "The NRC Staff adopts DOE 5 EIA's conclusion that coal generation is forecast to 6 decline but ignores the DOE EIA's conclusion that 7 renewable generation is forecast to sharply increase 8 over the time period relevant to license renewal." And 9 I just mention to New York State on page 828 of the 10 FSEIS -- can we pull that up, Andy? It's the same --
11 must be D of that 133. It would be page 828. Is that 12 the one we were on? There we go. And we want 828. Yes, 13 the first paragraph after the heading there. It's 14 either EIA or FIA, EIA Projections. And in there 15 you'll see where the various percentages, "While coal 16 fire will account for approximately 12 percent of 17 generating capacity additions through 2035, EIA 18 projects that renewable energy sources will account 19 for 36 percent of capacity additions through 2035, and 20 new nuclear are expected to account for only about 3 21 percent." And that breaks down renewables about 26 22 percent, coal about 12 percent, and nuclear power to 23 about 3 percent with gas resulting in 46 percent left 24 over. So, doesn't that appear that Staff did actually 25 adopt the conclusions in DOE EIA showing that through Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3061 1 2035 those are the respective percentages that would 2 be anticipated?
3 MR. SCHLISSEL: The numbers are correct. I 4 believe Mr. Stuyvenberg quotes this paragraph, or at 5 least the essence of this paragraph is his rebuttal 6 testimony. When I wrote my testimony, my direct 7 testimony which is New York State 046, I believe.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Yes.
9 MR. SCHLISSEL: I didn't see how Staff had 10 taken this and applied it to New York State and to the 11 Indian Point situation. I wasn't saying that they 12 didn't quote the statement. I just didn't see how they 13 had taken it -- the significance of the statement and 14 applied it. I understand better now having read his 15 rebuttal testimony, or his testimony which came in 16 what he did.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: And you're satisfied with 18 what he did?
19 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes.
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. Moving on to 21 energy market forces and what I call importance of 22 minimizing cost. Entergy, in your testimony on 479 it 23 seems like much of the testimony seems to be focused 24 on analyzing current pricing economics rather than 25 focusing on the incremental impact analysis associated Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3062 1 with the difference between Indian Point and the No 2 Action Alternative. Is that a fair observation? And, 3 if not, correct me if that's an unfair observation.
4 MR. HARRISON: David Harrison for Entergy.
5 What page are you on?
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: I wasn't on any page. I 7 was just looking over your entire testimony in 479.
8 You got into great detail and talked about lots of 9 cost projections and economics that seem to focus on 10 the analysis of current pricing economics for energy 11 resources. And at least to me I didn't see how that 12 could apply very easily to what we're doing in an EIS 13 which to me is an incremental impact analysis 14 associated with the difference between continuing the 15 operation of Indian Point and the No Action 16 Alternative. Is that a fair observation? And, if not, 17 why is it unfair, and how could I apply all that stuff 18 you talked about on what plants are going to get 19 accepted, and lots of economic numbers floating around 20 that I didn't really see much use for myself in 21 evaluating this contention.
22 MR. HARRISON: I see. This is David 23 Harrison for Entergy. Well, I think some of that 24 analysis that you saw was doing two things; one is 25 providing a context for the analysis. So we're looking Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3063 1 at the market forces that were relevant. For example, 2 we talked about the changes in natural gas prices. But 3 the other was to comment on the observations that the 4 State witnesses had made that these factors were not 5 included in the FSEIS. And, in fact, looked at what 6 the significance of those factors would be. So, the 7 bulk of our analysis was actually to do exactly what 8 you said we should do, which is to look at the 9 potential changes in electricity generation or 10 environmental impacts between the baseline and the No 11 Action Alternatives. So, that was the focal point of 12 our analysis.
13 And as I mentioned earlier, when we were -
14 - the key issue for us was, was the State correct in 15 its judgment that that additional generation, 16 replacement generation would be primarily natural gas 17 -- excuse me, would be primarily energy efficiency or 18 renewables. So, that's why in the context of doing our 19 analysis we developed the modeling.
20 So, the economic analysis, I'm not sure 21 exactly what you're pointing to, was to provide a 22 context for that. And also to point out that if you 23 looked at some of those factors, for example, changes 24 in electricity demand growth over time, or the 25 increases in renewables or energy efficiency, and you Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3064 1 looked at the issue of whether changes in the baseline 2 due to those conditions would change your estimate of 3 whether the replacement generation would be primarily 4 fossil fuel, our conclusion was that changes -- those 5 changes in baseline as whether natural gas prices are 6 likely to be higher or lower would not change the 7 fundamental conclusion that the bulk of the 8 replacement generation would be from fossil fuel. And, 9 therefore, the likely environmental impacts of a No 10 Action Alternative should not be evaluated based on an 11 assumption that it would be energy efficiency and 12 renewables, but rather the market based result that it 13 was more likely -- it was likely to be primarily 14 fossil fuel. So, we were trying to keep our eye on the 15 ball which is to look at the likely environmental 16 impacts of the No Action Alternative, but the report 17 is sort of lengthy because we're providing some 18 context and some commentary on the arguments that the 19 New York State witnesses made.
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: Is there a good summary of 21 your results as it applies to the EIS in regards to 22 focusing specifically on your assessment of that as it 23 relates to NEPA analysis?
24 MR. HARRISON: Well, we have it both in our 25 report. Would it be easier to stay with the testimony, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3065 1 Your Honor?
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: No, you can go to your 3 report. That's fine. As long as -- what's the exhibit 4 number? That's all we need to know.
5 MR. HARRISON: Because we have an Executive 6 Summary in our report that summarizes the conclusions 7 of our analysis.
8 MR. TENPAS: Your Honor, I believe the 9 report may be Entergy 481.
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: Can we pull that up, Andy, 11 and we'll just make sure this is what you're referring 12 to, and we won't have to read the whole summary.
13 MR. HARRISON: Yes, that's right.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: And put it as a full page, 15 Andy, so we can go to the Executive Summary. I assume 16 it's probably several pages long.
17 MR. HARRISON: Yes. So, if we go to page 18 E3.
19 JUDGE WARDWELL: And that starts with one 20 being conclusions regarding the power mix that was be 21 dispatched if IP based generation were lost.
22 MR. HARRISON: That's right. So, here this 23 is where we developed our conclusions regarding the 24 generation. So we said, as I mentioned, that the 25 replacement energy would come primarily from natural Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3066 1 gas and coal power plants rather than renewables or 2 additional energy efficiency. Then we noted that in 3 order to get additional energy efficiency or 4 renewables, additional subsidies would be required.
5 Then our second conclusion was the one I 6 mentioned, that if you look at the various 7 developments that were listed by the State, those 8 would actually -- if you go through it, some of those 9 results may be considered counterintuitive. That 10 actually would make less -- would be less likely that 11 renewables and energy efficiency would be replacements 12 for energy -- for Indian Point's generation.
13 JUDGE WARDWELL: And that's what confused 14 me a little, statements like -- I ran across several 15 ones like that when I was going through your analysis.
16 MR. HARRISON: Right.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: And that's when my eyes 18 started glazing over --
19 MR. HARRISON: The issue of whether those 20 developments -- what effects they would have on the 21 results. Well, I think -- let me just give you one 22 example of renewables. So -- and this may be 23 counterintuitive. So, we're saying suppose that you 24 have a baseline that has a relatively small number of 25 renewables, and then you change that to a baseline Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3067 1 with more renewables. What we know is that in general 2 you'll start by adding the least expensive renewables.
3 So, as you add more the cost of adding additional 4 renewables is going to go up. So, if the baseline 5 level of renewables is larger, that means the 6 incremental renewables, the cost of additional 7 renewables to replace the 16.3 million megawatt hours 8 from Indian Point would tend to be even greater. And 9 a greater cost would make it less likely that the 10 market would choose those renewables. So, it sounds 11 kind of -- it sounds a little counterintuitive that 12 success in achieving renewable goals makes it less 13 likely that renewables were going to be replacement 14 energy. But if you think through it, it's sort of 15 logical.
16 MR. SCHLISSEL: Could I comment?
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: Yes, you may.
18 MR. SCHLISSEL: First, maybe I 19 misunderstood Dr. Harrison, but I just looked through 20 my testimony and I didn't mention the word "cost" at 21 all. I didn't address cost, not a bit. He said that 22 they did it in response to the State's witnesses, and 23 maybe Commissioner Bradford did, but I don't see 24 anything in my testimony that I did.
25 Now, with regard to renewables, Dr.
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Page 3068 1 Harrison starts his explanation by assuming that the 2 least expensive will be taken first. No evidence for 3 that. In fact, the evidence we develop in any new 4 technology is over time they generally become cheaper 5 economies of scale. If as expected there's more wind 6 development in New York State and around the nation, 7 the cost of building wind will go down, the capital 8 costs of building wind will go down, economies of 9 scale. So, I don't think it's necessarily fact that 10 the cost of renewables will go up over time as Dr.
11 Harrison assumes.
12 And, again, the model comes up with this 13 counterintuitive results because the model doesn't 14 faithfully replicate the New York State electric 15 system. Yes, it has gas prices, but all the models, 16 MAPS, Strategists, they're all -- gas prices are an 17 input. NEMS, again, is a very simplified model for New 18 York State and the neighboring regions, so you're 19 going to get results that seem counterintuitive, 20 anomalous, maybe perhaps wrong from the modeling 21 result.
22 MR. MEEHAN: Could I comment, on page -- in 23 Exhibit 479 on page 71 we do show the actual cost of 24 the subsidies.
25 Judge McDADE: Excuse me, Mr. Meehan. Where Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3069 1 is that?
2 MR. MEEHAN: It's Exhibit 479 of Appendix 3 A, page 71 of the report.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: That's one we have up, 5 Andy? It should be the same document, page 71.
6 MR. MEEHAN: And the top table shows the 7 actual cost of the renewables, the subsidies. And as 8 I mentioned this morning there was a December 2011 9 solicitation that had a weighted average subsidy of 10 $28 per megawatt hour. So, after going down from the 11 initial solicitation, they've been on the rise since 12 January 2008 with a quite significant increase in the 13 last solicitation.
14 Now, remember these subsidies are in 15 addition to the production tax credit or investment 16 tax credit from the federal government. And they're 17 payments that NYSERDA and the State have to give to 18 the renewable energy producers because the revenues 19 from the market, the energy revenues and the capacity 20 revenues that those units earn in the market are not 21 enough to induce that investment. They're not 22 competitive on a cost basis even after the federal tax 23 subsidies, so they're taking significant state 24 subsidies going up to $28. And the report with the $28 25 also notes that there's factors which are causing them Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3070 1 to rise potentially even more in the future, including 2 lower gas prices. So, as the market prices go down the 3 subsidy goes up.
4 JUDGE McDADE: How are these determined?
5 MR. MEEHAN: So, contrary to the theory --
6 these are determined from the actual results of the 7 RFPs that NYSERDA has issued. These are actual numbers 8 that the State is committed by contract to pay to the 9 renewable energy producers. So, the cost of these 10 renewables -- this economies of scale, underlying fuel 11 markets are all baked in here. We know for a fact 12 they're rising, not going down. And I think that's 13 what Dr. Harrison is referring to. They could be 14 rising for a lot of different reasons, like quality 15 resources are developed first. But the fact is, the 16 subsides that are required over the market price for 17 renewables in New York State are on the increase.
18 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. My question, how are 19 those subsidies arrived at, the level of those 20 subsidies?
21 MR. MEEHAN: These are -- the wind 22 producers, it's largely wind, there could be other 23 renewable resources, as well, but it's predominantly 24 wind submit bids for the level of subsidy that they 25 require in order to build the facility.
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Page 3071 1 JUDGE McDADE: So, it represents what they 2 believe is --
3 MR. MEEHAN: It represents what their -
4 JUDGE McDADE: -- right now what their 5 cost factors are compared to what the revenue would 6 be.
7 MR. MEEHAN: Yes, and what they need over 8 time in terms of support above the market.
9 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. But going back, and I 10 think the question that was raised to Dr. Harrison, as 11 technology develops, if I'm trying to build a wind 12 farm in 2011, I've got a certain cost benefit based on 13 today's technology. Isn't it reasonable to assume as 14 I'm no longer at the cutting edge of technology but 15 using stuff that is off the shelf, that has already 16 been developed that building a wind farm with the same 17 capacity 10 years from now would be a significantly 18 less expensive proposition, just as building an 19 automobile in 1910 was a much more expensive 20 proposition than building an equally reliable or more 21 reliable in 1930?
22 MR. MEEHAN: I don't think significantly.
23 I wouldn't say significantly would be appropriate to 24 use. The NEMS model, for example, has a learning curve 25 and has some decrease due to technical progress. But Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3072 1 there has been a lot of wind built, a lot of the 2 technical progress comes from making the towers higher 3 and the blades bigger, but there's limits on how much 4 you can do that and still find an acceptable site.
5 I would think probably yes, the cost of 6 technology is going down, but it's going to be limited 7 by that. And then there's the transmission issue. So, 8 as more and more wind is added, more transmission is 9 going to be required to transmit it, and the producer 10 has to pay for that transmission if they want to have 11 the energy and capacity deliverability rights.
12 JUDGE McDADE: So, you're factoring in, as 13 was discussed earlier, if you have the generating 14 facility in the middle of the load, if you have it in 15 Queens, then you have significantly less cost and 16 significantly less impact in order to get that to 17 where it's needed than if you have it up someplace in 18 the far north.
19 MR. MEEHAN: No, I think all I was talking 20 about is that if you add more wind in the far north or 21 in the west, you're going to require more 22 transmission. It's not going to be able to use the 23 existing transmission, and that's going to raise the 24 cost of the project.
25 JUDGE McDADE: And the environmental impact Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3073 1 of the project.
2 MR. MEEHAN: Probably would raise the 3 environmental impact, as well. But the only point I'm 4 making here is that the market tells us that the 5 amount that has to be paid above market prices to get 6 this wind is increasing.
7 JUDGE McDADE: Dr. Harrison, did you have 8 something to add to that?
9 MR. HARRISON: Not on that particular 10 point, but just to go back to the issue of cost, or 11 markets. When we were discussing what our conclusions 12 were and how we came to them, we were not critical of 13 New York State for addressing cost, quite the 14 opposite. Our criticism was that they did not address 15 cost enough, that they did not look at market 16 conditions, and ask the question not what could 17 replace Indian Point generation, what variety of 18 alternatives could, but what in the context of a 19 market setting would likely replace Indian Point 20 generation.
