NYS Senate Republican Smart Energy Solutions

According to a press release: “New York State Senate Republican Leader Rob Ortt, members of the Senate Republican Conference, and statewide energy stakeholders today unveiled a package of smart energy policies to pursue a cleaner energy future. The plan puts affordability and reliability first for New York ratepayers, in sharp contrast to some of the radical proposals coming out of Albany.”  I am highlighting a link to the press conference where this is announced because Richard Ellenbogen did a masterful job explaining his concerns about the net-zero transition plan and they match my worries.

This is another article about the Climate Act implementation plan that I have written 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.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Background

The implementation plan for New York’s Climate Act “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 is underway.  At the end of 2022 the Climate Action Council completed a Scoping Plan that makes recommends strategies to meet the targets.   The Hochul Administration is developing regulations and proposing legislation to respond to those recommendations in 2023.

Unfortunately, the Scoping Plan is just a conglomeration of control strategies that are projected to provide the emission reductions required.  The Plan did not do any feasibility analyses or address any “what if” questions raised by the NYISO or anyone else for that matter.  As a result, I am convinced that it will fail.

I recently published Richard’s analysis of New York’s energy storage plan as a guest post.   Ellenbogen is the President of Allied Converters  that manufactures food packaging.  His facility is about 55,000 square feet and does a lot of manufacturing with heat to seal the bags, all electrically driven.  The facility has solar panels and uses co-generation.  He explains:

In 2008, the average energy cost per square foot for a commercial facility in  Westchester was $1.80.  We were at 16% of that 12 years later and even with the increases, we are at 62% of that 14 years later.  That has been done while having a carbon footprint 30% – 40% lower than the utility system.  The $1.80 per foot  also included commercial office space and our operation is far more energy intensive than an office.  We use energy extremely efficiently and as a result, our bills are much lower than everyone else. 

NYS Senate Republican Conference for Smart Energy Solutions

The event was an announcement for “smarter energy solutions”.  The Republicans are calling for several alternatives and affordable amendments to the state’s current course of action, including:

  • Independent cost studies and full transparency;
  • Supporting diverse energy sources;
  • Keeping needed power supply online to ensure the reliability of New York’s power grid; and
  • Repealing and opposing anti-market mandates on consumers.

Richard was introduced as during the press conference to describe his technical concerns.  He explained that he was representing an engineer’s perspective of the Climate Act Scoping Plan.  I think his comments are a nice short and sweet description of the underlying technical issues that make the net-zero transition a very risky proposition that will cost too much for the state to afford.  His email to me said:

The following link is to my presentation at today’s Senate Republican Press Conference at the Capital in Albany.  I want to thank them, and Senator Mattera in particular, for offering me the platform to present reality to a wider audience before State policy causes major damage to our energy systems, public health, and to the state economy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQd-QlkDCbk

The full press conference is at the following link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9E3bSeutAg&t=4s

His presentation referenced a bar graph and the energy storage report.

During the question and answer period Richard said he made a power point presentation that explained his concerns about the proposed net-zero energy transition before the Climate Act was signed.  That document and other information is available on his website

Conclusion

There are a few minor issues I might quibble with but overall this is a great summary of the issues facing New York with this plan.  I only hope that it wakes some people up.

Updates to Pragmatic Environmentalist Pages  

This is another summary of updates I made to the pages I maintain at  Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York and Reforming the Energy Vision Inconvenient Truths.  I have an extensive list of reference materials on my original blog that I occasionally update when I run across an article that is particularly interesting and relevant and this blog also has reference material.  This article describes some recent page updates and I also have highlighted a few recent articles that don’t fit my needs on those pages.

I started blogging in late 2017 on New York’s energy policies because I was convinced that they are going to end as an expensive boondoggle driving electricity prices in particular and energy prices in general significantly higher. Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) was the previous comprehensive energy strategy for New York. I wrote about the inconvenient unpublicized or missing pieces of New York State’s REV policy: implementation plan, costs and impacts. At some point I should probably combine that blog with this one but in the meantime, I maintain them both.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

I ran across an intriguing video that sums up the future of New York’s energy future under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act and linked to it in my page for lessons to be learned from othersAndrew Bolt describes the effects of green energy policies on Australia.  He makes that point that “willful ignorance” on climate change is making people “poorer and weaker”.  New York is not as far along as Australia on our transition but the same thing is going to happen here.   

I updated theClimate Claims page that addresses the alleged threat of a climate driven existential threat with links to a two part series by Kip Hansen “Reprise — Why I Don’t Deny: Confessions of a Climate Skeptic”.  Hansen updated his original five-year old articles after a conversation with a colleague who’s only understanding of the issue came from main stream media.  The articles update the originals with newer information.  In the first part, he describes the temperature and explains that the temperatures have been increasing since 1650 – 1700.  That is important because that is 150 to 200 years before the start of increased GHG emissions associated with the industrial revolution.  He explains that he agrees that global warming is happening and  human activity causes [some of] it.] but he does not agree with the assertion that CO2 and other anthropogenic emissions  are “the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.”  He says that he disagrees with the attribution and the effect size.

In the second article Hansen provides his reasoning for this position.  He shows that sea-level rise that is also attributed to anthropogenic warming follows the temperature record.  It has been rising since 1700 when it bottomed out at the end of the Little Ice Age.  He also presents data on snow and ice cover that behave similarly.  He concludes that:

The IPCC and the Climate Science community have, so far, failed to rule out the CO2 driven global warming hypothesis —  nothing more.    They have, however, shown in their historical reconstructions that the main bodies of evidence their hypothesis relies on — surface air temperature, sea level rise, snow and ice cover —  all started changing long before COconcentrations could possibly had any appreciable effect.

