City & State’s Clean Energy Summit

I attended City & State’s Clean Energy in New York Summit – New York’s Path to Sustainability (the “Summit”) on November 16, 2023 with Francis Menton author of the Manhattan Contrarian blog.  The summit was organized “to discuss opportunities that NY’s ambitious energy strategy created for new investment” and the two of us were the only ones who were skeptical of the whole business.  This post compares Menton’s description of the meeting and the “official” description with my personal observations.

The only reason for the Summit is the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act).  I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 350 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good by increasing costs unacceptably, threatening electric system reliability, and causing significant unintended environmental impacts.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Overview

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050.  It includes an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% reduction by 2030 and a requirement that all electricity generated be “zero-emissions” by 2040. The Climate Action Council (CAC) is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.”  In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible using zero-emissions electricity. The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies.  That material was used to develop the Draft Scoping Plan.  After a year-long review, the Scoping Plan recommendations were finalized at the end of 2022.  In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations are supposed to be implemented through regulation, PSC orders, and legislation. 

According to their webpage, “City & State is the premier media organization dedicated to covering New York’s local and state politics and policy. Our in-depth, non-partisan coverage serves New York’s leaders every day as a trusted guide to the issues impacting New York.” The Summit was billed as: their “first ever Clean Energy in NY Summit to discuss opportunities that NY’s ambitious energy strategy created for new investment.”  The description went on: “Panels will focus on large-scale renewable projects; the future of large-scale renewable procurement activity both onshore and offshore; the financial incentives to develop resources in vulnerable communities; as well as the emerging activity in hydrogen hubs, transportation decarbonization, and the state’s very active storage procurement market.”  In my opinion “non-partisan” coverage would make a concerted attempt to balance the enthusiasm of proponents of the new investment with some recognition of the challenges of the proposed transition but there were very few of that type of questions for the panelists.

I characterize this as a pep rally for the true believers and climate grifter industry.  The slick booklet containing the program for the Summit outlined the program, included speaker biographies, and included advertising blurbs for the sponsors.  A comparison of the sponsors and participant panelists, moderators, and remarks made by sponsors confirms that participants were chosen mostly based on sponsorship.  Ony the New York State Laborers Union, Anbaric transmission developers, and the New York renewable trade group Alliance for Clean Energy Solutions New York sponsors did not participate in the Summit.  The remaining participants were from New York State agencies, New York City agencies, other renewable developers, media representatives, or politicians.

This post will describe the “official” version of the meeting with Menton’s description and my thoughts.

City & State Overview

The meeting program had a keynote address and five panels.  The panels included “New York’s Path to Achieve its Clean Energy Goals”, Leading the Way in Offshore Wind”, “Achieving Climate Smart Communities”, “New York’s Energy: Impact, Economic Development + Workforce”, and “Protecting New York from Climate Threats and Reducing Carbon Emissions”.  There were four opportunities for “remarks” that gave the sponsors an opportunity to give their spiels and an inordinate amount of time was spent going over the panelist backgrounds.  As as a result there was little meat in the panel discussions.

The City & State description of the meeting gives a good flavor of the meeting.  The article states:

Clint Plummer, the CEO of Rise Light & Power, led off the discussion on the city’s clean energy transition efforts by addressing Gov. Kathy Hochul’s 10-point action plan to tackle inflationary pressures on project implementation. “The administration of Gov. Kathy Hochul implemented a 10-point plan in which they are delivering on New York’s transition with major new clean energy projects and investments in the supply chain,” he said. “So we not only are able to deliver projects today, but we do it with jobs that are based right here in New York state. And we do it in a way that mitigates against the volatility of the global supply chain.”

A truly non-partisan summit would have raised questions about these claims.  There was very little discussion of the magnitude of the issues mentioned.  For example, the Rise Light & Power business model is to offer everything that superficially meets the net-zero transition resource development narrative that fits its business model and ignore all the other resources necessary for a reliable electric grid as somebody else’s problem.  His comments check all the boxes for the Hochul Administration narrative but did little else.