21 So, later on in the Executive Summary we 22 note a number of criticisms of the New York State 23 analysis, or ask ourselves the question why did they 24 come to different conclusions about what would replace 25 Indian Point generation? And our conclusion was that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3074 1 their analysis had four major flaws, the first of 2 which was not to take into account market conditions, 3 so not to look at market -- the second was to confuse 4 these developments that we're talking about in terms 5 of natural gas prices and renewable requirements with 6 what would replace Indian Point generation if it were 7 not available. So, there's lots of things going on in 8 the energy markets, but those go on regardless. And I 9 think this is one of the issues you're planning to 10 come to in the baseline regardless of whether Indian 11 Point is in it or not.
12 The third was the hard to explain counter 13 -- somewhat possibly counterintuitive results 14 associated with how changes in the baseline might 15 affect indirectly the generation that would replace 16 Indian Point. That was the complicated example that I 17 was giving about -- and that Mr. Meehan expanded upon 18 in terms of changes, likely changes in renewable, the 19 cost of renewables, making it less likely.
20 And the final -- the fourth criticism was 21 that there was no modeling that in the context of 22 markets, and the fact that markets are what will 23 determine replacement generation. It is important to 24 develop some modeled results for -- at least in terms 25 of our ability to assess the proposition that the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3075 1 replacement generation would come primarily from 2 energy efficiency and renewable. We really needed to 3 put that proposition to a market test to not go in 4 more coulds, but looks at one potential series of 5 woulds under these market conditions, and that's what 6 we tried to do in our modeling.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. Any final 8 comments on this issue before we move on?
9 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes, sir. We would have 10 loved the opportunity to have done the type of 11 analysis Dr. Harrison discusses; however, when we 12 talked to the State of New York and developed what was 13 the scope of the hearing, the hearing was not to deal 14 with need for power, which in my mind included 15 economics, so we didn't do the analysis because we 16 thought it was outside the scope of this hearing. And 17 now we're being criticized for not doing the analysis.
18 MR. BESSETTE: Objection, Your Honor. He's 19 mischaracterizing the testimony.
20 JUDGE McDADE: Sustained. Actually, it's 21 difficult to sustain because there really wasn't a 22 question, but I think you've explained your position.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: In your testimony, New 24 York, on page 13 of 046 you're referencing drops in 25 the price of natural gas that we've already talked Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3076 1 about. Your experience or knowledge, do you believe 2 that the long-term forecast of natural gas will remain 3 at the current low levels? And, if so, for what 4 reason?
5 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes, I do believe they will 6 remain relatively low. I don't know if I'm allowed to 7 use demonstratives in response, but I have yesterday's 8 Henry Hub futures prices which can illustrate my 9 answer to your question.
10 JUDGE McDADE: If you can do it orally, 11 it'll make it easier.
12 MR. SCHLISSEL: Okay.
13 JUDGE McDADE: If you feel that it's not 14 possible to convey what you're trying to convey 15 orally, then --
16 MR. SCHLISSEL: As of -- actually not 17 yesterday, I apologize, Monday, the 22nd, Henry Hub 18 was projecting roughly $4 MMBtu price in 2013, 19 increasing to $5 by about 2018, $6 by 2022. I think 20 those are approximate what the DOE EIA projects. I've 21 not seen any credible projection which has much higher 22 gas prices, something like $5 in MMBtu by 2020 or 20 23 thereabouts is generally what I've seen from a number 24 of sources. I think that that's probably the ballpark.
25 There's a lot of shale gas. And even if New York State Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3077 1 doesn't produce a drop of it, there's still plenty of 2 gas in the market. And I don't see any evidence that 3 it's going to go away, or that the demand is going to 4 come and overtake supply or catch up to supply to such 5 an extent that the prices will go up much higher.
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. Moving on to 7 talking about the comparison of baseline conditions 8 and No Action Alternatives. On New York Exhibit 046, 9 page 18, you say that -- you talk again about the 15 10 by 15 Clean Energy Plan is all we really need to 11 highlight there. And my question is to New York, isn't 12 it correct that the existing and any new conservation 13 projects up to 2013 and 2015 cannot be considered as 14 replacement to the Indian Point baseload power under 15 the No Action Alternative? And we talked about that 16 earlier this morning in regards to the 30-15 program.
17 I just wanted to confirm that same conclusion for the 18 15 by 15.
19 MR. SCHLISSEL: The answer is yes --
20 JUDGE McDADE: Excuse me. Let me interrupt 21 just a second.
22 MR. SCHLISSEL: Sorry.
23 JUDGE McDADE: Again, if you can, just say 24 your name as you start.
25 MR. SCHLISSEL: I'm sorry.
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Page 3078 1 JUDGE McDADE: Because the worst thing that 2 we want to have happen is that when we wind up reading 3 the transcript that something you say gets attributed 4 to Entergy or vice versa, and we wind up thinking gee, 5 that's not my recollection, but here's the transcript.
6 So, we want to make sure that we understand later on 7 when we're making the decision whose position what is.
8 Please continue.
9 MR. SCHLISSEL: I'm sorry. David Schlissel.
10 I'm sorry, I forgot the question.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: Did you pronounce your 12 name right?
13 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes.
14 (Laughter.)
15 MR. SCHLISSEL: That was the question? I 16 got it.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: That was the question.
18 That new and existing conservation projects up to the 19 point of the termination of Indian Point's licenses in 20 2013 and `15, and probably you're talking IP2 and IP3 21 cannot be considered as replacements for Indian 22 Point's baseload power under the No Action 23 Alternative.
24 MR. SCHLISSEL: And the answer is yes, but 25 -- and the but is -- and this is where I agree with Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3079 1 Dr. Harrison, is that modeling is important. And I 2 discussed it this morning. Doing an analysis of what 3 does the resource plan look like with Indian Point, 4 and what does the resource plan look like without 5 Indian Point. That I think it's too simplistic to say 6 that energy efficiency or that's in the pipeline 7 doesn't replace Indian Point. You need to look at the 8 whole system, and you need to see what the system 9 tells you it would generate in place of Indian -- what 10 facilities and resources supply and demand side would 11 be used if Indian Point was out of the system.
12 I think in that respect what my fellow 13 witnesses here have done is the right kind of --
14 there's a step in the right direction with the wrong 15 model. But I think that the concept of doing that kind 16 of analysis is a right way to think of it. So, you 17 can't just say that existing energy efficiency won't 18 displace Indian Point, or that existing renewables, or 19 renewables that would be existing in 2015, in some 20 hours2.314815e-4 days <br />0.00556 hours <br />3.306878e-5 weeks <br />7.61e-6 months <br /> they might. It just -- it depends on what's 21 happening on the interrelated system at the time. And 22 the answer to that is probably going to come out of a 23 modeling.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: And as you stated, you 25 haven't performed any modeling on the renewables, or Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3080 1 the --
2 MR. SCHLISSEL: That's correct, we did not 3 do that.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: -- energy efficiencies.
5 Likewise, have you attempted to estimate any 6 environmental impacts of the resources that would 7 likely replace Indian Point?
8 MR. SCHLISSEL: Just not in any kind of 9 quantitative way. As I believe you and I have 10 discussed on some -- there would be more air emissions 11 from natural gas in some areas. There would be 12 construction impacts both positive and negative.
13 Certainly there's dust, there's truck traffic, but 14 there would also be workers getting paid in 15 construction, socio economic impacts, positive socio 16 economic impacts. For wind and renewables there are 17 similar costs and benefits, environmental costs and 18 environmental benefits.
19 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. Staff, just 20 quickly, who has the burden of proof in regards to 21 demonstrating the adequacy of the EIS?
22 MR. TURK: Your Honor, that's a legal 23 question.
24 MS. MIZUNO: Mr. Stuyvenberg is not a 25 lawyer yet.
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Page 3081 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: I'll rephrase -- I 2 understand that.
3 JUDGE McDADE: The operative word there is 4 "yet?"
5 MS. MIZUNO: Yes, sir.
6 MR. TURK: If he's allowed to take exams in 7 December we'll get him closer to his goal.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Which I think we've been 9 bending over backwards to achieve, haven't we?
10 MR. TURK: Yes, you have.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: So he could answer that 12 question. Is there any -- never mind all that. It's 13 not worth it.
14 Looking at Entergy's 479 testimony, on 15 page 50, answer 65, shows some changes in generation 16 renewables and conservation with a baseline in the No 17 Action Alternative. And it might be worthwhile to pull 18 that up if you could, Andy. 479, should be page 50.
19 I'll ask Entergy, aren't these changes likely to occur 20 both under the license renewal and the No Action 21 Alternative?
22 MR. HARRISON: Would you like me just to --
23 in terms -- what this graph is trying to show, Your 24 Honor -- David Harrison for Entergy, is just 25 conceptually how to evaluate the resources that would Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3082 1 be different between the baseline and the No Action 2 Alternative. I'm not sure of your question because 3 this was just conceptual so you can see that the red 4 is negative in the change, so that is the effect of 5 the loss of Indian Point generation. So, what the 6 other bars represent on the right are the changes in 7 generation to make up for that lack of the Indian 8 Point generation.
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: And my question to you is 10 that needs -- that will have to take place either in 11 the No Action Alternative somewhat soon, or if the 12 bsaeline continues through license renewal will take 13 place in 20 years from now.
14 MR. HARRISON: Well, I'm not a lawyer but 15 my understanding was that when we looked at these --
16 the No Action Alternative, we were looking not at --
17 at Indian Point not being available for the 18 foreseeable future. And then in our assumption about 19 the baseline, our assumption of the baseline 20 illustratively here is that Indian Point would 21 continue to generate electricity in the baseline 22 conditions. So, that's what we --
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: Not forever.
24 MR. HARRISON: Well, within --
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: That isn't the action --
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Page 3083 1 MR. HARRISON: -- the time period that 2 we're evaluating.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: Which is 20 years from 4 now, approximately. I mean, from 2033 to `35.
5 MR. HARRISON: If the license were granted 6 for 20 years we could look at an assessment. I think 7 in our analysis we actually reported results for 10 8 years, for example. In our empirical results we showed 9 the change in generation mix over 10 years. We could 10 have 20 years or a different number of years.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: But the point that I'm 12 asking for the question is that this same change that 13 you show on this diagram will either, given all things 14 being equal, change -- demonstrates a change that will 15 take place in the 2013 to 2015 time frame if Indian 16 Point isn't renewed. Correct?
17 MR. HARRISON: That's right. And I think 18 what you're saying is if it were renewed, it may 19 retire in 20 years after that period. And would there 20 be --
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: And, again, we're facing 22 something very similar to the same situation.
23 MR. HARRISON: So, if we were looking at 24 this baseline making that assumption -- again, I'm not 25 a lawyer so I don't know the context for what needs to Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3084 1 be assumed in the No Action Alternative, but if we 2 then for sake of this hypothetical moved forward to 3 2035, then we would see these kinds of results if 4 Indian Point were retired at that point.
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: And I'm not sure how it's 6 a legal question in regards to the definition of No 7 Action Alternative. That you've defined here.
8 MR. HARRISON: Right, yes. We've been 9 looking at -- I think we said in our -- we take the 10 baseline as a situation with Indian Point generation 11 in place.
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you.
13 MR. MEEHAN: If I could add, Your Honor, 14 this graph is intended to be illustrative, so what 15 we're trying to show going back to your discussion 16 with Mr. Schlissel, that purple slice and the green 17 slice that are in the baseline are there. And it's 18 only by how much they get bigger that they become 19 replacements for Indian Point. You can't take the 20 amount that's in the baseline and say that it is a 21 replacement for Indian Point.
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: I understand. Thank you.
23 JUDGE McDADE: Mr. Meehan, even though you 24 represent the same party as Dr. Harrison, state your 25 name so when we get the transcript --
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Page 3085 1 MR. MEEHAN: Sorry.
2 JUDGE McDADE: -- it will attribute what 3 you say as opposed to what Dr. Harrison does.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: On page 89, answer 116, 5 you state that, "Thus, a baseline with higher levels 6 of conservation that New York State 37 argues are more 7 accurate and the FEIS would make it more expensive 8 and, therefore, less likely that substantial amounts 9 of additional conservation would be used to replace 10 Indian Point's baseload energy." I think that's what 11 we were talking about in regards to this unusual 12 conclusion from your modeling.
13 I guess my question is, if hypothetically 14 energy conservation/less demand, whatever we want to 15 call it was sufficient enough to account for the loss 16 of the full capacity of Indian Point, then wouldn't, 17 in fact, the impacts of the No Action Alternative with 18 Indian Point being shut down be much less than 19 continued operation of the plant? Nothing more would 20 be needed.
21 MR. HARRISON: Yes. This is David Harrison 22 for Entergy. Well, just to be clear, in terms of the 23 discussion in this part, it's not related to the 24 modeling. It's just looking at the conceptual issues.
25 What we found in the modeling was that there was Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3086 1 relatively little additional conservation that would 2 be added; that is, if Indian Point were shut down the 3 modeling suggested that there would be relatively 4 small response of lower demand, so conservation was 5 relatively small. That was the empirical result.
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: But how did that come 7 about? I mean, that must have been either an input or 8 it's built internally into your model.
9 MR. HARRISON: It is built -- I mean, the 10 NEMS model which we may have a chance to go to is a 11 very detailed model, so it has -- demand for energy is 12 what they call in the trade endogenous, that is, it's 13 determined in the model. So, the major factor at least 14 that's relevant here is that the energy demand, 15 whether it's for residential, commercial, or 16 industrial depends on prices. So, what's happening in 17 the modeling is that if Indian Point is not available 18 electricity prices go up. If electricity prices go up 19 some consumers use less electricity, so that's the 20 demand -- that's the effect of the higher prices.
21 That's the effect of Indian Point generation not being 22 available in the market setting. And that's what we 23 were modeling. That's the nature of the NEMS modeling 24 of energy conservation, effects of Indian Point being 25 not available on the overall demand for electricity.
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Page 3087 1 Now, as I said, you can have different 2 hypothetical settings. You could say suppose we can 3 imagine where there would be this additional 4 conservation, or additional renewables, or additional 5 natural gas units, given the nature of the electricity 6 market we thought it was important to put those 7 hypotheses to a market test. And that's what we're 8 doing.
9 I think what you are suggesting is a 10 hypothetical, and under a hypothetical where all of 11 the Indian Point generation were conservation yes, of 12 course, there would be different environmental 13 consequences than what we predict, or what is 14 predicted based on these market conditions.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: And you agree that there 16 would be very little environmental impact associated 17 with that if conservation could, in fact, match the 18 capacity of Indian Point.