I also added a link to Judith Curry’s latest presentation on climate uncertainty and risk.  She gave a 20-minute presentation at the ICCC Conference and the blog post summarizes the main points.  She does a great job explaining “what we know, versus what we don’t and cannot know” and how that should but does not affect climate policy.  It all comes back to how climate risk is characterized and she argues that is not being done will today. 

I updated my renewable energy feasibility page with this zoning requirements link.  Kevon Martis has prepared wind and solar zoning talks that have the pro-renewable groups spun up because they effectively provide information to keep local control of wind and solar siting.  Robert Bradley writes about a hit piece describing him of sowing fear and misinformation about renewable energy.  When asked by people wanting help, Martis gives a 40-60 minute wind or solar zoning talk, answers questions and then goes home. The links to the two talks are here and here

The Climate Act and all its components repeatedly claim that that weather events are getting worse as the justification for the net-zero transition.  I provide examples of problems with those claims at the Climate Change Impacts page.  The Climate Fact Sheet: January 2023 Edition addresses media claims in January 2023 that all run counter to the popular narrative.  

I added a link on my Electric Vehicle Issues page “Are electric vehicle charging stations really worth taxpayer money?”.  Steve Goreham looks into the costs of electric vehicle charging stations and concludes that it’s unlikely that charging fees can cover the capital and operating costs of public chargers or make money for investors.  Ultimately, he predicts that public charging stations will eventually owned by the electric utilities paid for by higher electricity prices and hidden subsidy costs to consumers.

Finally, I have added a page with links to relevant videos.  The following videos are included:

Climate Science

  • Unsettled Climate Science:  Link is to a post that includes videos of a discussion between Jordan Peterson and Steven Koonin, on-line material, and a couple of debates.
  • Climate Change: What do scientists say? Prager University presentation by Richard Lindzen

New York Net-Zero Transition

Implementation Issues

  • Mark Mills: The energy transition delusion: inescapable mineral realities shows that the amount of mining necessary to provide the raw materials needed for the net-zero transition is so large that the transition is impossible.
  • Li-Ion battery fires: Paul Christensen, Professor of Pure and Applied Electrochemistry at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom gave a presentation at PV magazine’s Insight Australia event in 2021 that describes the risks  of thermal runaway fires in li-ion batteries. His videos of thermal runaway tests are terrifying.   
  • Problems with hydrogen: Link to a post with a video and description of contents

Climate Change Issues

New York Independent System Operator Information for Policy Makers

I have published three previous articles about New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) analyses related to New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act).  This post describes their new webpage that summarizes their activities “to design and implement the operations, planning and market enhancements necessary for the grid in transition.”  It does a good job explaining some of the issues associated with a net-zero transition.  The only thing left is to get New York policy makers to listen.

This is another article about the Climate Act implementation plan that I have written 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.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Background

The implementation plan for New York’s Climate Act “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 is underway.  At the end of 2022 the Climate Action Council completed a Scoping Plan that makes recommends strategies to meet the targets.   The Hochul Administration is developing regulations and proposing legislation to respond to those recommendations in 2023.

Unfortunately, the Scoping Plan is just a conglomeration of control strategies that are projected to provide the emission reductions required.  The Plan did not do any feasibility analyses or address any “what if” questions raised by the NYISO.  I have written three posts that described issues raised by NYISO,  The first post (New York Climate Act: Is Anyone Listening to the Experts?) described the NYISO 2021-2030 Comprehensive Reliability Plan (CRP) report (appendices).  The difficulties raised in the report are so large that I raised the question whether any policy maker in New York was listening to this expert opinion.  The second post (New York Climate Act: What the Experts are Saying Now) highlighted results shown in a draft presentation for the 2021-2040 System & Resource Outlook that all but admitted meeting the net-zero goals of the Climate Act are impossible on the mandated schedule.  The third article described the final version of the 2021-2040 System & Resource Outlook.  It shows that in order to minimize the storage and renewable over-build requirements that a Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource (DEFR) is needed but goes on to point out that DEFRs such as hydrogen, renewable natural gas, and small modular nuclear reactors are not commercially viable today. “DEFRs will require committed public and private investment in research and development efforts to identify the most efficient and cost-effective technologies with a view towards the development and eventual adoption of commercially viable resources.” 

The NYISO oversees system reliability and the competitive electric market in New York.  They are responsible for “keeping the lights on for New Yorkers by managing today’s energy flows and by planning the grid far into the future.”  Frankly, with regards to the Climate Act transition they are in a very difficult position because New York’s Climate Act was written by climate activists who had a very poor understanding of the challenges of a transition to a zero-emissions grid.  There are two options for the future.  If the State comes to its senses and takes the work done by the NYISO to heart and chooses a path consistent with their recommendations, then NYISO will be characterized as obstructionists who just don’t understand that academics know better than anyone in the industry.  If the State ignores their warnings and there is a catastrophic blackout, then they will be blamed for improperly implementing the vision of the academics.  Either way they will be scapegoats.

Information for Policy Makers

The new website (pdf copy) is obviously designed to try to explain the complexities of electric system operations and planning for a non-technical audience.  The documentation has three main sections: “Planning for Reliability”, “Wholesale Electric Markets”, and “Our Independence and Transparency”.  Because the information is a useful overview, I will summarize each section below.

