This is one of a series of posts on Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s New York State Green New Deal. As part of his 2019 Justice Agenda he included a “nation-leading clean energy and jobs agenda that will put the state on a path to carbon neutrality across all sectors of New York’s economy”.
Not surprisingly there are no details other than the announcement, no mention of potential costs, and no explanation how all this will affect any of the many impacts that he claims are caused by climate change. There is a proposal to provide the plan to make New York carbon neutral and I will blog on those plans as they become available. In the meantime this post discusses the language used to describe the multi-billion dollar price tag of the New York Green New Deal.
In the following sections I list the text from the announcement and my indented and italicized comments follow.
Demonstrating New York’s real-time commitment to implementing the most ambitious clean energy agenda in the United States, Governor Cuomo is also announcing $1.5 billion in competitive awards to support 20 large-scale solar, wind, and energy storage projects across upstate New York. These projects will drive a total of $4 billion in direct investment in New York’s growing clean energy economy, as well as add over 1,650 megawatts of capacity and generate over 3,800,000 megawatt-hours of renewable energy annually – enough to power nearly 550,000 homes and create over 2,600 short-term and long-term jobs. Once all permitting and local requirements are met, several projects are expected to break ground as early as August 2019 and all projects are expected to be operational by 2022. The projects will reduce carbon emissions by more than 2 million metric tons, equivalent to taking nearly 437,000 cars off the road. Combined with the renewable energy projects previously announced under the Clean Energy Standard, New York has now awarded more than $2.9 billion to 46 projects, accelerating New York’s progress and commitment to Governor Cuomo’s Green New Deal.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) described the 20 large-scale projects in a press release. Table 1 green new deal clean energy project investments lists the projects and provides some details. There are 1,040 MW of solar at 16 sites and 613.7 MW of wind at 4 sites with a total of 45 MW of energy storage included at three facilities.
New York State has extensive electric facility siting requirements for any project of 25 MW or greater. Article Ten is supposed to provide a common framework for siting generation facilities in a streamlined permitting process. There are specific requirements for environmental and public health analyses. However, this process is time consuming and costly. While there are timing requirements for agency responses, nonetheless in my opinion it is practically impossible to meet all the requirements in less than five years. Of the 1654 MW in the announced projects, there is one small 4.99 MW project and eight 19.99 MW capacity projects (159.92 MW total) that are exempt from the Article Ten requirements. Of the remaining 11 projects, there are four projects totaling 462.69 MW that have not submitted anything to the Article Ten Siting Board, four projects totaling 499 MW that have completed the first step by submitting Public Involvement Programs, two projects totaling 237.5 MW have completed the second step by submitting their preliminary scoping plans and one 290 MW project has reached the third step submitting their application.
The competitive awards total $1.5 billion and are supposed to provide more than 2 million tons of carbon reductions. Assuming that they really meant carbon dioxide for the 2 million tons that means 750 dollars per ton reduction cost. In 2015 NYS electric sector CO2 emissions were 32 million tons. If the New York Green New Deal were to rely on the NYSERDA competitive award process for those reductions the State is looking at a staggering cost of $24 billion.
Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York 