Joseph Krist

Publisher

NUCLEAR

The plans for the development of new nuclear generation at Entergy Northwest’s Hanford site are beginning to take shape. Amazon and the utility agreed on a plan to build small modular reactors which would be funded by Amazon. The Cascade Advanced Energy Facility would be built by Energy Northwest and SMR developer X-energy. The plan is to build up to 12 SMRs, using X-energy’s advanced nuclear reactor design. 

The project will employ three 320 megawatt (MW) sections to make up the full 960 MW plant. Initially, Energy Northwest is to develop four SMRs in the first phase of Cascade, with an initial capacity of 320 MW and the option to expand to 12 units with a capacity of 960 MW. Construction is currently expected to start by the end of this decade, with operations targeted to start in the 2030s.

Holtec International confirmed this week that 68 fresh fuel assemblies were delivered to the 800-megawatt Palisades nuclear plant and placed in the spent fuel pool for inspection and storage until workers begin loading them into the reactor core. Holtec wants to build install an additional 600 MW of capacity from SMRs at the 432-acre site along Lake Michigan.

PUERTO RICO GRID

The U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico ruled that the Federal Emergency Management Agency should have considered solar power as part of the agency’s analysis for how it would distribute federal grant funding for rebuilding Puerto Rico’s electrical grid. The decision came at virtually the same time that the Department of Energy announced it would reallocate hundreds of millions of dollars away from solar technology.

Instead of funding rooftop solar and battery storage installations set to begin next year, the $365 million would be used to foot the bill for repairs and emergency measures to stabilize and harden the current fossil fuel-based grid. The reallocated money was part of $1 billion Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund offered by DOE’s Grid Deployment Office in 2023, following consultation with local communities.

The funds were intended to pay for renewable energy for low-income people with special energy needs, like powering ventilators or other kinds of medical equipment. It is estimated that about 12 percent of Puerto Rico’s residential customers get their power from rooftop solar, totaling more than 163,000 installations. The average installation cost is $30,000 so that limits the practical availability of solar to lower income users.

FEMA

No applications for homeowner buyouts and disaster mitigation funding through the Federal Emergency Management Agency have been approved since Tropical Storm Helene hit Western North Carolina a year ago, Gov. Josh Stein said Oct. 13.

The Hazard Mitigation Grant Program is a FEMA-funded program that allows property owners to apply for federal buyouts after disasters.

It is designed to reduce or eliminate future damages by paying for structural elevations or the buyout of damaged properties. Applications are processed at the county level and then sent to the state and FEMA for approval, where the federal government provides 75% of the funding for applications and the state provides a 25% funding match.

Only about one-fifth of applicants for federal disaster assistance from Kerr County, TX have been deemed eligible to get financial help so far, leaving hundreds without governmental aid more than three months after deadly floods ravaged the county on July 4.

A new study from the PEW Foundation takes a shot at estimating the potential vulnerability of individual states as federal disaster aid cuts through eliminating FEMA take hold. For each state, Pew looked at the highest single-year and average annual federal disaster aid received over a period of twenty years alongside total fiscal year 2024 reserves—which for purposes of this analysis includes only rainy day funds and excess general fund dollars—and fiscal 2024 general fund spending.

Using these metrics, Arizona is the best positioned and Louisiana the worst. Louisiana’s highest one-year federal aid totaled $31.8 billion—nearly 30 times the state’s reserve balance in 2024—and Mississippi’s $15.9 billion was 25 times its reserves. The study set aside the data for those states as such outliers to arrive at more meaningful average and median data.

Vermont’s highest one-year federal aid equaled more than 90% of the state’s 2024 reserves, meaning that absent federal assistance or significant budget management action by state leaders, a comparable disaster in 2024 could have depleted almost all the state’s savings. Five other states—Colorado, Hawaii, Iowa, New Jersey, and New York—had one-year federal disaster aid that exceeded 50% of their available reserves. At the other end of the spectrum, federal disaster aid never exceeded 1% of reserves in Arizona, Delaware, or Wyoming during the 22-year period, and in 27 other states, the highest single-year aid amount fell below 20% of reserves.

It is not a surprise that low spending states like Mississippi in addition to Louisiana should fare poorly. The next most “vulnerable” states are a diverse group – New York, Florida, Vermont and Iowa. At the same time, the data does reflect that in spite of what one might assume, California is one of the states expected to face a lower impact on its budget.

WIND

The Danish shipping firm Maersk canceled a $475 million contract earlier this month for a ship that was custom designed to install massive turbines at the Empire Wind power project off the coast of New York. The ship’s builder, Singapore-based Seatrium, said it was evaluating its options for the vessel, which was nearly fully built, and could take legal action.

Rhode Island’s Blount Boats, which began building crew transfer vessels for offshore wind in 2016, said it has stopped building those vessels completely. Houston-based Seacor Marine announced in August it would sell two U.S.-flagged liftboats — used on the Block Island and South Fork offshore wind farms — to Nigerian oil and gas services company JAD Construction for $76 million, citing delays and cancellations.