The Planning for Reliability section explains that the NYISO is responsible not only for the real-time matching of generation with load operations for the electric system, but also “planning far into the future to make sure the electric system and its interrelated components can meet customer demand.”   The introduction concludes: “The acceleration of New York’s transition to a zero-emission grid is creating a system of new, intermittent generation, which benefits the environment but can make it more challenging to keep the system reliable.”  So how does the website describe the challenges?

They explain that wind and solar are not dispatchable resources and are intermittent so energy storage is needed.  They point out that the current energy technology is limited.  The website goes on to explain:

The grid will always need sufficient flexible and dispatchable resources to balance variations in wind and solar resource output. These resources need to be long-duration, dispatchable, and emission-free.  Essentially, they must have the attributes of fossil generators (responding quickly to rapid system changes) without the emissions. Such resources are not currently commercially available and may not be for many years.

This is a wind-up to make the point that:

The retirement of fossil-based resources is outpacing the development of new renewable-based resources and other dispatchable, emissions-free resources. The effect is that reliability margins will thin to concerning levels beginning in 2023, highlighting the need for a careful transition that maintains grid reliability and resilience.

 I am a bit disappointed with this description.  In order to really emphasize the risk involved it is necessary to understand the current reliability standards are the result of decades of experience and evaluation.  The resulting standards have done a good job preventing blackouts.  However, in the future there are potential issues because the standards are based on the presumption that the system is static.  The unprecedented introduction of significant amounts of new intermittent and non-dispatchable resources changes things a lot.  I don’t think this discussion explains how much riskier planning is becoming as a result.

This section also points out the importance of transmission.  The fact is that New York City will never be able to produce enough electricity from in-City wind and solar so the power necessary will have to be transmitted from elsewhere.  They are constraints on this transmission regionally and also locally where upgrades are needed to get the power from newly developed wind and solar projects.  The website explains the transmission planning process and concludes: “A historic level of investment in the transmission system is currently underway, with projects that will deliver more clean energy to consumers while enhancing grid resilience and reliability”. 

The website raises a little discussed aspect of the transition process.  There is an interconnection procedure where the NYISIO determines if a proposed new resource will have reliability issues and whether transmission system upgrades are needed to address them.  The website brags about the transparency of their process but does not bring up another uncertainty.  In particular, the interconnection hardware for intermittent resources must be able to differentiate between power fluctuations caused by variable wind, for example, and transient power changes in the grid.  If they don’t handle this correctly problems ensue.  For example, the 2022 Odessa Texas disturbance illustrates the “need for immediate industry action to ensure reliable operation of the bulk power system with the ever-increasing penetrations of inverter-based resources”.

This section of the website concludes with a description of the planning process and “NYISO’s role in identifying system needs, and finding solutions, is part of the process of planning for the grid of the future.”

The next section, Wholesale Electric Markets, gives an overview of competitive wholesale electric markets.  It is not surprising that they extoll the virtues of market-based solutions including consumer benefits because that is the basis for their existence.  Nevertheless, it also is a useful overview of how the markets work. 

In order to match the generation with the load the NYISO has three markets: the energy market, ancillary service market, and capacity market. 

These three markets work together. In simple terms:

  • Energy markets secure resources to supply the demand on a minute-to-minute basis.
  • Ancillary service markets procure a variety of additional services to protect the electric system and balance supply and demand to meet system needs instantaneously.
  • Capacity markets provide incentives to generation resources to maintain additional energy reserves over a longer period. Through the capacity market, we determine how much capacity is needed to meet the expected peak demand for the year plus a margin of additional resources to call on, if necessary.

According to the NYISO website the wholesale market can support New York’s Climate Act goals. It states:

Competitive, wholesale markets can help with the transition to a zero-emission grid by sending the right economic signals to developers to invest in new technologies in the right geographic area to best serve the grid. These markets leverage competition to keep electricity as cost-effective and efficient for New Yorkers as possible, and to help make sure there are adequate resources in place in the future.

I disagree with the implication of the statements that “Competitive markets have over time created pressure on the generating fleet to switch to newer, more efficient generation plants” and “Since 2000, electric generators that primarily combust natural gas increased from less than 50% to more than 60% of the generating capacity in the state”.   This is the same argument that proponents of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative make when they argue that emissions have come down significantly and insinuate that the emissions trading system was a primary factor in the emission reductions.  The price of natural gas came down so much relative to other fuels that the generating fleet would have switched to newer, more efficient generating plants with or without the RGGI program. I believe that the conversions would have happened even without competitive markets.

I am disappointed with the following explanation how the market can support the Climate Act:

Additionally, the NYISO has implemented market enhancements to support climate goals and to position the NYISO as a national leader in competitive wholesale electricity markets. Through engagement with stakeholders and regulators, new market rules for energy storage integration, participation in our wholesale electricity markets by distributed energy resources, and new ancillary services products support reliability and minimize costs for consumers. Market rules that incentivize investment in resources that can respond rapidly to changing conditions will be essential for maintaining reliability of the grid of the future.

In my opinion, the transformation of the electric system that was built up over decades using dispatchable synchronous generating resources into a system that relies on a significant amount of intermittent, asynchronous generating resources is an enormous challenge.  NYISO planners have to not only attempt to anticipate all the effects of all these changes to the electric grid but also try to design market rules that provide the resources needed.  The addition of the market component should have been highlighted as a significant additional challenge to get a system that works.

The final portion of this section discussed electricity prices in the NYISO region.

The Our Independence and Transparency section explains how the NYISO was formed and how it operates.  It provides a concise overview of the regulatory and reliability organization oversight requirements for any independent system operator.  There is a description of the governance policies and budgeting.