19 MR. HARRISON: Well, actually -- we didn't 20 actually look at that, but my understanding is that 21 they're relatively small environmental impacts of 22 energy conservation. But, again, I would go back just 23 to clarify, there are a variety of coulds, and we 24 were, as I mentioned before, looking at the woulds, 25 what would likely occur.
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Page 3088 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: Well, let me just continue 2 with this train of thought a bit more. On the opposite 3 end if there was no conservation, and no associated 4 reduction in demand then, in fact, all the power would 5 have to be made up from some other energy source, 6 which it sounds to me is what you've modeled, in 7 essence.
8 MR. HARRISON: Well, we -- as I said, we 9 did model the possibility or the amount of energy 10 conservation that would take place. So --
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: What dictated that?
12 MR. HARRISON: Well, the overall structure 13 and parameters of the model.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay, so that's what I'm 15 saying, something built into the model --
16 MR. HARRISON: Yes, built into the model --
17 18 JUDGE WARDWELL: -- that will allow some 19 sort of conservation.
20 MR. HARRISON: Yes, and the technical term 21 or the price elasticity of demand for electricity. So 22 those are the parameters that are added in the model.
23 And what that is is just a way of trying -- of 24 measuring when the price goes up by 10 percent, for 25 example, how much does the overall electricity demand Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3089 1 go down.
2 MR. MEEHAN: Can I add something? This is 3 Eugene Meehan for Entergy. I really think the 4 hypothetical is missing something. Let's say Indian 5 Point we can agree produces 16.3 million megawatt 6 hours6.944444e-5 days <br />0.00167 hours <br />9.920635e-6 weeks <br />2.283e-6 months <br /> a year. If all of a sudden in 2016 we had 16.2 7 million megawatt hours a year come on the system, if 8 Indian Point was still there, that would not replace 9 Indian Point, and it would not replace Indian Point 10 because the way that the New York market works and the 11 system works is the low-cost facilities get dispatched 12 first. So, your zero cost facilities, your wind, your 13 hydro essentially, nuclear is a zero short-term 14 variable cost all run at their full capacity. After 15 that you start to dispatch the coal and gas resources.
16 And in that stack when you put anything on you reduce 17 demand, it's the fossil resources, the dispatchable 18 resources that reduce their consumption. So, even if 19 a conservation program came in that was equal in size 20 to Indian Point, I don't think you can consider it a 21 replacement for Indian Point unless it came in 22 particularly just because Indian Point was shut down 23 and wouldn't come in otherwise, because if Indian 24 Point was there, Indian Point would continue to 25 operate as it did. And you'd go from the top of that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3090 1 stack and displace fossil resources with conservation.
2 And just to elaborate on this, if we have 3 -- could we pull up --
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: Oh, let's not. I don't 5 really want to take the time.
6 MR. MEEHAN: Okay.
7 MR. SCHLISSEL: Could I comment?
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: No, not just yet. I want 9 to fix this point. Who wanted to comment?
10 MR. SCHLISSEL: David Schlissel.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay, we'll get back to 12 you. I just want to fix the point here.
13 The hypothetical I was bringing up does 14 miss something. It's a hypothetical, absolutely. It's 15 not a statement of reality. And it's not a statement 16 of if it came on while Indian Point was operating, it 17 was a statement made, if Indian Point is not granted 18 its license renewal and there was conservation 19 available to match it what would be the impacts, and 20 we're reached they would be very minimal. That's all 21 I wanted to assure that I had the same thinking as the 22 experts here.
23 The other hypothetical is there's none 24 available at the point of when Indian Point license 25 now terminates. What would happen? Well, now all of it Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3091 1 has to be replaced with some other energy source. What 2 I'm interested in is we're probably somewhere in 3 between those two extremes in reality, and how was 4 that evaluated in your ER, and then likewise for Staff 5 I'm going to go and ask how -- what's their 6 understanding of how it was addressed in the EIS based 7 on the information --
8 MR. HARRISON: This is David Harrison for 9 Entergy. Well, I think you put it very well in terms 10 of -- but I think what I was trying to say earlier was 11 that the modeling we did incorporated both of those.
12 So, we don't really have to guess or throw up our 13 hands. I mean, models are not perfect, but the model 14 took into account the possibility of additional 15 conservation.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: And how much additional 17 conservation was being added in your ER?
18 MR. HARRISON: Well, what we found that 19 within -- on the first 10 years, so we looked at the 20 period from 2016 to 2025, about the vast majority, 98 21 percent of the replacement was fossil -- additional 22 fossil fuel generation with a small amount of 23 additional conservation, and a small amount of 24 additional renewables.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: And do you remember what Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3092 1 that number was for the small --
2 MR. HARRISON: It added up to 2 percent, 3 because the 98 --
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: Percent of 2100?
5 MR. HARRISON: Yes, 98 percent. We have a 6 chart which we could refer for you to if you'd like, 7 but that approximately 98 percent was additional 8 fossil fuel generation, and the other 2 percent was a 9 combination of energy conservation and renewables.
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: You didn't break that down 11 between renewables and --
12 MR. HARRISON: We did, and I could probably 13 find that.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: Yes, if you know it 15 quickly.
16 MR. HARRISON: Let's see. It's on page --
17 well, in our report, let's see. Well, this may be --
18 on page 38 of our report.
19 JUDGE WARDWELL: And what's the exhibit 20 number of your report?
21 MR. HARRISON: That is --
22 MR. MEEHAN: 481.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: I'm sorry, say again.
24 MR. MEEHAN: 481.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: 481. And that page number Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3093 1 is? Do you have a page number for that? I'm sorry.
2 MR. HARRISON: Excuse me. David Harrison 3 for Entergy. Page 38, and then the replacement 4 generation is on page 39.
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: Is this the page you're 6 referring to?
7 MR. HARRISON: That's right.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay.
9 MR. HARRISON: Actually, it's a slightly --
10 two-part response, actually. It's probably easier to 11 see in this. What this shows is IPEC's generation at 12 least in the modeling is about 16.7 million megawatt 13 hours1.50463e-4 days <br />0.00361 hours <br />2.149471e-5 weeks <br />4.9465e-6 months <br />. These are annual numbers over this period from 14 2016 to 2025. So, to make up that difference you can 15 see there's a sum of these four factors, one of which 16 is reduced sales. So, you can see the reduced sales 17 represents about .3 million megawatt hours of the 18 total replacement.
19 Now, you have -- because of the additional 20 line losses and the change in net imports you actually 21 have to add additional increased generation more than 22 the total that you -- that Indian Point represents.
23 This is because the model takes into account the fact 24 that the replacement generation could be in different 25 locations so, therefore, the transmission line losses Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3094 1 change. That's a relatively small effect.
2 So, you can see that what -- the main 3 point from this is to make the point that conservation 4 is a relatively small part of the response if Indian 5 Point generation were not available. That's point 6 number one.
7 So, then point number two is well, how 8 much of the replacement generation would be fossil 9 versus non-fossil? And that's what's on the next page.
10 So, if we can just look at this Table 7, so the bottom 11 part of the chart shows the replacement over this 12 period. So, we have these various replacement types, 13 coal, natural gas, oil, nuclear, and renewables. And 14 you can see if you just add up those percentages, the 15 coal and the natural gas represents about, as I said, 16 98 percent with the oil and the renewables making up 17 the additional 1.5 percent or roughly 2 percent.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: And these parameters were 19 used in your ER to arrive at -- and to be used to then 20 estimate what impacts these might have to compare to 21 impacts of --
22 MR. HARRISON: Well, just to be clear, this 23 is not in the ER. This is in our report that was done 24 responding to New York State. David Harrison for 25 Entergy, excuse me. So, this was in our report, the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3095 1 NERA report done. So, this --
2 JUDGE McDADE: And who did the NERA report, 3 N-E-R-A?
4 MR. HARRISON: Yes. National Economic 5 Research Associates.
6 JUDGE McDADE: Is that a private entity?
7 MR. HARRISON: Yes, it is. So, this 8 represents then the generation. And this actually --
9 the reason that we needed the generation is then we 10 used -- and the modeling also generates estimates of 11 the changes in air emissions.
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: Now, was this modeling 13 done in response to the initial testimony that was 14 presented here, or was this done as an aid in writing 15 the ER?
16 MR. HARRISON: No, it was not related to 17 the ER. It was -- we were asked to comment on the New 18 York State testimony. And, as I mentioned, they had --
19 20 JUDGE WARDWELL: Mr. Cleary, did you write 21 the ER, or are you familiar with the ER?
22 MR. CLEARY: Donald Cleary for the 23 Applicant. I'm familiar with the ER, and the way the 24 ER treats conservation is that it takes a position 25 that conservation as a resource does not meet the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3096 1 primary NRC criterion that a reasonable set of 2 alternatives s should be limited to analysis of a 3 single discrete electric generation source, and only 4 electric generation technologies that are technically 5 feasible and commercially viable.
6 I would point out that Entergy does not 7 have -- relative to Indian Point does not have control 8 over conservation. Entergy generates and sells 9 electricity, it does not distribute electricity.
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: Did you take the same 11 position in regards to the No Action Alternative in 12 your ER?
13 MR. CLEARY: Yes, I believe so.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: Staff, what did you 15 consider in regards to conservation in the No Action 16 Alternative, assessing the difference between baseline 17 and the No Action Alternative?
18 MR. STUYVENBERG: Well, Your Honor -- this 19 is Drew Stuyvenberg for the NRC Staff. We considered 20 that energy conservation, energy efficiency were a 21 possible consequence of no action. And we analyzed 22 energy conservation and energy efficiency as a 23 standalone alternative to license renewal, as well as 24 indicating that it could be a consequence. So, we 25 addressed what we thought would be the impacts from Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3097 1 that. We'd also said it could be a consequence of no 2 action. So, I think we tried to cover it in two 3 different ways.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: So, did you use the 5 information to perform that analysis from the ER, or 6 did you generate your own numbers in that regard?
7 MR. STUYVENBERG: In that regard we relied 8 fairly heavily on information supplied by New York 9 State about the state-specific viability of energy 10 conservation and energy efficiency, including but not 11 limited to its comments on the 2009 -- sorry, 2008 12 Draft SEIS. New York State's comments were filed in 13 2009 along with other New York State specific 14 information to which they'd either referred, or to 15 which the Staff had become aware.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: In order to get our hands 17 around the magnitude of the amount of conservation 18 that you did consider in this, is there some parameter 19 that you could say to us that would be meaningful that 20 -- a number that might say oh, this is how they -- the 21 degree to which they evaluated energy, I mean, 22 conservation?
23 MR. STUYVENBERG: We considered it as 24 though it could replace the entire facility, so that 25 it would have offset the entire 2,158 megawatts. We Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3098 1 didn't limit it. Part of the reason for that is that 2 getting into an analysis of the specific need for 3 power would have been outside of what our regulations 4 require, so once we felt that we had sufficient 5 information to consider it as viable and based on, 6 again, the large amount of information submitted to us 7 we decided to simply consider it.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay, thank you. And your 9 results are tabulated in Section 8, again, of the 10 FEIS.
11 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct.
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: FSEIS. I promised you I'd 13 be back.
14 MR. SCHLISSEL: Thank you.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: I wanted to get through 16 that, though.
17 MR. SCHLISSEL: Okay. Could we go back one 18 page that's on the display.
19 JUDGE McDADE: And this is Mr. Steven --
20 MR. SCHLISSEL: David Schlissel.
21 JUDGE McDADE: Okay.
22 MR. SCHLISSEL: The 0.3 million megawatt 23 hours2.662037e-4 days <br />0.00639 hours <br />3.80291e-5 weeks <br />8.7515e-6 months <br /> of reduced sales are from what Dr. Harrison 24 described as price induced conservation. Price goes 25 up, people use less, price elasticity. What is not Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3099 1 done in NEMS and what DOE did not do in NEMS, and 2 since the company has indicated -- I'm sorry, Entergy 3 has indicated that they just took -- the only change 4 they made was to take out Indian Point, is that in 5 NEMS there's no assumption that there are further --
6 future programs on energy efficiency, or that energy 7 efficiency is available as a resource. In typical 8 integrated resource planning that looks at supply side 9 and demand side, you give a price to different blocks 10 of energy efficiency, and it's taken by the model or 11 by the analysis, depending on the prices compared to 12 other alternatives. That wasn't done in this analysis.
13 That's why you see such a small amount of reduced 14 sales.
15 Again, I have no dispute with the fact 16 that the sales would be that -- the price induced 17 conservation might be very small, but you can't say 18 that there's not economic energy efficiency out there 19 based on this analysis. This analysis didn't determine 20 whether energy efficiency would be cheaper than 21 continuing to operate those dirty old plants that 22 continue to operate in Entergy's No Action 23 Alternative.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. On page 90 of 25 Entergy's 479 exhibit, and can we pull that up, Figure Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3100 1 6. And this is a question for Entergy. I was curious 2 on what evidence is there that the relationship 3 between subsidy and quantity of renewables in your 4 line as shown here?
5 MR. HARRISON: David Harrison for Entergy.
6 This -- by linear you mean it doesn't have a 7 particular different slope over the course of the 8 line. This was just meant to be illustrative.
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: But your analysis used 10 these variations, didn't they, in some fashion, or did 11 they not?
12 MR. HARRISON: No, it didn't. Really just 13 to be very clear, this conceptual analysis we have 14 here had nothing to do -- was not related to the 15 empirical analysis that we did.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: No, I'm aware of that, but 17 I thought you had referred to this diagram in regards 18 to demonstrating statements saying that either the 19 incremental supply will be less as you get further 20 along in the amount of quantity that you're trying to 21 achieve or something like that.
22 MR. HARRISON: Yes. David Harrison for 23 Entergy. Yes, I was saying that if you look at it 24 conceptually as Mr. Meehan pointed out, if you look at 25 the results from the New York State auctions, it does Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3101 1 look as though the price is going up. I know a study 2 that was done in Massachusetts, for example, shows 3 this increasing marginal cost of as you add more 4 renewables. For one reason or another the less 5 desirable sites get already used and so forth. But 6 this was based -- this was really, again, just 7 responding to what we viewed as a limitation of the 8 New York State analysis by not considering not just 9 these factors, but what the implications of these 10 factors would be for the likely replacement 11 generation. But this was not related, as we've said 12 before, to the empirical analysis.
13 JUDGE WARDWELL: But you did use it in an 14 argument to reach a conclusion of some fashion. I just 15 don't remember exactly what it was.
