New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced plans today to develop a new nuclear power plant, the first to be built in the state in decades. Hochul is directing the New York Power Authority to construct at least one new site for nuclear energy upstate with the capacity to generate at least 1 gigawatt of electricity (about half the capacity of Hoover Dam power plant). The Vogtle power plant in Georgia has become an example of the kinds of problems that have plagued nuclear power projects; it’s the site of the first all-new reactors built in the US in more than three decades. Now, the average age of a nuclear reactor in the US is 42 years old, with many retiring recently or scheduled to soon shutter. Meta signed a deal this month to help keep a reactor built in the 1980s alive for another 20 years.