They also emphasize their independence but there is some backstory here.  At one point in the previous Mario Cuomo Administration, the current chairman of the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority, Richard Kauffman was Cuomo’s energy czar.  In a filing to the Public Service Commission, the NYISO noted that in order to meet Cuomo’s Clean Energy Standard, a predecessor regulation to the Climate Act, New York would have to install over 1,000 new miles of bulk transmission lines at great cost and effort.  In response, , Richard Kauffman, accused NYISO Director Brad Jones and his NYISO report as “misleading, incomplete, and grossly inaccurate…revealing an alarming lack of developed analysis into the imperative to address climate change…” Kauffman’s letter accused Jones of protecting fossil fuel generators and said that he was “dismayed by [Jones’] public comments. Not long after that Jones left and ever since comments have been much more guarded.  Kaufmann also authored a commentary for The Hill  about a “carbon bubble” that claimed that government intervention will be necessary if the market response to climate change is delayed too long.  In this political climate it is not surprising that all NYISO planning reports are carefully worded to not antagonize the Administration. In my opinion, however, the Administration needs to hear the unvarnished truth.

Discussion

The title for this webpage says it is information for policy makers.  New York climate policy is driven by the Climate Act’s Climate Action Council.  That body consists of 22 members that were chosen by ideology not expertise. Their contribution to the Climate Act implementation was the Scoping Plan that was approved last December.  The Council only paid lip service to any pretense of addressing reliability concerns with the NYISO so even if this document had been available at the start of the Scoping Plan development process I doubt that the majority of the members would have read it, much less acted on the recommendations.

This year the Hochul Administration is pushing to implement the recommendations of the Scoping Plan either by new legislation or by proposing new regulations.   When pressed about the lack of feasibility analyses in the Scoping Plan the Climate Action Council has said those concerns would be addressed in the regulatory process.  I imagine the policy makers who are responsible for the new legislation and regulations are the target audience.  Unfortunately, I fear their minds are already made up and the issues raised here will be ignored.

The summary for policy makers has several key messages that New York policy makers need to consider as they develop legislation and regulations.  The state should not shutdown existing fossil-fuel generators until sufficient clean energy resource are available.  A new resource is needed but is not ready for use and may not be available for “many” years so an emphasis on developing that resource must be a priority.   Because New York’s fossil resources are retiring faster than new resources are coming on line there already are concerns about the reliability margin. Unprecedented upgrades to the transmission system will be required to get the power from wind and solar projects to New York City where it is needed the most.

Conclusion

I think this is a very useful overview of policy issues that the NYISO is considering relative to the implementation of the Climate Act.  However, I am not optimistic that the target audience will consider these issues as implementation proceeds.  In the political climate of Albany it is not clear how to get policy makers to consider the risks of ignoring the issues raised.

Response to RGGI Operating Plan Amendment Comments

In early January I posted an article describing my comments on the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) Operating Plan Amendment (“Amendment”) for 2023.  This is a follow-up that describes what happens to comments in that process.

I have been involved in the RGGI program process since its inception.  I blog about the details of the RGGI program because very few seem to want to provide any criticisms of the program.   I submitted comments on the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act).  implementation plan and have written over 270 articles about New York’s net-zero transition 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.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

NYSERDA Board Background

This article describes the NYSERDA Board approval process for the 2023 RGGI Operating Amendment.  The NYSERDA Board description shows that this is another example of a process controlled by the Governor:

NYSERDA is governed by a board consisting of 13 members, including the Commissioner of the Department of Transportation, the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation, the Chair of the Public Service Commission, and the President and CEO of the Power Authority of the State of New York, who serve ex officio. The remaining nine members are appointed by the Governor of the State of New York with the advice and consent of the Senate and include, as required by statute, an engineer or research scientist, an economist, an environmentalist, a consumer advocate, an officer of a gas utility, an officer of an electric utility, and three at-large members.

At this time only 11 members are listed for the Board.  Three are Department Commissioners, two are from NYSERDA, and the head of the New York Power Authority rounds out six people who are for all intents and purposes part of the Hochul Administration.  All the others have some tie to climate resiliency and sustainability in their past working history or present titles.  

My Comments

NYSERDA designed and implemented a process to develop and annually update an Operating Plan which summarizes and describes the initiatives to be supported by RGGI auction proceeds.  On an annual basis, the Authority “engages stakeholders representing the environmental community, the electric generation community, consumer benefit organizations and interested members of the general public to assist with the development of an annual amendment to the Operating Plan.”  New York State claims that RGGI “has helped reduce greenhouse gases from power plants by more than half and raised nearly $6 billion to support cleaner energy solutions”.  I submitted detailed comments on the RGGI Operating Plan Amendments because the State has not figured out that there are ramifications to the historical success of the RGGI program and compliance implications associated with the RGGI auction proceed investments.

My comments evaluated the CO2 emissions trend of sources that are in the RGGI program.  I showed that between 2000 and 2021 New York EGU emissions have dropped from 57,114,438 tons to 28,546,529 tons, a decrease of 50%.  NYS EGU CO2 emissions were 39% lower in 2021 than the three-year baseline emissions before RGGI started.  However, I showed that emissions have dropped primarily because coal and oil fueled generation has essentially gone to zero.  Natural gas has increased to cover the generation from those fuels but because it has lower CO2 emission rates New York emissions have gone down.  I also evaluated the emission reductions that could be attributed to RGGI investments based on NYSERDA reports. I found that RGGI investments account for only 16% of the observed reductions.  This means that RGGI was not particularly successful as an emission reduction control program.

