After Indian Point

Last week’s hearings on Gov. Cuomo’s push to close the Indian Point nuclear plant shed some new light on the pain the shutdown will cause. It ain’t pretty.

Think about it: The Westchester plant can pump out 2,000 megawatts of juice, enough to power 2 million homes. It accounts for 25 percent of the region’s electricity. In fact, in 2015, Indian Point generated 10 percent of the power consumed in the entire state.

So the decision to close it, starting in 2020, raises a big question: Without Indian Point, how will the greater New York City area keep the lights on?

Cuomo pushed to close the plant because, he says, it’s so close to the city that an accident would put too many folks at risk. Plus, he’s absolutely sure enough replacement juice will somehow appear to keep the region humming after it shuts down.

“New York has had a really good history of power plants being built in response to demand,” insists Public Service Commission Chairwoman Audrey Zibelman, a Cuomo appointee. “I’m not concerned about replacement power.”

Cross your fingers, because the gov is hoping that renewable power (wind and solar, for example) will make up at least half the lost juice — which is fine as long as the weather is sunny and windy.

Then there’s the cost. Without Indian Point, the Nuclear Energy Institute predicts a spike in electric bills of up to $112 a month, notes state Sen. Terrence Murphy (R-Yorktown). Team Cuomo’s response? Pooh-pooh. Murphy also asked what will happen to the plant’s 1,100 workers.

That answer wasn’t much better: Let them get retrained — or move and take Energy jobs down South (where they’d join countless other New Yorkers who’ve given up on finding work in the state).

Local communities will also lose $33 million when the plant closes, a huge bite out of their operating budgets. Again, not to worry, says Richard Kauffman, Cuomo’s energy czar. There’s plenty of “time to plan.”

Easy enough for him to say; Sen. Joseph Griffo (R-Rome) called the revenue loss “akin to Armageddon.”

It all comes down to a long list of promises that everything will be just swell with the plant closed; all the tough issues can be magically solved over the next three years.

Don’t bet on it. The last time a Gov. Cuomo shut down a nuclear plant (when Mario Cuomo shuttered Shoreham on Long Island), locals were left on the hook for $6 billion.

Nearly three decades later, they’re still paying it off.