16 MR. HARRISON: Yes. Our conclusion was that 17 if you thought that the baseline should include more 18 renewables, that perhaps counterintuitively that would 19 make it less likely that you would have renewables to 20 replace Indian Point just because you would be then 21 having to select renewables that were more expensive.
22 It's a little bit -- we recognize that that's a sort 23 of counterintuitive result, and we're trying to use th 24 is diagram just to illustrate the intuition behind our 25 conclusion.
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Page 3102 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: And you would agree that 2 that intuition relies on the linear relationship that 3 you assumed on this diagram.
4 MR. HARRISON: It just relies on the fact 5 that it's going up, whether it's linear or non-linear.
6 It does rely on the fact that it's increasing as you 7 add more renewables. Whether it's linear or goes off, 8 tails off one way or the other is not -- but it does-9 JUDGE WARDWELL: It could be an exponential 10 function, and you --
11 MR. HARRISON: In which case --
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: -- the exponential 13 function.
14 MR. HARRISON: In which case, if it was 15 exponential then this conclusion would be even more -
16 - would even be stronger.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: Unless it was exponential 18 the other -- anyhow.
19 (Simultaneous speech.)
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: I'm not going to spend any 21 more time but that's based on the linear assumption 22 made here.
23 MR. HARRISON: Yes.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. Staff, it might 25 worthwhile if you could under the -- just talking Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3103 1 about the No Action Alternative some more to clarify 2 better in my mind, what is the difference between 3 alternatives evaluated as options to the proposed 4 action here in this case license renewal, and that's 5 generally in Chapter 4, is it, of the --
6 MR. STUYVENBERG: Chapter 8, Your Honor.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: Sorry?
8 MR. STUYVENBERG: Alternatives are 9 generally addressed in Chapter 8, Your Honor.
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: Oh, so with the No Action, 11 the alternatives and the No Actions are together under 12 Chapter 8?
13 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct. All of 14 the alternatives other than the proposed action are 15 considered in Chapter 8.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: So, the difference between 17 alternatives evaluated as options to the proposed 18 action and those alternative options evaluated under 19 the No Action Alternative itself, because you do 20 handle them differently. Is that correct?
21 MR. STUYVENBERG: Let me try to explain how 22 this works. One of the challenges that Staff had in 23 initially putting together the rule -- and I have to 24 apologize, I wasn't present at NRC when they were 25 putting together the rule, so I can only look back to Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3104 1 evidence like Statements of Consideration for 2 determining that information. Was the tension between 3 NRC which has to evaluate environmental impacts and 4 other entities that do things like energy planning, or 5 energy system maintenance, energy projection, so 6 initially the Staff had proposed that all alternatives 7 would only be considered as consequences of the No 8 Action Alternative, because NRC's decision was only 9 whether to renew a license or not renew a license.
10 The Staff received what appears to be a 11 fairly significant number of comments, or at least a 12 fairly strong viewpoint from a number of participants, 13 including New York State, the Council on Environmental 14 Quality, and some other groups, so certainly some 15 organizations that had some interest in how this 16 presentation worked. And to say that the Staff should 17 present energy alternatives as alternatives per se 18 rather than simply as consequences of the No Action 19 Alternative. So, a side effect of that presentation is 20 that we don't -- we present the consequences of those 21 alternatives within the No Action Alternative, but 22 mention within the No Action Alternative, we indicate 23 that those other alternatives we've considered can 24 also then be consequences of No Action.
25 So, what we look at directly under No Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3105 1 Action is plant shut down. After that happens, any 2 number of things could potentially take its place. All 3 of the alternatives that we have considered in depth 4 could conceivably, in our view, take its place. Now, 5 there are some alternatives that we've excluded from 6 in depth consideration because either some kind of 7 resource limitation, because it's not commercially 8 viable, because it's not technologically feasible, 9 there are a variety of reasons to exclude something 10 from detailed consideration. But of those alternatives 11 we considered in a detailed way, we've indicated that 12 any of those certainly could be consequences. It's 13 also possible that some alternatives that maybe we've 14 excluded from direct consideration could also end up 15 as consequences of No Action. It's part of the reason 16 that Staff retained a fairly lengthy consideration of 17 coal-fired power in the alternatives considered but 18 dismissed section. We wanted to be sure we had some 19 coverage for that particular issue.
20 No Action is particularly challenging for 21 the Agency since we don't make any determinations 22 about what happens in the case of No Action. So, we 23 look to cover a range of alternatives that could 24 potentially occur in the case of No Action.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. I think that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3106 1 was helpful.
2 MR. STUYVENBERG: Okay.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: So, let me fix that point, 4 if I might. In your testimony, 133 on page 20, answer 5 20 you state that the GEIS states, "The NRC has 6 determined that a reasonable set of alternatives 7 should be limited to analysis of single discrete 8 electrical generation sources, and only generation 9 sources that are technically feasible and commercially 10 viable." That's what you state in talking about that.
11 But if I heard you correctly, you did not 12 hold to that requirement under the No Action 13 Alternative. So, would you agree that this limitation 14 doesn't exist for the No Action Alternative, because 15 the impacts of No Action would have to be based on 16 some conditions after the plant shut down?
17 MR. STUYVENBERG: I would say, Your Honor, 18 that we -- in the alternatives we considered we didn't 19 rigidly adhere to that because of comments we received 20 on the EIS. So, it's not just about the No Action 21 Alternative, it's about the alternatives we considered 22 to the proposed action. And because we didn't -- the 23 way in which we addressed those other alternatives, 24 for example, conservation and energy efficiency which 25 is not a generation option, but one that the GEIS Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3107 1 deals with, anyway, so there's some tension about how 2 specifically to address that. In this case we chose to 3 address it conservatively and include it.
4 In terms of the combination, certainly we 5 received a large number of comments suggesting that we 6 should look at some combinations. So, the Staff 7 considered those as alternatives to the proposed 8 action, and also indicated that those could be 9 consequences of No Action. I'm sorry, does that answer 10 the question?
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: Let me rephrase it, as I 12 think I heard it. And that is that you didn't hold to 13 this requirement for either the alternative section or 14 the No Action Alternative section. Is that correct?
15 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct, we didn't 16 rigidly hold to this requirement.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: Is this the first time 18 that has ever happened in an EIS, to your knowledge?
19 MR. STUYVENBERG: No, Your Honor. If we go 20 back through the program I've seen many EISs that at 21 the very minimum will address a combination of 22 alternatives. And I think quite frequently those 23 combinations are formulated in a way that they're 24 responsive to public input, or other groups' inputs to 25 the EIS process.
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Page 3108 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. I shan't ask 2 any more questions in this area.
3 MR. STUYVENBERG: Thank you, Your Honor.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: Kind of last group of 5 questioning I've got. Where are we at?
6 JUDGE McDADE: You want to take a 5 to 10 7 minute break before you get --
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Yes, I'm at a good point 9 because then all I've got is probably about a half 10 hour1.157407e-4 days <br />0.00278 hours <br />1.653439e-5 weeks <br />3.805e-6 months <br />. I want to spend a little on the NEMS model, and 11 then that's it for me.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Why don't we take about a 13 10-minute break before we get into the next. It's now 14 2:45 so we'll come back at 5 minutes of 3:00.
15 (Whereupon, the proceedings went off the 16 record at 2:48 p.m., and went back on the record at 17 3:00 p.m.)
18 JUDGE McDADE: We seem to be in a festive 19 mood as we've turned third base. The hearing will 20 come to order. Judge Wardwell.
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: Looking at New York 437, 22 that's your rebuttal isn't it, I believe? Is it 437?
23 MR. SCHLISSEL: Let me make sure. Yes, it 24 is.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: You make a statement on Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3109 1 page two that NEMS is traditionally used to model the 2 effect of proposed policy changes or alternatives.
3 I've never seen it used as Entergy witnesses use here, 4 to model the retirement of one or two specific 5 generating units.
6 Is that really the question? Isn't what's 7 important here is what did the staff do in its EIS, 8 regardless of the NEMS?
9 MR. SCHLISSEL: I think that's for you to 10 decide, with all respect. You may decide that the --
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: That's your contention, 12 isn't it? Your contention is that there's an 13 inadequate EIS here, that they haven't looked at the 14 no action alternative?
15 MR. SCHLISSEL: That's correct, and 16 nothing that the NERA witnesses did, their testimony 17 report, causes us to change that conclusion.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: Staff, to what degree did 19 you use the results of the NEMS modeling in your EIS?
20 MR. SCHLISSEL: Not at all, Your Honor.
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: So all these questions 22 I've got lined up here on the alternative models and 23 everything else, we really don't need to cover, I 24 don't believe? I think I'm done.
25 JUDGE McDADE: Sounds good to me. Judge Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3110 1 Kennedy?
2 JUDGE KENNEDY: I have no further 3 questions.
4 JUDGE McDADE: We were further around 5 third base than I thought. Entergy, do you wish to 6 have the opportunity to interrogate any of these 7 witnesses?
8 MR. TENPAS: Yes. We'd focus on certain 9 redirect at our own witnesses, Your Honor.
10 JUDGE McDADE: New York?
11 MR. SIPOS: Possibly briefly.
12 JUDGE McDADE: The staff?
13 MS. MIZUNO: Yes, Your Honor.
14 JUDGE McDADE: Entergy, go ahead.
15 MR. TENPAS: Thank you, Your Honor. First 16 by way of baseline, Mr. Meehan or Dr. Harrison, there 17 was a moment in the testimony where some numbers were 18 cast about. I think they were in the nature of 141, 19 143 and 160. My recollection was that we maybe went 20 between millions and thousands of different units of 21 measure.
22 So just to set in one place those, does 23 either of you recall that discussion?
24 MR. MEEHAN: Yes, I do.
25 MR. TENPAS: Okay, and that was Mr.
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Page 3111 1 Meehan.
2 MR. MEEHAN: Yes. I'm Mr. Meehan for 3 staff.
4 MR. TENPAS: Just to get it in one place, 5 could you go through those numbers again, keeping a 6 common unit of measurement and associate them with the 7 different items?
8 MR. MEEHAN: Sure. Since I think I was 9 guilty of changing the unit there, but Dr. Harrison 10 pointed out that the NEMS model has a forecast for 11 2015 of the electric sales of 143 million megawatt 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br />, and that the state goal under 15 by 15 is 14 13 million megawatt hours.
14 I think I had said that the comparable 15 numbers used by the NYISO, the New York ISO, which 16 does forecasts every year of what the sales will be, 17 or they send out, was 160,000 gigawatt hours.
18 But to put that in a common term, the 19 actual number on the same basis, on a sale basis, not 20 a generation basis, the NYISO would be forecasting 21 sales of about 156 million megawatt hours.
22 So roughly 15 million megawatt hours more 23 than the 15 by 15 objective, which reflects NYISO's 24 view of the progress being made towards that 25 objective, and roughly 13 million megawatt hours more Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3112 1 than the NEMS model uses as its base.
2 MR. TENPAS: Thank you. Now as to the 3 energy efficiency component of that New York program, 4 Mr. Meehan, are you familiar with where New York 5 stands at this point in achieving that, of meeting its 6 objectives?
7 MR. MEEHAN: I am generally familiar with 8 that, and particularly I'm familiar with the New York 9 ISO's assessment, who assessed that based upon staff 10 reports.
11 I believe the assessment of the New York 12 ISO, obviously they only see them as half meeting the 13 objective, because they don't see the forecast by 2015 14 getting down to that point, and I believe that the New 15 York ISO sees taking until 2022, until that 15 percent 16 energy efficiency goal could be met.
17 Which is one of the reasons why we're very 18 skeptical that you could add additional energy 19 efficiency on top of it, to replace Indian Point's 20 generation, if you're already not making quick 21 progress towards meeting the current goal, and having 22 difficulty spending some of the money that has been 23 authorized.
24 MR. TENPAS: Now in executing that 25 program, are there some funds made available to a Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3113 1 state agency or such, to help promote or cause the 2 carrying out of energy efficiency programs?
3 MR. MEEHAN: Yes. There's funds made 4 available to the utilities and to the state agencies.
5 Both receive about $180 million per year.
6 MR. TENPAS: Do you know, are those funds 7 being fully expended at this point?
8 MR. MEEHAN: I do not believe those funds 9 are being fully expended.
10 MR. TENPAS: And is there a generalized 11 explanation for that?
12 MR. MEEHAN: Well, it would just be 13 difficulty finding the programs.
14 MR. TENPAS: Again, just by way of quick 15 clean-up, there may have been a moment when somebody 16 referred to Indian Point as ten percent of New York 17 City. That may have been Mr. Harrison. In case that 18 was the case, is any clarification required as to the 19 ten percent figure?
20 DR. HARRISON: Yes. This is David 21 Harrison for Entergy. I may have misspoke. What I 22 meant to say was that Indian Point generation 23 represented about ten percent of New York State 24 generation.
25 MR. TENPAS: And so I hate to do this to Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3114 1 you, Doctor. I know you had to go through a lot of 2 things. There may have been a moment where you 3 indicated as to certain wind, that the less desirable 4 locations and projects have been identified. If you 5 did say that, would that have been your intention?
6 DR. HARRISON: I don't recall, but if I 7 did, no. What I meant to say was that the early --
8 the more desirable locations would be used first.
9 MR. TENPAS: And again, what would be the 10 implications of that, in terms of your analysis?
11 DR. HARRISON: Well, the implication would 12 be that the more desirable are relatively low cost.
13 So as you have more and more wind resources, you'd use 14 less desirable, and therefore higher costs.
15 MR. TENPAS: Thank you. Can one of the 16 Entergy witnesses talk about demand response, what it 17 is and how it fits or doesn't fit in your analysis, as 18 you think through consequences of Indian Point not 19 being relicensed?
20 MR. MEEHAN: Sure. Demand response is 21 distinct from energy efficiency. This is Gene Meehan 22 for Entergy, and demand response is different than 23 energy efficiency. It's programs that generally 24 qualify in the New York ISO markets, to receive either 25 capacity payments or energy payments, and to cut their Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3115 1 usage at times of very high peaks.
2 So after the, all resources have been 3 expended, when there's no more capacity, the NYISO 4 will call upon demand response programs. So they are 5 peaking programs, intended primarily for use during 6 the very high load summer hours, not many hours per 7 year, and they would in that way not make a material 8 contribution to the replacement of Indian Point 9 generation.