On the other hand, RGGI has successfully raised revenues for New York State.  From the start of the program through the start of the fiscal years considered in the Operating Plan RGGI auctions have raised nearly $6 billion.  My concern is that the relative lack of emission reductions attributable to New York’s RGGI auction proceeds was related to the fact that there was no emphasis on using the proceeds to provide emission reductions.  Because of the success of fuel switching reductions this has not been a concern but now there are no more fuel switching opportunities and because of the Indian Point shutdown, the RGGI unit emissions have gone up.  Going forward it will be increasingly difficult to make emission reductions.  Carbon dioxide emissions are directly tied to fossil-fuel combustion and energy production.  If, for any number of reasons, zero-emissions are not deployed fast enough to displace the energy produced by RGGI sources there might not be enough credits available to cover the emissions necessary to provide energy requirements. I concluded that it is incumbent upon the state to incentivize and subsidize carbon-free generation so that the RGGI sources can reduce operations and not jeopardize system reliability. 

As part of my comments, I also evaluated the programs in the Operating Amendment relative to their value for future EGU emission reductions.  The comments included descriptions of all the programs in the FY23-26 Amendment.  I commented briefly on each proposed program and classified each program relative to six categories of potential RGGI source emission reductions.  The first three categories cover programs that directly, indirectly or could potentially decrease RGGI-affected source emissions.  Those programs total 45% of the investments.  I also included a category for programs that will add load that could potentially increase RGGI source emissions such as programs to incentivize electrification, which totals 27% of the investments.  Programs that do not affect emissions are funded with 21% of the proceeds and administrative costs total another 7%. 

My comments noted that the draft Amendment explains that the programs in the portfolio of initiatives are designed to “support the pursuit of the State’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals”.  However, of the five goals only one addresses emission reductions.  The others are vague cover language to justify the use of RGGI auction proceeds as a slush fund for hiding administrative expenses, costs related to Climate Act implementation, and other politically favored projets at the expense of programs that affect CO2 emissions from RGGI affected sources.  To date this has not been an issue because fuel switching has provided the necessary emission reductions.  However, there could be a problem in the next several years because no more fuel switching reductions are available at the same time that RGGI allowance allocations continue to decrease.  This exacerbates the potential of system reliability issues

Response to Comments

The question that intrigued me was what actually happened with the public stakeholder comments.  There is no response to comments document. There is a memo that presumably summarizes the three-year plan and might describe the public stakeholder’s comments.  If I ever get a copy of that memo, I will update this post.  The public had two opportunities to present comment described below.

The first opportunity for public input ( available at the discussion portion of the meeting video) was at the December 12, 2022 meeting.  The presentation noted that comments at the meeting would be treated as written comments and posted on the website.  Conor Bambrick, Environmental Advocates of New York, spoke at the meeting.  He asked whether the New York Sun program applied to Long Island and was told that it does not.  However, there is another program that does.  He asked whether there were any success stories available for the community heat pump program but the program has not reached that point yet.  He had specific question about components of the clean energy taskforce development program.  He also had some clarifying questions about various programs.  I don’t think any of his questions specifically asked for changes.  There was a comment that funding should not be provided for Hydrogen Hubs because a pilot project showed hydrogen could emit more NOx and Ozone than natural gas.  I am familiar with that project and he got his wires crossed because that is not what happened in the pilot project he referenced.  I do not think that any of these comments warranted a follow-up response so it is not surprising that the website does not include anything from the meeting.

The second opportunity was to submit written comments and two written comments submitted.  The New York Municipal Electric Utilities Association commented that the “Municipal Pilot Program” should be expanded.  As far as I can tell the only change to that program was to shift the dates but the total allocation remains $2.5 million.  My comment was the other one.  I mentioned that the Scoping Plan Implementation Research program was important because there are unresolved issues associated with the Scoping Plan.  The allocation for that program was reduced $1 million to $3 million.

As I noted above, my comments explained that if the operating plan for the RGGI auction proceeds did not invest sufficiently in programs that directly reduce emissions then there is a possibility that affected units may not be able to provide power when needed because they don’t have sufficient allowances to cover operations.  My point was that programs that do not directly, indirectly or could eventually reduce RGGI source emissions by displacing the energy they provide should be emphasized and programs that increase RGGI source emissions should be de-emphasized.  The following table shows that the final version of the amendment plan for RGGI auction proceeds does the exact opposite.  The total funding for RGGI reduction programs drops by $190 million and the % of the total goes down 9% to only 36%.

The NYSERDA Use of Auction Proceeds website describes the operating plan and provides links to the operating plan, the meeting materials for the Stakeholder meeting, and the Comments on the 2023 Draft Amendment.  The  approved Operating Plan Amendment and the transcript for the Board meeting where the Amendment was approved are both available.  I extracted the discussion for the operating plan approval but have not been able to find the memo referred to in the presentation.

The transcript for the meeting includes the following overview by John Williams, Executive Vice President for Policy and Regulatory Affairs  at NYSERDA: 

We’ll move this one along pretty quickly. We’re here with our annual routine RGGI approval process. So the, the Members have received both the three year plan that we’re proposing as well as a memo of summarizing all that. Just some high points here for awareness. You know, we did engage our annual process to come up with our proposal and present that to stakeholders. And on December 12th we held a webinar for receipt of stakeholder input on that. So some participation there and some exchange of thoughts happening at that December 12th webinar. The proposal was also open for written public comments through January 6th, and we did receive a couple of comments there. The proposal you have was you know, does take those public feedback into account

It is obvious that NYSERDA was going through the motions of the stakeholder process.  They had a meeting for stakeholder input, check.  They had a public comment period, check.  They posted both comments received, check.  John Williams told the Board that public feedback was taken into account, check.  They had a  discussion of the Operating Plan Amendment at the Board meeting, check.  John Williams responded to questions that came up during the discussion, check.   The Board voted to approve the Amendment, check.  Mission accomplished.

