Reactors: Three. Reactor 1 was built and licensed in 1962 and shut down in 1974 when its emergency core cooling system did not meet regulatory requirements. Reactors 2 and 3 were built in 1974 and 1976.

Owner: Con Edison built the three reactors. The New York Power Authority purchased reactor 3 in 1976. In 2000 and 2001, all three were sold to Entergy Nuclear Northeast. In 2008 Entergy attempted to spin off its non-utility nuclear power plants into a new company called Enexus, limiting its liability. The state of New York’s Public Service Commission unanimously rejected the plan.

Licensing: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NCR) licensed the reactors for forty years. Reactors 2 and 3 are up for renewal in 2013 and 15. Nuclear Energy in Rockland County: Entergy agreed to sell all its power to Con Edison and the New York Power Authority for five years. Entergy now sells a considerable amount of power elsewhere. Orange and Rockland, which Con Ed purchased in 1998, obtains its energy from a power grid operated by New York Independent System Operator. In 2009, 12% of its power came from Indian Point; some of this is exported to neighboring states.

How a Nuclear Plant Operates: At its core are from 121 to 193 bundles, each of which is made up of 179 to 264 radioactive fuel rods filled with 50,000 uranium pellets. Pumped-in Hudson River water becomes extremely hot when neutrons collide with uranium molecules creating a chain reaction. This creates steam that spins a turbine then powers a generator that produces electricity. Water is pumped in to cool the radioactive material, preventing it from melting.

Cooling System: The two reactors take in 2.5 billion gallons of river water daily. Every year they use the equivalent of twice the volume of the river from the Battery to Troy, a distance of 183 miles, sucking up and killing an estimated 1.5 billion fish into the plant’s 40-foot wide intake pipe. An additional amount is killed from the hot water dumped back into the river. New York State is demanding Entergy construct new cooling towers reducing the need for water by reusing the same water. Regulators denied Entergy’s request to install less expensive fish screens.

Storing Spent Fuel Rods: Rods become depleted of uranium and are removed about every two years. These extremely hot and highly radioactive spent fuel rods are stored in ground-level pools near the plant to prevent release of radioactive material. Pumps circulate pool water so it remains at 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Because pools have become so densely packed (they now hold five times the number of rods they were designed for) dry casks were built for additional storage.

Spent Fuel Rods: Rods become laced with highly radioactive by-products. While most of the radioactive iodine disappears once the rods are removed, they also contain tritium, cesium 137, strontium 90 and plutonium 239. The half-life of strontium is 29 years, cesium is 30 years and plutonium is 24,000 years. It takes 20 half-lives for radioisotopes present in nuclear waste to decay to safe levels.

Earthquake Concerns: Two faults run within a mile of Indian Point. The plant was required to be built to withstand a magnitude 5.2 earthquake. Three earthquakes during the past 300 years were comparable in size. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently announced that it would conduct a seismic risk assessment of the Indian Point plant next year. This site was selected as the first of 17 plants to be inspected because revised data showed the largest increase in seismic risk increase from a previous study.

Evacuation Concerns: A study has shown it would take 9 hours to evacuate the 300,000 people who live within a 10-mile radius of Indian Point. A 50-mile circle, which includes nearly 20 million people, would encompass north past Kingston, south past most of New York City, Bayonne and Elizabeth, N.J., almost to New Haven to the east and into Pennsylvania to the west.