It was estimated last year that more than two dozen U.S. ports were pursuing on shore infrastructure projects to support offshore wind projects. Many of those lost critical funding after the DOT canceled 12 grants worth $679 million in August, hitting projects in states including Massachusetts, New York, California, Maryland, and Virginia. In Northern California, the Humboldt Bay offshore wind port that lost $426.7 million is expected to be delayed by about five years to at least 2035.

Equinor’s South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, which will support its Empire Wind project, is 70% complete and has employed about 3,000 workers, according to a company spokesperson. It is the onshore job potential that has held back efforts to completely shutdown the project. Now as other projects see their funding cut or eliminated, the impact on the onshore jobs these projects created becomes clearer every day.

FEDERAL R&D CUTS AND NEW YORK CITY

The role of higher education and research in the New York City economy is a significant one. Since World War II, the federal government has been a primary funding partner through agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). In 2024, NIH awarded $2.8 billion to 110 NYC institutions. NYC colleges spent over $5 billion on R&D in 2023, with the federal government accounting for half of those expenses.

Columbia University led with over $1 billion in R&D expenditures, followed by NYU at about $800 million, and Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, which relied on federal funds for two-thirds of its nearly $1 billion in research spending. At Yeshiva University, which houses the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, about two-thirds of research funding also came from federal sources. Across CUNY campuses, federal funds totaled roughly $136 million, nearly half of all research spending.

Higher education institutions comprise a key sector of New York City’s economy and society. In recent years, the sector has enrolled half a million students across 100 higher education institutions (including satellite campuses), employed more than 140,000 workers, and generated around $35 billion in annual economic activity by one estimate.

AMAZON CUTS

Press reports have indicated that Amazon’s automation team expects the company can avoid hiring more than 160,000 people in the United States it would otherwise need by 2027. Amazon’s U.S. work force has more than tripled since 2018 to its current level of 1.2 million. The reports show that management told Amazon’s board last year that they hoped robotic automation would allow the company to continue to avoid adding to its U.S. work force in the coming years, even though they expect to sell twice as many products by 2033. 

Amazon’s robotics team has an ultimate goal to automate 75 percent of its operations. Amazon plans to copy the Shreveport design in about 40 facilities by the end of 2027, starting with a massive warehouse that just opened in Virginia Beach. And it has begun overhauling old facilities, including one in Stone Mountain near Atlanta. That facility currently has roughly 4,000 workers. But once the robotic systems are installed, it is projected to process 10 percent more items but need as many as 1,200 fewer employees.

Part of the attraction of Amazon warehouses was the jobs they provide. The jobs are supposed to offset the other impacts of these large facilities. Now, the jobs are being reduced and development plans in Virginia to support a “second headquarters” for Amazon have not panned out. No one seems to regret the decision not to support Amazon’s proposed NYC office development.

HARVEY, ILLINOIS

Harvey, Illinois has been in the news for over a decade over its fiscal issues and inability to balance current operations. That unfinanced spending is estimated to be $164 million debt accumulated under previous administrations. Now, the Harvey City Council has voted to become only the second city in Illinois to seek “financially distressed city” status with the state, which temporary shut the city down. “This has been many years of mismanagement, of overextended finances,” according to the mayor. The city says 69 employees, across multiple departments, including police and fire, have been temporarily furloughed, without pay or benefits. Ninety-eight essential personnel will report to work to maintain core city operations. But overall, 41% of city staff was furloughed.

The vote clears the way for the state to assume financial control of Harvey and possibly, city leaders hope, to bail the city out. Illinois does not allow its municipalities to declare Chapter 9 bankruptcy. East St. Louis is the only other Illinois city to seek state oversight under the distressed municipalities law. As is the case in Pennsylvania, state involvement does not necessarily lead to long term success in restructuring. Municipalities have languished for decades under Commonwealth oversight.

The situation in Harvey is complicated by actions taken by East St. Louis under state oversight. There the city was unwilling to make the sort of budgetary decisions that the State saw as necessary. Attempts to impose changes on the City by the State were successfully challenged in court. This raises concerns about the ability and willingness of the City to make adjustments going forward. After all, it took 30 years for Scranton to emerge from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Act 47 legislation.

FLORIDA PROPERTY TAX DEBATE

It is becoming clear that some sort of ballot question will be on the Florida ballot in 2026 dealing with property taxes. There are currently three different proposals being floated in the state legislature to potentially amend the state constitution through voter initiative.

One proposal (HJR 201) would eliminate non-school homestead taxes. A second proposal (HJR 203) would phase out non-school homestead property taxes over 10 years. The homestead tax exemption would increase by $100,000 annually under this proposal. A third would exempt people ages 65 and older from paying non-school taxes on their homes.

Currently, homeowners can qualify for a homestead exemption from local-government and school-district taxes on the first $25,000 of the taxable values of their properties and from local-government taxes on the values between $50,000 and $75,000. One or all or none of the proposed amendments could appear on the November 2026 ballot.

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