Response to Comments

The question that intrigued me was what actually happened with the public stakeholder comments.  There is no response to comments document. There is a memo that presumably summarizes the three-year plan and might describe the public stakeholder’s comments.  If I ever get a copy of that memo, I will update this post.  The public had two opportunities to present comment described below.

The first opportunity for public input ( available at the discussion portion of the meeting video) was at the December 12, 2022 meeting.  The presentation noted that comments at the meeting would be treated as written comments and posted on the website.  Conor Bambrick, Environmental Advocates of New York, spoke at the meeting.  He asked whether the New York Sun program applied to Long Island and was told that it does not.  However, there is another program that does.  He asked whether there were any success stories available for the community heat pump program but the program has not reached that point yet.  He had specific question about components of the clean energy taskforce development program.  He also had some clarifying questions about various programs.  I don’t think any of his questions specifically asked for changes.  There was a comment that funding should not be provided for Hydrogen Hubs because a pilot project showed hydrogen could emit more NOx and Ozone than natural gas.  I am familiar with that project and he got his wires crossed because that is not what happened in the pilot project he referenced.  I do not think that any of these comments warranted a follow-up response so it is not surprising that the website does not include anything from the meeting.

The second opportunity was to submit written comments and two written comments submitted.  The New York Municipal Electric Utilities Association commented that the “Municipal Pilot Program” should be expanded.  As far as I can tell the only change to that program was to shift the dates but the total allocation remains $2.5 million.  My comment was the other one.  I mentioned that the Scoping Plan Implementation Research program was important because there are unresolved issues associated with the Scoping Plan.  The allocation for that program was reduced $1 million to $3 million.

As I noted above, my comments explained that if the operating plan for the RGGI auction proceeds did not invest sufficiently in programs that directly reduce emissions then there is a possibility that affected units may not be able to provide power when needed because they don’t have sufficient allowances to cover operations.  My point was that programs that do not directly, indirectly or could eventually reduce RGGI source emissions by displacing the energy they provide should be emphasized and programs that increase RGGI source emissions should be de-emphasized.  The following table shows that the final version of the amendment plan for RGGI auction proceeds does the exact opposite.  The total funding for RGGI reduction programs drops by $190 million and the % of the total goes down 9% to only 36%.

The bottom line is that there is no description describing the response to the comments.  From what I could ascertain the comments received were not “taken into account”. The final amendment did the opposite of what was recommended for two program-specific suggestions.  My overall concern about emphasizing programs that could reduce RGGI emissions was also ignored and funding changed directly opposite of my suggestion.

Conclusion

The only indication that I have that someone read my comments is that I pointed out a typographical error that was corrected.  There is no evidence supporting the John Williams claim to the Board that “The proposal you have was you know, does take those public feedback into account”.  The fact is that the recommendations of the two written comments were ignored.  This is typical for New York stakeholder outreach, the only thing that matters to State Agencies is the process because the answer is in the back of the book.  The Hochul Administration picked the projects and selected the Board members who approved them to further their objectives.  The Administration only pretends to care about public stakeholder input.

So why do I bother submitting comments.  In this instance the Hochul Administration is getting themselves out on thin ice.  Carbon dioxide emissions are directly tied to fossil-fuel combustion and energy production.  If State investments do not displace energy use at the RGGI electric generating units at the same time that RGGI allowance availability shrinks, the time may come when the only compliance option available is to not operate.  That is the reason that I argued that a change of emphasis for RGGI allowance proceeds to prioritize emission reduction efforts was appropriate.  I submit comments because if there is a problem in the future the politicians will not be able to say they were not warned.

Here is What New York Climate Activists Want

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2024 includes billions of dollars for climate-related funding but climate activists are not satisfied.  This post highlights things they want to implement in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act  (Climate Act).  I also want to point out that these are only the acknowledged parts of the funding because there are major costs buried in the utility costs that won’t be counted by the Governor.

This is another article about the Climate Act implementation plan that I have written 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.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Governor Hochul’s Executive Budget Climate Act – Funding

The impetus for this post was an article in the Gothamist titled Gov. Hochul’s state budget prioritizes climate fixes — but will it be enough?  The introduction states:

Even with its billions of dollars in climate-related funding, policy experts said Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2024 needs more vigor to meet the urgency of the climate emergency.

The article mentioned that the budget package includes specific items that will add costs.  There is a proposal for a cap and invest program. To my knowledge the Hochul Administration has not admitted how much this is expected to cost.  The Executive Budget would also add 231 new staff positions at the DEC to enact and enforce regulations for climate laws.  The article notes that “The budget is sprinkled with incentives such as $200 million to start EmPower Plus, a program from the state’s energy research and development authority that will provide 200,000 low-income residents with free energy-efficiency solutions for their homes, such as insulation, electrification and energy-saving appliances.”  I was not surprised by the statement in the introductory paragraph because I think costs will be enormous.