10 MR. TENPAS: Thank you. There were a 11 number of questions in which there was a discussion 12 about well, if a certain -- assume hypothetically that 13 a certain unit would be, come in as a replacement in 14 2015, if Indian Point is not relicensed, and then sort 15 of positing that the same unit or same set of 16 generation resources would come in, say, in 2035, if 17 that were the time of relicensing.
18 From your perspective, would it be 19 sensible to make that assumption, that the mix or the 20 units that might come in 2015 are likely to be the 21 same, and so it's simply a matter of delaying impacts, 22 rather than potentially changing them?
23 DR. HARRISON: This is David Harrison for 24 Entergy. No, it's a good point. I mean if we think 25 about just two hypothetical situations, one in 2015, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3116 1 one is 2035, it is true that market conditions would 2 be different in those two periods.
3 So it's why, if you were doing that you'd 4 be doing -- you'd do another set of runs, another set 5 of market models, to estimate what those replacement 6 resources might be in 2035, versus 2015.
7 MR. TENPAS: Mr. Meehan, have you -- are 8 you aware of any documents where any entities in the 9 State of New York have recently reviewed potential new 10 gas-fired generation and thought about whether that, 11 an alternative to that would be renewables or some of 12 the things that have been discussed here?
13 MR. MEEHAN: Yes.
14 MR. TENPAS: And can you identify what you 15 have in mind?
16 MR. MEEHAN: One would be an exhibit in 17 this proceeding. I believe it's Exhibit 444. I 18 believe it's the State's exhibit, and that is the 19 sheet rock for the Cricket Valley Energy Center, which 20 I described in there as a thousand megawatt gas plant.
21 I don't know --
22 MR. TENPAS: Can I request that the Clerk 23 bring up New York State 444, and go to PDF page 29 to 24 begin with?
25 (Pause.)
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Page 3117 1 MR. TENPAS: Is this the document you had 2 in mind?
3 MR. MEEHAN: This is the document I had in 4 mind. The facility is described as a base load 5 generation facility, and this is the SEQR that the New 6 York Department of Environmental Conservation issued 7 as the lead agency, and it's a final document and 8 action of the State.
9 In discussing its alternatives, if we 10 could blow up that demand side management alternative 11 to start with. This essentially is what we've been 12 calling here energy efficiency or energy efficiency 13 programs, and it makes the point that a DSM was 14 considered.
15 But I think it makes the same point we've 16 tried to make, that while DSM has the potential to 17 reduce energy consumption and optimize patterns of 18 electricity through efficiency improvements, it does 19 not replace base load electrical generating capacity 20 that the project would supply.
21 That project in this place being the 22 Cricket Valley Energy Center, but same of course would 23 apply to Indian Point. But it also goes on to note 24 that the project that is based on generation facility 25 doesn't preclude DSM programs that are economic from Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3118 1 still being implemented at the state or local level.
2 So this was an official action of New 3 York, in its review of the alternatives to a base load 4 project. We also, I think if we scroll down, I'm not 5 sure if it's down or up, but there's a statement on 6 renewables.
7 MR. TENPAS: I think you may need to go in 8 the other direction.
9 MR. MEEHAN: You may need to go in the 10 other direction, I'm sorry. If we could go down, it's 11 under the Alternative section.
12 MR. TENPAS: The bottom of PDF 29, I 13 believe. I draw your attention, if the Clerk could 14 highlight, the Alternate Electric Generation 15 Technologies, one paragraph down from where you are, 16 and perhaps scroll up a bit. The first paragraph is 17 not, I think the paragraph. I'm sorry, scroll down.
18 MR. MEEHAN: Right. It notes that 19 "Alternate generation technologies, including 20 renewable energy, were looked at, and that wind and 21 solar alternatives were not considered further for two 22 reasons." They didn't meet the purpose to supply 23 1,000 megawatts of base load power.
24 Additionally, I think, as we talked about 25 this morning, 6,000 megawatts required to replace Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3119 1 Indian Point, you'd probably need 3,000 megawatts of 2 wind here to replace the 1,000 megawatts of Cricket 3 Valley, and that would take thousands of acres of 4 land, as this report points out.
5 MR. TENPAS: Thank you.
6 MR. MEEHAN: But not a report, I'm sorry.
7 It's this final SEQR.
8 MR. TENPAS: Thank you. Now there was 9 some discussion of combined heat and power as a 10 possible emerging source of electricity in future 11 years.
12 Just generally do you, based on your 13 experience, have any observations and view on the 14 likelihood of that as a likely scenario, by which new 15 electricity would be produced?
16 MR. MEEHAN: My view is that it's not 17 likely that there could be a material amount of 18 generation coming from combined heat and power. That 19 would be material to the amount that Indian Point 20 generates, really for three reasons.
21 First, the general type of -- if you're 22 talking about combined heat and power onsite, they're 23 small installations that don't really have economies 24 of scale, and have to be retrofitted into buildings, 25 and they just haven't been developed to any Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3120 1 significant degree in New York.
2 So there's no -- or anywhere else in the 3 country that I'm aware of. They are used quite widely 4 in Europe. But it's hard to imagine what would cause 5 that to change and why they would be developed.
6 The second type of heat and power would be 7 like the steam systems, like the Con Edison steam 8 system. But you have to go the whole pipe 9 infrastructure for that in just maintaining that 10 system is a challenge. A lot of utilities that had 11 those systems have closed them down.
12 And then third would be like the large 13 process co-generation facilities, like the refineries 14 that Mr. Schlissel had talked about earlier, and 15 combined cogeneration is already pretty widely used at 16 those facilities, and you know, over several thousand 17 megawatts were developed in New York in the late 80's 18 or 90's.
19 So that potential would be pretty much 20 exhausted. So I don't think combined heat and power 21 would be a realistic alternative.
22 MR. TENPAS: Do you know whether NEMS 23 includes new resources from combined heat and power as 24 one of the kinds of generation that might emerge?
25 MR. MEEHAN: I believe it does. I'm not Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3121 1 sure the extent to which it represents that as an 2 alternative, though.
3 MR. TENPAS: And let me turn to one other, 4 I guess, area. Dr. Harrison, Mr. Schlissel made the 5 observation that markets are dynamic, and that one 6 doesn't think so much in terms of a one for one 7 replacement, but how a system would respond. I mean 8 generally, do you agree with that, disagree? How do 9 you view that?
10 DR. HARRISON: David Harrison for Entergy.
11 Yes, no, and what we were emphasizing the importance 12 of markets, you know, getting beyond the possibility 13 of "coulds," to looking at the "woulds," and therefore 14 running, looking at what the market would likely 15 generate, what would likely result if Indian Point 16 generation were not available.
17 So yes, I would, as we have done, tried to 18 determine what the implications of the market 19 conditions would be, for replacement generation.
20 MR. TENPAS: Now with respect to wind, 21 could one of those, you know, dynamisms potentially be 22 technological change, in terms of winds, the cost 23 factors that go into wind?
24 DR. HARRISON: Yes, that's right. I mean 25 the NEMS model, the researchers at the Department of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3122 1 Energy spend a lot of their time looking at the 2 details of the NEMS model, and the detailed 3 assumptions, and they do have these very detailed cost 4 curves that they developed for different technologies, 5 including wind.
6 So those do take into account how the 7 different cost components could, not just for wind, 8 but for all the technologies, change over time. And 9 they do, and part of the modeling results that we did 10 incorporate those changes in cost factors over time.
11 MR. TENPAS: And Mr. Meehan, beyond what 12 the NEMS model incorporates, can you comment generally 13 on sort of the notion that wind is nascent and 14 therefore there are significant likely advances in the 15 cost factors related to wind?
16 MR. MEEHAN: Sure. I think that there has 17 been a lot of wind capacity that has been developed, 18 and a lot of technical progress. But the NEMS model 19 for all technologies, wind, solar and natural gas 20 combined cycle, does factor in declining costs, and 21 does factor in expected improvements as the EIA sees 22 the technology's level of maturity and ability to 23 improve.
24 I believe the wind improvement factor is 25 sort of similar to the gas improvement factor, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3123 1 reflecting the level of maturity of the technology.
2 But it is in the model.
3 MR. TENPAS: Okay, and who's judgment is 4 that? Was that your judgment or how does that factor 5 get into the model?
6 MR. MEEHAN: No. That comes from the 7 Department of Energy's Energy Information 8 Administration, the people who put together that model 9 and that report.
10 MR. TENPAS: If I could ask the Clerk to 11 call up New York, I'm sorry, Entergy 481, and if we 12 could go to PDF 11?
13 (Pause.)
14 MR. TENPAS: If you could move down to the 15 section on overall conclusions. Thank you. Dr.
16 Harrison, do you recognize this as another portion of 17 the report that you prepared?
18 DR. HARRISON: David Harrison for Entergy.
19 Yes, I do.
20 MR. TENPAS: Okay. Now you did an 21 analysis that, based on markets, as to what you 22 imagine would happen or will happen, not might. Is 23 that fair?
24 DR. HARRISON: David Harrison for Entergy.
25 Yes, that's correct.
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Page 3124 1 MR. TENPAS: Okay, and in addition to 2 simply reporting those results, did you then do any 3 analysis or describe any conclusions about how that 4 result matched or failed to match the kind of 5 scenarios that were laid out in the FSEIS as the basis 6 for its assessment of environmental impacts?
7 DR. HARRISON: Yes, yes we did.
8 MR. TENPAS: Okay. Is that reflected in 9 where we're looking at here?
10 DR. HARRISON: Yes. David Harrison for 11 Entergy. Yes, it is.
12 MR. TENPAS: Okay. Could you just point 13 the, or direct the panel to, the section you're 14 interested in, and quickly go through that?
15 DR. HARRISON: Well, this has to do --
16 this is the final section of -- David Harrison for 17 Entergy.
18 This is the final section of the executive 19 summary. So this is sort of the overall conclusion.
20 I guess what we're doing, we're responding to the 21 basic argument that was put forth by the New York 22 State witnesses, that the FSEIS was inadequate for not 23 considering renewables and energy efficiency as a 24 major likely replacement for the generation from 25 Indian Point.
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Page 3125 1 So that really motivated our analysis, to 2 look at that proposition. So what we found was that 3 in fact, the likely replacement would not be energy 4 efficiency, additional energy efficiency and 5 conservation, but additional fossil fuel generation.
6 So that allowed us to answer the question, 7 how do the various alternatives that were evaluated in 8 the FSEIS stack up? Are they a reasonable set of 9 alternatives. So our overall conclusion is that their 10 analysis demonstrates that the range of scenarios 11 considered in the FSEIS was sufficient.
12 That's probably the major conclusion, in 13 a way. What we're saying is that there really is no 14 argument for deciding that FSEIS is not sufficient to 15 look at various alternatives, because it hasn't 16 assumed that all of the replacement generation would 17 come from energy efficiency renewables.
18 Quite the contrary. We go on to point out 19 that in fact it's probably conservative, in the sense 20 that our analysis suggests that the environmental 21 effects would probably be, would be greater than the 22 ones that were assumed in most of the scenarios that 23 the staff used and developed in the FSEIS.
24 MR. TENPAS: Right. To the degree the 25 FSEIS has thought about having established some Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3126 1 bounding scenarios to look at, and then looks at, 2 based on your analysis and looking at the FSEIS and 3 the results of all that you talked about and looked 4 at, the NEMS and other points, in your view, does the 5 FSEIS present a reasonable bounding analysis?
6 DR. HARRISON: That's right. That was our 7 conclusion, that the range of alternatives that were 8 presented in the FSEIS was reasonable.
9 MR. TENPAS: That's all. Thank you, Your 10 Honor.
11 JUDGE McDADE: Mr. Sipos?
12 MR. SIPOS: Thank you, Your Honor. John 13 Sipos for the State of New York. Mr. Wilkie, would 14 you please call up Entergy Exhibit 000479, and 15 specifically page 43, Figure 1?
16 (Pause.)
17 MR. SIPOS: Thank you. Dr. Harrison, the 18 two power reactors, Indian Point Unit 2 and Indian 19 Point Unit 3, they're located in Zone H; correct?
20 DR. HARRISON: Yes, that's correct.
21 MR. SIPOS: And that's outside of New York 22 City; correct?
23 DR. HARRISON: Yes, it is.
24 MR. SIPOS: And it's also outside of Long 25 Island; correct?
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Page 3127 1 DR. HARRISON: David Harrison for Entergy.
2 Yes, that's correct.
3 MR. SIPOS: Thank you. Now Dr. Harrison, 4 Indian Point Unit 2 and Indian Point Unit 3, they send 5 power to New Jersey; correct?
6 DR. HARRISON: David Harrison for Entergy.
7 Well, they provide power to the grid, and where that 8 is, it would come to New Jersey and other areas.
9 MR. SIPOS: So it does provide power to 10 New Jersey; correct?
11 DR. HARRISON: David Harrison for Entergy.
12 It's part of the larger energy system, yes.
13 MR. SIPOS: So the answer is yes? Is that 14 correct, sir?
15 DR. HARRISON: As I've described it, 16 correct.
17 MR. SIPOS: So power from Indian Point 18 goes to New Jersey; correct?
19 MR. TENPAS: Objection, Your Honor.
20 JUDGE McDADE: I believe the witness has 21 answered.
22 MR. SIPOS: Your Honor, excuse me. In Dr.
23 Harrison's part of the larger grid, Indian Point Unit 24 2 and Indian Point Unit 3 also send power to New 25 England; correct?
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Page 3128 1 DR. HARRISON: David Harrison for Entergy.
2 My sense is that it's appropriate to think of this as 3 part of a grid, and that Entergy, that Indian Point 4 generates about 16.3 megawatt hours per year. That 5 Entergy, that Entergy goes, you know, to the system.
6 MR. SIPOS: And the system includes New 7 England; correct sir?
8 DR. HARRISON: Well, there are different 9 parts of the system. New York is its own part of the 10 system. There is a New England that is part of a 11 larger system, of which New York and New England are 12 one.
13 MR. SIPOS: Thank you. Mr. Schlissel, 14 would you agree that Indian Point sends power to New 15 Jersey and New England?
16 MR. SCHLISSEL: You can't tell where the 17 electrons that are generated at a power plant end up, 18 as I think Dr. Harrison was trying to explain. Some 19 of them could be in North Carolina, some could be in 20 Montana. There's no way to -- there's no tracking.
21 So what's done is it's kind of like an 22 accounting mechanism, to assume that the electrons 23 from the plant, from any plant like Indian Point, end 24 up in New York. But you really don't know where the 25 individual electrons go. It's an integrated grid, at Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3129 1 least the eastern connection.