When he introduced Doreen Harris, he said there is “nobody I trust more” to lead the transition.  After watching the net-zero transition roll out over the last several years, I have the exact opposite view. She claimed that there is a plan for implementation, but the Scoping Plan is only a list of control strategies with no demonstration of feasibility.  She also referenced the 10-point plan saying: “Talk about a major commitment to clean energy that was made at a moment in which we need to demonstrate that commitment to action.”  She went on:

With investments in renewable infrastructure rising, Harris also addressed concerns over existing contracts. “The elephant in the room is what is going to happen with the existing contracts that we have,” she said. “I want you to know, very soon, you will see some next steps we’ll be taking to address the ultimate challenges that they face. The Public Service Commission’s denial of the industry petitions is one that we obviously reacted very quickly to, knowing that we need these projects to move forward, not only in an affordable way, but in a competitive way.”

Her reference to doing something very soon was the announcement later that day that the existing contracts would be put out to be re-bid.  I described this in a recent post concluding that allowing the contact costs to be revised guarantees that the costs will be increased substantially.  The primary reason I distrust Harris is her claim to be concerned about affordability because under her oversight of the Scoping Plan, there has not been a full accounting of costs, no admission of expected consumer costs, and no documentation of the current status of energy poverty in New York.  The only affordability response by Harris has been that the costs of inaction are more than the costs of action, which I have repeatedly shown is a misleading and inaccurate claim both in Scoping Plan comments that were never addressed and in articles on my blog.

Manhattan Contrarian Description

Francis Menton did not pull any punches describing his thoughts on the Summit.  I encourage everyone to read his account.  He correctly points out that none of the substantive issues associated with the net-zero transition were mentioned, much less considered.  He says it was “essentially all mindless happy talk.” 

Menton highlights the happy talk slogans that were used frequently by all the speakers. He provided some quotes by Gregory Lampman, the Director of Offshore Wind at NYSERDA.  (“We’re the leader. . . .  We have a bias toward action. . . .  long term sustainability . . . something we can be proud of”).  My notes include the following from John O’Leary of the Governor’s Office: “laboratory for democracy”, “pivotal moment in time”, and “confidence in ability to move forward”.  These kinds of comments were the rule and not the exception.

My Observations

One aspect of the keynote presentation by Harris annoyed me but also led to the only positive aspect of any the panelist’s remarks.  NYSERDA has a whole department dedicated to public presentations and press releases all of which must be approved by the Hochul Administration.  The keynote presentation threw in the line “Who doesn’t love heat pumps” which drew applause and, to his ever-lasting credit, boos from Francis Menton. I was encouraged later in the program when Carrie Woerner, an assemblywoman from Glens Falls, managed to respond to the implication that heat pumps are a universal solution with no down sides. She basically quoted material from the James Hanley heat pump article about costs and the likelihood that people will switch to resistance furnaces instead of heat pumps because of the cost. 

I took a bunch of notes, but it would be a waste of time to bother to document all the biased comments, inaccurate arguments, and appeals to the preferred political constituencies during the day.  They far outweighed any mentions of potential concerns.  This was not an opportunity for the developers and affected entities to discuss possible problems and how they could be resolved.

Conclusion

Menton and I agree that this was nothing more than a revival meeting for the camp followers of the “clean energy miracle solution for the climate change threat” cult. I don’t think many outside the cult understand how immense the political support for this cult is and how the amount of money involved surely keeps the whole scam going. 

Menton concludes that:

It is completely clear that the people running New York’s supposed energy transition do not have the slightest hint of competence.  I suppose that’s for the better, because people who were actually competent could keep the charade going for a much longer time.  With this crowd, the collapse will come sooner, although not nearly soon enough.

I agree that this eventually has to collapse with or without competent advocates.  Unfortunately,  I fear that it will be so far in the future that the damages from the inane energy policy will cause irreparable harm to New York.