What did catch my attention were the comments by Julie Tighe, president of the New York League of Conservation Voters.   “We know ultimately it’s going to take a lot more money to do that,” Tighe said. “It’s a good down payment to make sure that we’re starting to take action and helping people who are least able to afford it.”  I want readers to know her vision:

The governor’s budget also includes big-ticket items like more than $9 billion for mass transit improvements, a historic amount that’s 10% more than last year. But the state continues to invest record amounts on infrastructure for modes of transportation that are responsible for 28% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, such as roads and bridges. Tighe contends that massive counterinvestments are needed to get New Yorkers to stop driving and use cleaner forms of transportation that are also affordable and viable alternatives.

“We can’t drive our way out of the climate crisis,” Tighe said. “We need people to take mass transit. We need people to be taking e-bikes and walking more and using regular bikes.”

An organization that is located at 30 Broad Street in New York City has mass transit options.  For those of us that live in upstate New York public transit options are limited and e-bikes, walking and regular bikes are not a credible option in the winter even if there are no distance limitations. 

It has been educational to watch the gas ban messaging unfold.  The Gothamist explains:

The executive budget, for example, features a controversial gas ban for new buildings, except it doesn’t go as far as some state legislators and environmental experts think it could. The All-Electric Building Act — a state bill currently stalled in the Senate’s finance committee — would prohibit the use of fossil fuels in newly constructed buildings and require those structures to rely completely on the electrical grid on a faster timeline than the governor is recommending.

Hochul’s version also comes with many exemptions and later deadlines for switching from gas to electric in homes and buildings. Buildings are the state’s largest climate polluters, responsible for 32% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Experts have called the electrification of buildings “low-hanging fruit” when it comes to making an impact in mitigating global warming.

That sums up the climate activist position.  But the reality is that they are a small, albeit loud, constituency. I suspect that the majority of those currently using gas want to continue using it.  In response to concerns raised by those folks, there also has been a flurry of news articles worried that “misinformation is spreading about Governor Kathy Hochul’s plans with a phase-out of fossil fuel systems.”  James Hanley eviscerates the Administration response to the gas stove ban:

As the old Marx Brothers joke goes, “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?”

Doreen Harris, president and CEO of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority,  told lawmakers that she was setting the record straight, and that “We are not taking away gas stoves, as one example of perhaps misinformation we need to correct.”

But the Climate Action Council that she Co-Chaired produced a Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA)  Scoping Plan – which she voted to approve – that says the state will in fact be taking away gas stoves.

It’s right there on page 190, in the chapter on buildings, for all the world to read.

So where’s the misinformation?

Indeed, where is the misinformation?  My position is that much of the misinformation is coming from the Hochul Administration.  Most of this is political gamesmanship where the exact wording of the legislative or regulatory proposal allows some wiggle room when confronted with an inconvenient question.  In the instance of the gas stove ban she falls back on claiming that she only wants to ban gas in new homes and moves on before the Scoping Plan reference can be brought up.  The biggest item of the Administration’s overt misinformation is the ultimate cost to get to the Climate Act target of net-zero by 2050.  The Administration claim in the Scoping Plan is that the “costs of inaction are more than the costs of action”.  Aside from the biases and exaggerations of the alleged benefits, the official line consistently ignores the caveat that the Scoping Plan costs only include the costs of the Climate Act itself and not the costs of “already implemented” programs that are necessary to get to net-zero by 2050.  The already implemented programs include the following:

  • Growth in housing units, population, commercial square footage, and GDP
  • Federal appliance standards
  • Economic fuel switching
  • New York State bioheat mandate
  • Estimate of New Efficiency, New York Energy Efficiency achieved by funded programs: HCR+NYPA, DPS (IOUs), LIPA, NYSERDA CEF (assumes market transformation maintains level of efficiency and electrification post-2025)
  • Funded building electrification (4% HP stock share by 2030)
  • Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards
  • Zero-emission vehicle mandate (8% LDV ZEV stock share by 2030)
  • Clean Energy Standard (70×30), including technology carveouts: (6 GW of behind-the-meter solar by 2025, 3 GW of battery storage by 2030, 9 GW of offshore wind by 2035, 1.25 GW of Tier 4 renewables by 2030)

Needless to say when the costs of these programs are added to the Climate Act program costs, the costs of the actions necessary to get to the Climate Act net-zero by 2050 target far exceed the costs of inaction.  Nonetheless, the climate activists want more funding:

“The governor’s budget proposal is lacking when it comes to ambitious climate funding,” said Elizabeth Moran, a New York policy advocate with EarthJustice, a nonprofit public interest environmental law organization. “There’s some funding there, but it’s far from what we know is needed.”

Governor Hochul’s Executive Budget – Buildings

The Gothamist article describes proposed policies for buildings:

When it comes to carbon emissions from buildings, Hochul has planted some long-awaited policies in her budget, including a mandate for all-electric new construction that includes a few exemptions, such as commercial kitchens.

But the timeline is delayed relative to other state proposals and some local laws. For smaller buildings, Hochul’s plan would take effect in 2026. That differs from the All-Electric Building Act, which calls for the electrification of new smaller buildings by 2024. Likewise, New York City’s Local Law 97 wants to electrify any new building larger than 25,000 square feet by next year.

Hochul’s plan would delay this regulation for new commercial buildings until 2029. The All-Electric Building Act calls for implementation by July 2027. Facilities such as laundromats and hospitals would not be required to comply. Fossil fuels will continue to be used in backup generators.

I am opposed to any “all-electric” legislation or regulation because of safety: what happens when there is an extended electric outage?  The article notes that the Adminstration tries to get around this by saying “fossil fuels will contine to be used in backup generators”.  What is the percentage of fossil fuel sales for backup gnerators sold by suppliers?  My guess is that it is a small fraction, at most 10%, of their sales.  Is there any scenario where those suppliers will be able to remain viable when they lose 90% of their business?