2 So anywhere in the east, they probably 3 -- somebody, when they turn their light on tonight in 4 suburban Chicago, may well have an electron from 5 Indian Point going in there. There's no way to know.
6 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. There's basically 7 three grids in the United States, one covering most of 8 the eastern United States?
9 MR. SCHLISSEL: There's an eastern 10 connection, then a western grid, and then Texas is 11 kind of -- it's interconnected a bit, but generally 12 it's off on its own. I think there are two or three 13 connections between Texas and the rest of the country.
14 JUDGE McDADE: But once Indian Power pumps 15 power into the grid, it could go anywhere within the 16 eastern grid?
17 MR. SCHLISSEL: That's my understanding 18 electronically, yes. Electrically.
19 MR. SIPOS: Mr. Wilkie, could we pull up 20 New York Exhibit 000444? And this, I believe, is the 21 CVE or Cricket Valley seeker statement?
22 (Pause.)
23 MR. SIPOS: Thank you very much, and this 24 question is for Mr. Schlissel. Does Cricket Valley or 25 CVE have the potential to provide some replacement Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3130 1 power in lieu of Indian Point Unit 2 or Indian Point 2 Unit 3?
3 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes. It's not -- I mean 4 it will be -- if the schedule is met, I think it's due 5 to come online in 2015 or 2016. I can't recall the 6 exact date.
7 MR. SIPOS: And do you know if that was 8 discussed in the FSEIS?
9 MR. SCHLISSEL: I believe the answer is 10 no. Well, I believe the answer is yes. I do know and 11 I believe it was not discussed.
12 MR. SIPOS: Thank you, Your Honor. I have 13 no further questions.
14 JUDGE McDADE: The staff?
15 MS. MIZUNO: Yes, Your Honor. I have 16 something to clarify. If we could see NRC Exhibit 17 133, page 20? That is NRC staff's testimony, page 20.
18 (Pause.)
19 MS. MIZUNO: There, on page 20 and 21, 20 there is a chart. It goes over two pages.
21 JUDGE McDADE: Actually, 19 and 20?
22 MS. MIZUNO: I think that might be 23 correct. I'm sorry, 19 and 20. Thank you.
24 JUDGE McDADE: And you want the second 25 page of the first of the chart?
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Page 3131 1 MS. MIZUNO: Both pages, but we'll just 2 settle with whatever's on this screen. Mr.
3 Stuyvenberg, have you had a chance to --
4 JUDGE McDADE: And just for the record, 5 this is the first page, page 19, the top of Table 9.1, 6 dash 1 rather. Please continue.
7 MS. MIZUNO: Mr. Stuyvenberg, do you 8 recognize this table?
9 MR. STUYVENBERG: Yes, I do.
10 MS. MIZUNO: Can you tell, this is the 11 table that was in your testimony, isn't it?
12 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct.
13 MS. MIZUNO: Can you tell us where you got 14 it?
15 MR. STUYVENBERG: Yes. It's taken 16 directly from the FSEIS at page 9-9. It's Chapter 9 17 of the final supplemental environmental impact 18 statement.
19 MS. MIZUNO: And I think that is New York 20 State Exhibit 133C. Can we have that up please?
21 133C, New York State.
22 (Pause.)
23 MS. MIZUNO: Great, and if you could go to 24 page 117 please? Mr. Stuyvenberg, is that the table 25 that you took from the FSEIS and put in your Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3132 1 testimony?
2 MR. STUYVENBERG: Yes, and also on the 3 following page.
4 MS. MIZUNO: There was some talk earlier 5 about combined heat and power plants, and also some 6 talk about combined cycle gas, natural gas plants.
7 Mr. Stuyvenberg, could you explain the relationship, 8 if any, between combined heat and power, I mean yes, 9 and combined cycle natural gas?
10 MR. STUYVENBERG: Sure. A combined cycle 11 natural gas facility uses two different generators 12 essentially, to produce electrical power. One is a 13 gas turbine unit, and then the waste heat from that, 14 in some cases it may be more than one gas turbine at 15 a given NGCC, or natural gas combined cycle facility.
16 But waste heat from the turbine stage is 17 sent to a second stage called a heat recovery steam 18 generator, and in that stage, a portion of the waste 19 heat, in some cases a significant portion of the waste 20 heat, it used to boil water, to then drive the steam 21 turbine as well.
22 What this does is it drastically increases 23 the efficiency of the natural gas facility, and makes 24 use of again, a portion of the waste heat from the gas 25 turbine. In some cases, efficiencies may approach as Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3133 1 much as 60 percent.
2 Combined heat and power is a notion 3 whereby the waste heat from a power facility is used 4 for another purpose. In many ways, natural gas 5 combined cycle, which is the type of alternative 6 considered, a natural gas alternative considered in 7 the FSEIS, is not unlike a combined heat and power 8 facility, except it uses the heat to produce more 9 electricity, rather than for other purposes.
10 The remaining heat from the power plant is 11 a lower quality heat than what you would have had if 12 you only had a single turbine cycle.
13 MS. MIZUNO: And this is the combined heat 14 and power, the last one that you just spoke about, the 15 example that Mr. Schlissel gave about that was what?
16 Do you recall?
17 MR. STUYVENBERG: If I recall correctly, 18 he had mentioned a coal-fired power plant in Holland, 19 Michigan, and also -- while I'm not intimately 20 familiar with that power plant, my understanding is 21 it's actually a fairly small facility, I think on the 22 order of, all units considered, something like 80 23 megawatts.
24 MS. MIZUNO: And how many megawatts does 25 Indian Point produced?
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Page 3134 1 MR. STUYVENBERG: 2,158 megawatts.
2 MS. MIZUNO: Thanks. So that gives us 3 some idea of the perspective.
4 MR. STUYVENBERG: Certainly. Also, as 5 concerns size of combined heat and power, I would note 6 that New York State suggested that combined heat and 7 power could make up 100 to 200 megawatts of a 8 combination alternative in its comments on the draft 9 SEIS, which would be somewhere on the order of five to 10 ten percent of Indian Point's capacity. That was New 11 York State Exhibit 134, Adobe page 39 of 62.
12 MS. MIZUNO: Can you back up a little bit 13 and explain where did this come from? It came from 14 what?
15 MR. STUYVENBERG: I'm sorry. You mean the 16 100 to 200 megawatts that I just mentioned?
17 MS. MIZUNO: Right.
18 MR. STUYVENBERG: Definitely. That was a 19 set of comments submitted actually by New York State 20 on the draft supplemental environmental impact 21 statement, where they had suggested that the DSEIS 22 should consider combined heat and power.
23 The combination of alternatives in which 24 they submitted that contained 100 to 200 megawatts of 25 combined heat and power, which again is a relatively Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3135 1 small portion of Indian Point's power.
2 MS. MIZUNO: And so what did they suggest 3 to make up the difference?
4 MR. STUYVENBERG: The remainder, they 5 suggested, should be energy efficiency and 6 conservation, and renewable resources.
7 MS. MIZUNO: And what if anything did the 8 NRC staff do about this comment that they received 9 from New York State?
10 MR. STUYVENBERG: We chose to consider 11 their Combination 4, which was the other combination 12 they submitted as one of the combinations the staff 13 would consider, because we found it to be rather 14 similar.
15 But all elements that went towards 16 satisfying the purpose and need for the action, of 17 which combined heat and power provided heat which 18 Indian Point doesn't currently provide.
19 MS. MIZUNO: I'd like to move to a 20 different area, and this is going to the FSEIS. There 21 was also some testimony earlier about alternatives 22 that were eliminated from discussion.
23 I'm not sure that the record has a decent 24 cite for that. So I'm going to ask you to pull up, if 25 you would please, New York State Exhibit 133C. I'm Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3136 1 looking for page eight, seven-zero. I'm looking for 2 page seven-zero, 70 please.
3 (Off record comment.)
4 MS. MIZUNO: No, that's Adobe page 70.
5 Have you got it? Great. Mr. Stuyvenberg, can you see 6 that?
7 MR. STUYVENBERG: Yes.
8 MS. MIZUNO: Can you tell us what that is?
9 MR. STUYVENBERG: That page contains the 10 beginning of the section in which we address the 11 alternatives that we dismissed from individual 12 consideration.
13 MS. MIZUNO: And how long does that 14 section run? By my count, it ends on page Adobe 86.
15 Could you please go to that page sir?
16 MR. STUYVENBERG: Mr. Stuyvenberg, I think 17 it's up on the monitors. Is that the end of the 18 section in the FSEIS that discusses alternatives 19 eliminated from consideration?
20 MS. MIZUNO: It does appear to be the 21 case.
22 MR. STUYVENBERG: And you don't just list 23 the alternatives, do you? I mean that's 16 pages.
24 The list can't be 16 pages long.
25 MS. MIZUNO: That's correct. We provide Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3137 1 in each case a reason for its dismissal.
2 MR. TURK: And just for the purpose of the 3 record's clarity, Your Honor, may I note that the 4 pages referenced by Ms. Mizuno in the EIS appear as 5 pages 8-43 to 8-59.
6 JUDGE McDADE: Thank you.
7 MS. MIZUNO: Mr. Stuyvenberg, earlier in 8 the day, quite a bit earlier in the day, Judge 9 Wardwell asked a question of you about state 10 environmental reviews, and he asked whether you could 11 provide us some information about natural gas 12 facilities. Would you be able to do that?
13 MR. STUYVENBERG: Yes, and to the extent 14 that the question was about state environmental 15 reviews, I apologize. I believe I may have 16 misunderstood the question. I am somewhat familiar 17 with state statutes that call for environmental review 18 for state level actions.
19 One of them is New York State's 20 Environmental Quality Review Act, and certainly I 21 think it's already been mentioned here, the Cricket 22 Valley Energy Project has an environmental impact 23 statement that was, that has the State's Department of 24 Environmental Conservation, one of the executive 25 agencies of New York State, as the lead agency, and Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3138 1 they prepared an environmental impact statement for 2 that power plant.
3 MS. MIZUNO: And the environmental impact 4 statement tracks NRC's practice, in that there is a 5 draft environmental impact statement comments, and 6 then a final environmental impact statement; correct?
7 MR. STUYVENBERG: Although I'm not 8 intimately familiar with the process, that's how it 9 appears to me.
10 MS. MIZUNO: My next set of questions are 11 for you, Mr. Schlissel.
12 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes ma'am.
13 MS. MIZUNO: They refer to the Cricket 14 Valley Statement of Environmental Quality Review, the 15 SEQR document. That's New York State Exhibit 444.
16 You are familiar with that document?
17 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes ma'am.
18 MS. MIZUNO: Mr. Schlissel, you have, in 19 your testimony, in your pre-file testimony, criticized 20 the NRC's analysis of conservation, efficiency and 21 demand-side management, didn't you?
22 MR. SCHLISSEL: I don't know if criticize 23 is the right word. It certainly said we believe there 24 could be more.
25 MS. MIZUNO: Right. You believe that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3139 1 conservation efficiency and demand side management 2 should be considered as an alternate to license 3 renewal, do you not?
4 MR. SCHLISSEL: As part of an alternative, 5 yes ma'am.
6 MS. MIZUNO: And in fact, the NRC staff 7 did consider conservation efficiency and demand side 8 management as a stand-alone alternative to license 9 renewal, did it not?
10 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes, they did.
11 MS. MIZUNO: All right. None of these 12 provide base load power, do they?
13 MR. SCHLISSEL: Well, they obviate the 14 need for base load power.
15 MS. MIZUNO: That's correct, but they do 16 not themselves provide power, do they?
17 MR. SCHLISSEL: No. They're supply side, 18 not demand side.
19 MS. MIZUNO: Correct. They don't provide 20 any power at all, base load or otherwise?
21 MR. SCHLISSEL: I think I've answered that 22 question, and I don't know what else to answer.
23 JUDGE McDADE: The answer is yes or no?
24 MR. SCHLISSEL: The answer is yes or no.
25 Do they provide any power? No, they're supply side Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3140 1 measures. They obviate, mitigate, eliminate the need 2 for generation of power.
3 MS. MIZUNO: In Exhibit New York State 4 444, if we could have that on the screen please?
5 (Pause.)
6 MS. MIZUNO: Oh, I'm sorry. I don't have 7 it.
8 MR. TURK: Just a minute, Your Honor.
9 We're looking for the exhibit.
10 MS. MIZUNO: I misplaced them. I thought 11 I had them in front of me, and I moved them. Thank 12 you. I have it now. Oh, I'm sorry.
13 (Pause.)
14 MS. MIZUNO: Mr. Schlissel, does the SEQR 15 document discuss demand side management?
16 MR. SCHLISSEL: I believe it does, as the 17 discussion by one of the Entergy witnesses indicated 18 a few minutes ago.
19 MS. MIZUNO: And what does it say about 20 demand side management? Do you recall?
21 MR. SCHLISSEL: It said that it does not 22 displace the base load power from the proposed Cricket 23 Valley facility?
24 MS. MIZUNO: Right, and as a result, did 25 New York State analyze demand side management as an Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3141 1 alternative to the project?
2 MR. SCHLISSEL: I don't know. We have to 3 look at the order again.
4 MS. MIZUNO: If you could go to page 29 of 5 New York State 444? Have we got that up?
6 MR. SCHLISSEL: It is up.
7 MS. MIZUNO: Very good. Under the first 8 heading, "Demand Side Management," it states "while 9 DSM has potential to reduce energy consumption and 10 optimize patterns of electricity usage through 11 efficiency improvements, it would not replace the base 12 load electrical generating capacity that the project 13 would supply." Have I correctly read that section?
14 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes, you've read 15 correctly.
16 MS. MIZUNO: All right, and yet you 17 testified that these conservation, efficiency and 18 demand side management should be considered as an 19 alternative; correct?
20 MR. SCHLISSEL: That's correct. As part 21 of a portfolio of measures not on its own. I don't 22 know whether in Cricket Valley they just, they used 23 the word "was considered." I don't know how they 24 considered it, what they considered it? Was it a 25 loan? Was it in tandem with other measures? I mean -
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Page 3142 1 -
2 MS. MIZUNO: Would it be helpful to look 3 at the Cricket Valley draft environmental impact 4 statement? We have that in as an exhibit. It is NRC 5 166. Could we have that on the screen please?
6 JUDGE McDADE: If the witness is just 7 going to be asked what it says, we've already got that 8 in the record, and you can argue from it. Do you want 9 to ask questions about his interpretation of it as 10 well?
