For nearly the last decade, NJ State government – the Governors office, regulatory agencies and Legislature – have run full speed toward intermittent renewable energy generation with zero plan B.

Now, as the rate hikes that AENJ warned of for years are actually coming, we see scrambling to find quick fixes like a student cramming for a test when the night before when they had months to study. But in the process, Speaker Coughlin said the quiet part out loud:

As you process that comment remember this: for the past seven plus years the NJ Governors office has called the plays. All regulatory and executive authority and agencies followed suit. And the Legislature that he helps lead affirmed all of it giving out billions in the process. Now fast forward seven years down the road and they try to act suprised that this has happened and blame other people?

Nonetheless, the BPU atttempted to take steps to revist nuclear with this announcement:

We could have been doing this over the last 7 years with projects like this that were privately funded. These would have been non-subsidized projects that would have helped us avoid this crisis. All they had to do was not get in the way and they couldn’t even do that.

But back to the issue at hand. There are a few problems with this approach from the BPU. Let’s look at the 2019 EMP, which called for retention, but not near term expansion and then retiring nuclear altogether:

Now let’s look back to the EO calling for the 2024 update to the EMP, which we are all still waiting on and is now six months late:

So while it’s clearly a good thing that the state is finally admitting their own failure and the need for more nuclear, we are left to ask what authority they have to do it. We are still operating under the 2019 version that calls for retiring nuclear.

If only they weren’t asleep at the switch and we could have been planning for this all along. We can only wish.