11 MS. MIZUNO: Well, I would like to ask 12 him. No, Your Honor, that's fine.
13 On the need for power issue, or rather on 14 determining what alternatives to consider, Mr.
15 Schlissel in your testimony, which is New York State 16 46 at Adobe page 12 and actually at page 12, would it 17 be fair to say that you criticized the NRC staff's 18 analysis of alternatives, because its analysis starts 19 with the assumption that the alternative that should 20 be considered should produce an equal amount of power 21 as Indian Point, isn't that correct?
22 MR. SCHLISSEL: I recall saying that. I 23 can't find it on page 12. But I do recall saying 24 that.
25 MS. MIZUNO: You disagreed with the NRC Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3143 1 staff's approach in that regard; correct?
2 MR. SCHLISSEL: Well, give me a moment to 3 see the context.
4 MS. MIZUNO: Certainly.
5 MR. SCHLISSEL: It's in my direct 6 testimony?
7 MS. MIZUNO: Yes, I believe so.
8 MR. SCHLISSEL: Page 12.
9 (Witness reviewing document.)
10 MR. SCHLISSEL: I'm sorry. I don't see 11 this statement. Maybe I'm missing it, because it's 12 late in the day.
13 MS. MIZUNO: Or I might have written it 14 down incorrectly. Hold on. I'm sorry. I need to 15 find the right page, Your Honor.
16 JUDGE McDADE: But rather than focusing on 17 what he said in his direct testimony, why not just ask 18 him a question now about his view, as opposed to what 19 the staff's view is?
20 MS. MIZUNO: Yes. You would factor into 21 your analysis a decreased need for power, would you 22 not? And thus you would consider alternatives that 23 produce less power than Indian Point. Is that a fair 24 characterization?
25 MR. SCHLISSEL: I think so. The way I Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3144 1 would say it is that I would factor in conservation, 2 and therefore would need to generate less power at 3 other supply side alternatives.
4 MS. MIZUNO: Could we have Cricket 5 Valley's DEIS, which is NRC 166 up, and this time I do 6 have the right page? It's page five. In the document 7 itself, it is page 7-3.
8 (Pause.)
9 JUDGE McDADE: Do you want us to call up 10 NRC Exhibit 166?
11 MS. MIZUNO: Yes, and Adobe page 5. I 12 think we can kill two birds with one stone. Have we 13 got it up?
14 JUDGE McDADE: Not yet.
15 MS. MIZUNO: Okay, thank you.
16 (Pause.)
17 MS. MIZUNO: We're at Adobe page five?
18 Right. There's a paragraph that starts "Under the no 19 action alternative," the first full paragraph of this 20 page. Do you see that, Mr. Schlissel?
21 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes.
22 MS. MIZUNO: All right, and it was -- just 23 to get back to where we were, because we had a little 24 bit of time in between, you did state that you thought 25 that an appropriate analysis would consider Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3145 1 alternatives that also, that produced less power than 2 Indian Point, taking into account conservation and 3 energy efficiency; is that correct?
4 MR. SCHLISSEL: Yes.
5 MS. MIZUNO: All right. So would you read 6 the last sentence of that first full paragraph? It 7 starts with the words "without."
8 MR. SCHLISSEL: You want me to read it out 9 loud?
10 MS. MIZUNO: Yes sir, please.
11 MR. SCHLISSEL: "Without the project or a 12 similar new facility developed elsewhere within the 13 region, the electrical output of the project would 14 likely need to be met through continued increased 15 reliance on older, less efficient and higher emitting 16 sources."
17 MS. MIZUNO: I'm sorry. I have the wrong 18 cite. Try the first sentence on that page, please.
19 First sentence.
20 MR. SCHLISSEL: "Under the no action 21 alternative, the electrical generating capacity of the 22 project would need to be met through construction of 23 additional generation capacity elsewhere."
24 MS. MIZUNO: And if you could go on, 25 please.
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Page 3146 1 MR. SCHLISSEL: "As described in Section 2 7.4, development of a comparable facility at another 3 location with adequate access to natural gas supply 4 and the bulk transmission system (i.e., with minimal 5 offsite disturbance), and adequate buffer from other 6 land uses, would likely necessitate the use of a 7 greenfield site, instead of an inactive industrial 8 site."
9 MS. MIZUNO: So thus in Cricket Valley, 10 New York rejected the demand side management -- sorry.
11 Rejected the no action alternative, on the grounds 12 that it was looking at -- New York State was looking 13 for an alternative, in the same way that the NRC was, 14 looking for one that would provide the same amount of 15 power; isn't that correct?
16 MR. SIPOS: Objection, Your Honor.
17 JUDGE McDADE: Sustained.
18 MS. MIZUNO: In the Cricket Valley draft 19 environmental impact statement, did New York State 20 require an analysis of an alternative that provided 21 the same amount of power as the project?
22 MR. SIPOS: Objection, Your Honor.
23 JUDGE McDADE: Sustained.
24 MS. MIZUNO: In the Cricket Valley --
25 JUDGE McDADE: You can ask him any Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3147 1 conclusions that the would draw or whether this would 2 change conclusions that he has reached.
3 MS. MIZUNO: Yes, Your Honor.
4 JUDGE McDADE: But not to speculate as to 5 what New York State did or why.
6 MS. MIZUNO: Yes, Your Honor. What is 7 your view of New York State's approach in the Cricket 8 Valley draft environmental impact statement, as 9 compared to the NRC's final supplemental environmental 10 impact statement?
11 MR. SIPOS: Objection.
12 MS. MIZUNO: I've asked for his --
13 JUDGE McDADE: Excuse me. All you do is 14 ask a question.
15 MR. SIPOS: Objection, Your Honor.
16 JUDGE McDADE: This objection's overruled.
17 MS. MIZUNO: Would you please answer?
18 JUDGE McDADE: You can answer the 19 question.
20 MS. MIZUNO: How would you compare them?
21 MR. SCHLISSEL: I can answer the question 22 as follows. I've not read through all of the DEIS and 23 the final EIS.
24 What I looked at with regards to Cricket 25 Valley was they put in a modeling analysis using the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3148 1 GE Maps model, which compared the generation cost and 2 emissions, without Cricket Valley and with Cricket 3 Valley, and they concluded that what they said in the 4 last sentence, which was the first one you had me 5 read, that they'd have to rely on older and less 6 efficient power plants.
7 Now I have -- I'm not doubting that 8 conclusion. I would just say that when I went back 9 and looked at the basis for it, their modeling didn't 10 assume anything about the New York State 45 by 15 11 plant. It wasn't even included in it.
12 So I can't really draw any conclusions 13 about the results of their modeling, and that leads me 14 -- basically, I don't know how to answer your 15 question, other than that way.
16 MS. MIZUNO: But in the DEIS for Cricket 17 Valley, New York State said --
18 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. I'm going to cut 19 this off right now. This person didn't write the DEIS 20 for Cricket Valley. He isn't proffering it as an 21 example. If there's something about it that his 22 expertise can help us understand or interpret, you can 23 go ahead there. But it's not a situation of asking 24 him just simply to critique it or adopt it.
25 MS. MIZUNO: Yes, Your Honor. I Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3149 1 understand. Do you have any questions?
2 MR. TURK: Your Honor, Sherwin Turk. I 3 have a few additional questions. Virtually all of 4 them will be redirect towards Mr. Stuyvenberg, with 5 your permission.
6 Mr. Stuyvenberg, you mention on page three 7 of your testimony, which is NRC Exhibit 133, that you 8 manage the environmental review for the Indian Point 9 Units 2 and 3 license renewal process; correct?
10 MR. STUYVENBERG: Yes. I managed that 11 process from early in 2008 through late in 2011.
12 MR. TURK: And as part of that role, you 13 were involved in preparation of both the draft EIS and 14 the final EIS?
15 MR. STUYVENBERG: Yes, Volumes 1 through 16 3 of the final EIS.
17 MR. TURK: Do you recall when the draft 18 EIS was published?
19 MR. STUYVENBERG: In December of 2008.
20 MR. TURK: And for the record, I believe 21 that is New York Exhibit 132; correct?
22 MR. STUYVENBERG: I'll trust you.
23 MR. TURK: Thank you, and then following 24 publication of the draft EIS, did the staff invite 25 comments from the public and interested governmental Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3150 1 agencies on the draft EIS?
2 MR. STUYVENBERG: Yes.
3 MR. TURK: And did the staff in fact 4 receive comments on the draft EIS?
5 MR. STUYVENBERG: We received comments on 6 it, that's correct, many of them.
7 MR. TURK: Many comments?
8 MR. STUYVENBERG: Many comments.
9 MR. TURK: Would you say that there was an 10 extensive amount of comments?
11 MR. STUYVENBERG: I believe it is the 12 single largest number of comments that we've received 13 on a license renewal EIS to date.
14 MR. TURK: Did the staff reproduce those 15 comments in the final EIS?
16 MR. STUYVENBERG: We did, that's correct.
17 MR. TURK: And where would we go to see 18 those comments in New York Exhibit 133, which is the 19 final SEIS?
20 MR. STUYVENBERG: Well, I don't recall how 21 it breaks down across the lettered portions of New 22 York State 133. I can tell you it's in Appendix A, 23 and the comments are specifically contained in Volume 24 2 and a portion of Volume 3.
25 MR. TURK: Your Honor, for the record, may Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3151 1 I just note that New York Exhibit 133C begins at 5-10 2 of the FSEIS, and goes to page A as in Alpha-23. New 3 York 133 begins at A-24 --
4 JUDGE McDADE: 133D?
5 MR. TURK: New York 133D picks up at A-24 6 and continues to A-174. New York 133E picks up at A-7 175, continues to A-453. New York 133F picks up at A-8 454, continues to A-760.
9 New York 133G picks up at A-761 and 10 continues to A-1043. And then New York 133H goes from 11 A-1044 to A-1256. New York 133I goes from A-1275 to 12 H as in Harold 6, and finally New York 133J goes from 13 H-7 to I-87.
14 I apologize, Your Honor. We have such a 15 large number of exhibits with different page 16 references. In my questions of Mr. Stuyvenberg, I'm 17 going to be referring to the pages of the FSEIS, 18 because I don't have the PDF pages noted as well.
19 JUDGE McDADE: Is it going to be necessary 20 for us to bring them up on the screen, or can you do 21 it without that?
22 MR. TURK: I would like to bring a few 23 pages up on the screen, and in that regard, I would 24 ask that New York 133C be brought up to page A-1, and 25 Mr. Stuyvenberg, if you have the FEIS in front of you, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3152 1 I might ask you to refer to that as well.
2 MR. STUYVENBERG: I do. I have Volume 1, 3 I should say.
4 MR. TURK: And I guess for the record, 5 Your Honor, for anyone else who has the volumes of the 6 EIS here in the courtroom, Volume 1 ends at A-174.
7 Volume 2 begins at A-175 and goes to A-1043, and 8 Volume 3 picks up at A-1044 and goes to the end.
9 So Mr. Stuyvenberg, the comments that were 10 received on the draft EIS, those were reproduced in 11 Appendix A to the FSEIS?
12 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct.
13 MR. TURK: And beginning at page A-2, you 14 provide a listing of the comments received; am I 15 correct?
16 MR. STUYVENBERG: It is a listing of 17 comments and commenters, their commentary ID numbers, 18 and in some cases, I'm sorry. Comment ID number start 19 later, but there are commenter numbers that start in 20 that table.
21 MR. TURK: All right, and is it Mr. Wilkie 22 who's running the machine?
23 JUDGE McDADE: Yes.
24 MR. TURK: Could you please go to page A-25 46? I'm sorry. This is, I apologize, Your Honor.
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Page 3153 1 This is a different exhibit. This is D volume.
2 (Pause.)
3 JUDGE McDADE: Do you have any questions 4 about this?
5 MR. TURK: Yes, Your Honor. Mr.
6 Stuyvenberg, looking at page A-46, what is on the 7 screen now, this is a list or an outline by topic of 8 comments received on the draft EIS; is that correct?
9 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct, and the 10 outline continues on page A-47.
11 MR. TURK: And do you see on page A-47 12 Item A-214?
13 MR. STUYVENBERG: Yes.
14 MR. TURK: And what is that?
15 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's comments 16 concerning alternatives.
17 MR. TURK: And that indicates that those 18 comments are addressed, commencing at page A-150?
19 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct.
20 MR. TURK: Your Honor, may we please go to 21 page A-150 of the same exhibit, 133D New York.
22 (Pause.)
23 JUDGE McDADE: Page 150?
24 MR. TURK: Yes, Your Honor. Now Mr.
25 Stuyvenberg, looking at this page, Item A-214 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3154 1 indicates comments concerning alternatives. In this 2 section of the FSEIS, did you address comments 3 received on the alternatives to license renewal?
4 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct. It was 5 in this section we addressed them, and just so that 6 people who are looking at this know, there's a 7 synopsis of the binned comments that appears on these 8 pages, that refer to the full comments that appear 9 elsewhere in the SEIS.
10 MR. TURK: Okay. Let me address that for 11 a second. You had previously indicated that the 12 entire discussion of alternatives, both the no action 13 alternative and any other alternatives, is contained 14 in Chapter 8 of the FSEIS; do you recall that?
15 MR. STUYVENBERG: I do.
16 MR. TURK: Does this section of the FSEIS 17 also contain the staff's evaluation of alternative 18 issues?
19 MR. STUYVENBERG: It does, to the extent 20 that it responds to issues raised by commenters.
21 That's correct.
22 MR. TURK: And then how -- to what extent 23 are comments addressed within the FSEIS Chapter 8 24 versus in Appendix A to the FSEIS?
25 MR. STUYVENBERG: In some cases, we made Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3155 1 changes based on the comments to Chapter 8. In some 2 cases we did not. This disposition's comments as to 3 what we ultimately decided to do in response to those 4 comments.
5 MR. TURK: And in front of this section 6 are a series of numbers and letters. For instance, 7 the first line begins 34 dash small A dash AL/EC. Do 8 you see that designation?
9 MR. STUYVENBERG: I do.
10 MR. TURK: Could you explain what that 11 refers to?
12 MR. STUYVENBERG: Certainly. If we go to 13 the -- there's a table in the FSEIS, Appendix A.
14 MR. TURK: And I don't think we need to 15 call it up on the screen. If you would just explain 16 the numbering system that you used.
17 MR. STUYVENBERG: So the number, the first 18 number refers to, I'm sorry. It's the only number in 19 each one, refers to the specific commenter. I think 20 we can -- if you look at it, there are a number of 21 different ones. 34, we could find out who that is if 22 you wanted to.
23 But the small A describes the first 24 comment that whoever 34 is made. The next alpha 25 identifiers indicate the subject matter to which the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3156 1 comments pertain. So that that first one would have 2 been AL as alternatives; EC I believe is energy costs.
3 So in this case, it was a comment from 4 whoever 34 was. It was that person's first comment or 5 that organization's first comment, and it was 6 pertaining to alternatives and energy costs.
7 MR. TURK: And then this same pattern 8 continues for all the other numbered comments.
9 There's the commenter's identifying number, followed 10 by the type of comment that you're addressing?
11 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's right. It's the 12 commenter's identifying number, followed by a letter 13 that identifies which comment made by that person it 14 was, and then letters that describe what the subject 15 matter of the comment was.
16 MR. TURK: Thank you, and by the way, 17 yesterday we had testimony concerning environmental 18 justice. You were involved in the preparation of the 19 EIS on that section as well?
20 MR. STUYVENBERG: I was involved in 21 preparation of environmental justice for alternatives.
22 MR. TURK: For alternatives, and Mr.
23 Rikhoff was involved with respect to the actual 24 discussion of environmental justice impacts of license 25 renewal?
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Page 3157 1 MR. STUYVENBERG: As well as --
2 MS. RAIMUNDI: Objection, Your Honor.
3 JUDGE McDADE: Sustained.
4 MR. TURK: Your Honor, Mr. Stuyvenberg 5 coordinated and oversaw the whole process, and I'm not 6 going to ask him for any testimony on environmental 7 justice issues, simply to explain the process that was 8 used.
9 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, very briefly. I 10 believe we've heard a lot about the process and are 11 familiar with it, but briefly summarize it.
12 MR. TURK: The one quick question I would 13 ask is in the same manner that comments concerning 14 alternatives are presented in Appendix A, is there a 15 section that addresses comments on environmental 16 justice issues?
17 MR. STUYVENBERG: There is, and it begins 18 at page A-110. The section number is A.2.7.4.
19 MR. TURK: Thank you, Your Honor. I have 20 nothing else on that particular issue. But I do have 21 a few more questions.
22 JUDGE McDADE: Please proceed.
23 MR. TURK: Mr. Stuyvenberg, the purpose of 24 the FSEIS in which you were involved for Indian Point, 25 was it to consider resource planning issues?
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Page 3158 1 MR. STUYVENBERG: No sir.
2 MR. TURK: Is that something that the NRC 3 staff becomes involved in?
4 MR. STUYVENBERG: No. NRC staff has no 5 role in energy resource planning.
6 MR. TURK: And for that reason, is it 7 correct to assume that you weren't trying to analyze 8 on behalf of New York State or any other entity, which 9 resource is best used to replace Indian Point?
10 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct.
11 MR. TURK: And that would be something 12 that New York would do or some other agency, apart 13 from the NRC?
14 MR. STUYVENBERG: Somebody other than NRC, 15 that's correct.
16 MR. TURK: Now Mr. Stuyvenberg, there was 17 a question about the point in time at which your 18 analysis assumes certain conditions exist, whether 19 you're looking at the present or 20 years hence. Do 20 you recall that?
21 MR. STUYVENBERG: Yes.
22 MR. TURK: And you had indicated that you 23 looked at, I believe, the year 2015.
24 MR. STUYVENBERG: We looked for 25 alternatives to replace the facilities when they Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3159 1 retire.
2 MR. TURK: When they retire, 2013 and 3 2015.
4 MR. STUYVENBERG: Correct.
5 MR. TURK: If you had to look at a future 6 period, such as 2035, would that be something that you 7 could easily forecast?
8 MR. STUYVENBERG: I'm not sure whether we 9 could easily forecast it, but we'd have to make a 10 number of assumptions about what would occur at that 11 time period, about various technologies and situations 12 and the viability of various resources.
13 MR. TURK: Included in an analysis of such 14 future needs or power supply, energy supply --
15 MR. STUYVENBERG: To clarify, we wouldn't 16 do a need for power analysis for that time period.
17 MR. TURK: If you're going to do an 18 analysis for the year 2035, I believe it was Dr.
19 Wardwell who asked about doing an analysis now, versus 20 the incremental period 20 years later, would you have 21 to know something about what plants will be built, 22 what plants will be decommissioned, what energy demand 23 would be 20 years hence? You want me to restate that?
24 MR. STUYVENBERG: I would like you to 25 restate that. I'm not sure I understand the question.
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Page 3160 1 MR. TURK: Okay. If you were trying to 2 assess what replacement power might be necessary for 3 Indian Point in the year 2035, what would you have to 4 know about the existence of plant capacity and demand 5 at that time?
6 MR. STUYVENBERG: I would be looking to 7 replace the capacity that Indian Point would supply at 8 that time.
9 MR. TURK: Would you have to know what 10 other plants would be in existence?
11 MR. STUYVENBERG: No.
12 MR. TURK: How would you then be able to 13 tell whether existing supply in the year 2035 was 14 adequate without Indian Point, adequate to meet the 15 demand in 2035?
16 MR. STUYVENBERG: I would not do an 17 analysis of need for power in 2035. I'm sorry. I 18 don't think I understand the question. I don't know 19 if there's something more you're looking for.
20 MR. TURK: No, it's probably my problem in 21 phrasing it incorrectly. If you're looking at 22 alternatives in the year 2035, alternatives to Indian 23 Point, would you have to make certain assumptions 24 regarding what other capacity existed at that time, as 25 an alternative to Indian Point?
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Page 3161 1 I think I'm going to withdraw the 2 question, Your Honor, because my witness doesn't 3 understand it, and if he doesn't understand it, I 4 probably don't.
5 JUDGE McDADE: That's fine. We'll let you 6 withdraw it. Any more?
7 MR. TURK: Just very briefly, Your Honor.
8 (Pause.)
9 MR. TURK: Your Honor, I have nothing 10 more, but Ms. Mizuno indicated that she has one more 11 item she wants to get to.
12 MS. MIZUNO: Mr. Stuyvenberg, I'm turning 13 back to the comment process, and New York State 14 submitted a number of comments on the DSEIS; isn't 15 that correct?
16 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct.
17 MS. MIZUNO: Right, and among their 18 comments were discussions of combination alternatives; 19 correct?
20 MR. STUYVENBERG: Yes.
21 MS. MIZUNO: How would you characterize 22 those combination alternatives, in terms of active 23 versus static alternatives?
24 MR. STUYVENBERG: Let me clarify that. I 25 assume you're talking about static versus dynamic, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3162 1 which is an issue Mr. Schlissel raised earlier, that 2 they would change over time; is that correct?
3 MS. MIZUNO: That's correct, thank you.
4 MR. STUYVENBERG: Okay. I would 5 characterize the alternatives they submitted as 6 combinations in their comments on the draft SEIS as 7 static. They didn't indicate that those combinations 8 should change over time. They indicated that they 9 were two defined combinations that the staff should 10 consider.
11 MS. MIZUNO: And by "they," you mean New 12 York State?
13 MR. STUYVENBERG: That's correct. I'm 14 sorry to use a pronoun.
15 MS. MIZUNO: I'm finished.
16 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, and I think for right 17 now, we are as well. Thank you very much. We 18 appreciate your testimony. A couple of housekeeping 19 matters before we break for the day and for the week, 20 and actually for the month as well.
21 You know, first of all, I had asked 22 earlier, with regard to a proposed schedule as far as 23 post-trial briefing, the filing of proposed findings 24 of fact and conclusions of law. Our July 2010 25 scheduling order anticipated a 60-day period, but Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3163 1 didn't anticipate a bifurcated proceeding.
2 Let me just sort of run down the line.
3 Entergy, what would you suggest as the trigger date 4 for the proceeding that we've gone through today?
5 Should it be 60 days from today, should it be 60 days 6 from when we finish with the 37 at some as yet to be 7 determined date in November or December, or at the end 8 of our December hearing?
9 MS. SUTTON: Kathryn Sutton for the 10 applicant, Your Honor. It should be 60 days, 11 triggered 60 days after the termination of the Track 12 1 hearings in December. But we would ask for some 13 additional accommodation for the holidays in that 14 period of time.
15 JUDGE McDADE: New York?
16 MR. SIPOS: Your Honor, John Sipos for the 17 State of New York. We have discussed this amongst 18 ourselves, the parties, Entergy, NRC staff and the 19 State of New York, and we are in general agreement, 20 I'm pleased to report.
21 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, and the staff agrees.
22 Clearwater, Riverkeeper?
23 MR. TURK: Your Honor, for the staff may 24 I just note we do agree, and I would point out that 25 we'll also be busy getting out the supplement to the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3164 1 FSEIS, either at the end of December or possibly 2 January, and we'll be working on the SER supplement as 3 well.
4 So we'll be doing other things, in 5 addition to the hearing --. So yes --
6 JUDGE McDADE: And including, as Ms.
7 Sutton said, celebrating the holidays?
8 MR. TURK: If we're allowed to, yes.
9 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. I think that --
10 MS. BRANCATO: Your Honor, I just wanted 11 to know. Riverkeeper is in general agreement. But a 12 thought that occurred to me that if the parties are 13 given an opportunity to propose transcript errata, 14 that potentially a trigger date could tie or it would 15 be logical to tie it to when an official transcript 16 with corrections is issued?
17 But generally, Riverkeeper does agree that 18 the end of the Track 1 period is a reasonable trigger 19 date.
20 JUDGE McDADE: Item No. 1 is just the 21 trigger date. So we will use the end of the hearing 22 in December, December 15th, for right now as the 23 trigger date. There is a question, given the fact 24 that it falls over the holiday season, whether or not 25 60 days will be adequate.
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Page 3165 1 Rather than making a ruling on that right 2 now, what we would do is ask the parties to get 3 together, and see if they can come to an agreement as 4 to what they think an appropriate period of time would 5 be, and again, focusing, it is because it's over the 6 holidays.
7 So if the suggestion is a year and a half, 8 that may not be something that the Board is going to 9 acquiesce to. But we would, in the first instance, 10 ask for your views as to how much additional time, 11 given the fact that it does fall over the holidays.
12 The next thing has to do with transcript 13 corrections. First of all, what we would like the 14 parties to do is to take into consideration what we 15 anticipate by transcript corrections. It is things 16 that are necessary in order to have a clear record.
17 It is not if you used an adjective and you 18 should have used an adverb, or a definite article, or 19 you should have an indefinite article. We're not 20 looking for those kinds, or if you believe a comma is 21 in the wrong place, unless for some reason it changes 22 the meaning and could confuse the Board.
23 We're only looking, and again not "gee, I 24 wish I said it -- I'm sure I must have said it clearer 25 than that," you know, and you then ask that it be Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3166 1 clarified. So we're just looking for those kinds of 2 transcript corrections that are going to 3 significantly, that have the capacity to affect the 4 record.
5 That said, what we would like is for the 6 parties to get together and submit, if at all 7 possible, a joint submission on transcript 8 corrections. So that if basically Entergy can submit 9 its proposed corrections to New York, Riverkeeper, 10 Clearwater, the staff and vice-versa, and then 11 hopefully there won't be a disagreement as to what 12 those proposed corrections are.
13 What we would like to do is to sort of do 14 this and for this particular session, as you should 15 have the transcript within a week, and would think 16 that -- well, let me ask. I was going to say that 17 certainly by December 1st, you should be able to get 18 those transcript corrections to us. Does Entergy 19 believe that's a viable date?
20 MS. SUTTON: Yes, Your Honor.
21 JUDGE McDADE: Any disagreement?
22 MR. SIPOS: No disagreement, Your Honor.
23 JUDGE McDADE: Apparently not, okay. So 24 that's the issue with regard to transcript 25 corrections. One of the things I would note, when you Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3167 1 do get around, and again not until after December 15th 2 and some time probably more than 60 days after that, 3 and you are doing your post-trial briefing, one of the 4 issues that we would like all of you to take into 5 consideration with regard to the environmental 6 contentions, those under NEPA.
7 If, and this is a hypothetical, if we were 8 to find there were a defect in the FSEIS, would the 9 Board be able to correct that as part of this hearing, 10 the transcript and our order, so that a hard look 11 would be taken at the issue for the decision-maker, 12 not just through the FSEIS, but through the entire 13 record of proceeding, including our initial decision.
14 That would be something as a matter of law 15 that we would like you to address in the briefing.
16 Those are the housekeeping matters that I had for 17 right now. Before we break -- well, one other 18 housekeeping matter. We have received two documents, 19 the Synapse Energy Economics, Inc. Indian Point 20 Replacement Analysis, a Clean Energy Roadmap document, 21 and a New York Energy Highway blueprint document.
22 These have not been received into 23 evidence. As things stand right now, we're not going 24 to read them, because they haven't been put into 25 evidence. I would direct that they be marked as Board Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 3168 1 exhibits for identification, as the next two. Mr.
2 Wilkie, is that 5 and 6 or 6 and 7?
3 MR. TURK: 6 and 7 possibly, Your Honor.
4 JUDGE McDADE: They will be marked, the 5 Synapse Energy as Board Exhibit 6 for identification, 6 and if we're missing a 5, we're missing a 5, and the 7 New York Energy Highway as Board Exhibit 7.
8 If New York believes that it's important 9 for the Board to consider the context of this and 10 admit them into evidence, so that the Board would read 11 them, file a motion to that effect, which the other 12 parties would have an opportunity to respond to prior 13 to the time that we would receive the documents in 14 evidence.
15 Are there any other housekeeping matters 16 that we should take up before we break? From Entergy?
17 MS. SUTTON: No, Your Honor.
18 JUDGE McDADE: New York?
19 MR. SIPOS: No, Your Honor.
20 JUDGE McDADE: Riverkeeper?
21 MS. BRANCATO: No, Your Honor.
22 JUDGE McDADE: Clearwater?
23 MS. RAIMUNDI: No, Your Honor.
24 JUDGE McDADE: The staff?
25 MR. TURK: Not for the staff.
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Page 3169 1 JUDGE McDADE: From any interested 2 government entity?
3 VOICE: No, Your Honor.
4 JUDGE McDADE: We are in recess. Thank 5 you very much.
6 (Whereupon, at 4:25 p.m., the hearing was 7 recessed.)
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Proceeding: Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.
Indian Point Units 2 and 3 Docket Number: 50-247-LR and 50-286-LR ASLBP Number: 07-858-03-LR-BD01 Location: Tarrytown, New York were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken and thereafter reduced to typewriting under my direction and that said transcript is a true and accurate record of the proceedings.
Official Reporter Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com