Another example of the desires of climate activists is an accelerated schedule.  It can be argued that the state’s leading climate activist is Robert W. Howarth, Ph.D., the David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology & Environmental Biology at Cornell University.  In his statement supporting his vote to approve the Scoping Plan, he reiterated his claim that he played a key role in the drafting of the Climate Act, developed the irrational methane requirements, and credited one politician for getting the Act passed. The article noted his desire and others that the phase-in should speed up:

Dr. Robert Howarth, a member of the Climate Action Council, said there is no reason to wait to require electric appliances in new construction, especially when they will have to be replaced in the case of heating and hot water, when laws take effect. Howarth said following the new regulations could save homeowners money in the long run while also cutting emissions faster. More than a third of building emissions come directly from natural gas use in cooking, heating and hot water. And a year does make a difference when the total leaks nationwide from turned-off gas stoves add up to the annual carbon dioxide emissions from half a million cars.

To speed up the transition, more incentives and assistance for homeowners in the budget could go a long way, said Dr. Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School. Even homeowners who don’t qualify may also switch to electric as a result of wider adoption. The proposed $200 million for the EmPower program is a drop in the bucket when there are more than 7.5 million households in the state, and Tighe said assistance is needed for other homeowners, even large building owners, especially since New York is the country’s No. 1 user of heating oil.

Under Hochul’s proposal, new buildings can’t have cooking appliances that use fossil fuels such as natural gas. Existing buildings won’t be required to swap their gas stoves for electric models, even when purchasing replacements. By 2030, the governor would ban fossil fuel-powered heating or hot water equipment in homes.

The author of this article did not pick up on the fact that the Scoping Plan recommends that existing buildings will have to replace any fossil-fired appliance with an electric appliance starting in 2035.  By then it will be somebody else’s problem and Hochul will be long gone.

Governor Hochul’s Executive Budget – Energy

The Gothamist article discussed two aspects of the electric energy system.  Apparently because there isn’t enough interest by the private sector to build the infrastructure necessary for the net-zero transition, the Executive Budget proposed letting the public power operator get involved:

The Hochul is empowering the New York Power Authority to develop, finance, construct, own, operate and maintain renewable energy projects. This move will ensure that enough zero-emissions power sources are built. The governor is calling for the phaseout of electricity production from gas-fired peaker plants by 2035, and wants to support the training of a green power workforce.

The private sector and customers have traditionally shouldered the cost of renewable energy projects. They’re handled outside of the budget, mostly through renewable energy credits.

I have no opinion on the value of this approach but picking and choosing when the State depends on the market for electricity supply seems to be a slippery slope.  The other aspect concerns transmission projects:

“The state budget does not include funding for transmission infrastructure,” said Jason Gough, deputy communications director for the governor’s office. “Utilities typically pay for the cost of power infrastructure, including transmission lines. These costs are passed to utility ratepayers through the delivery charge for electric service.”

Let me translate Gough’s comments. “These costs are passed to utility ratepayers through the delivery charge for electric service” means “The costs of the Administration’s policies that we won’t let the utility companies itemize for their ratepayers, are passed on so that the ratepayers will vent their anger at the utility companies rather than the Administration”.  The next press release will say “The utility bill increase is not our fault, it is greedy industry’s fault.”

The article goes on:

But transmission lines and other infrastructure are needed to bring clean power to the downstate grid, which is mostly dependent on fossil fuels. New York City doesn’t have the space, Tighe said, to build enough solar and wind power. The absence of direct funding for this key infrastructure could hinder the city in reaching its goal of a zero-emission grid.

“New York City needs a lot more power lines going toward the city in order to enable the sort of clean energy transition, the rapid transition that is necessary now,” Wagner said. “Transmission is the biggest bottleneck to decarbonize New York state.”

Several days ago, I wrote about the hidden costs for this infrastructure.  The New York Public Services Commission recently approved rate increases for this purpose in case 20-E-0197.  The transmission upgrade projects will cost $4.4 billion to support 3.5 GW of renewable energy or $1.26 billion per GW. An additional 2.8 GW is expected by 2025 and another 4.1 GW by 2030 according to Scenario 2 of the Scoping Plan.  At that rate, ratepayers will be on the hook for a total of $13.05 billion through 2030.  It is disappointing to me that Upstate ratepayers are on the hook for bill impacts up to and exceeding twice the bill impacts of Con Ed ratepayers who need Upstate power to reach the goal of a zero-emission grid.  If the Hochul Administration would stop pandering to her political base and have the courage to be responsible for these costs then they should be spread equitably over all the state. 

Governor Hochul’s Executive Budget – Transportation

The Gothamist article describes proposed policies for transportation:

Public transportation will receive a big boost in the proposed budget. The MTA could get around $8 billion, a 10% increase. The funds will address the revenue deficit incurred as a result of a drop in ridership during the pandemic. But Moran said additional financial support is needed for faster fleet electrification, and more of it.

For individual vehicle electrification, the DOT expects to receive $175 million from the federal government as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act over the next five years to build fast charging stations along New York’s interstate highways.

Hochul has also included congestion pricing as a revenue stream to help fund the ailing transportation authority. Tighe applauded the measure as a “good incentive for people to stop driving in Manhattan.”

The governor’s proposal also wants to fund mass transit outside of New York City. It includes nearly $1 billion for non-MTA public transportation, including some bus electrification and rehabilitation of upstate light rail.

Affordability is important in making public transportation a viable alternative to driving, Tighe said.

As noted previously, climate activists are big proponents of public transit.  Unfortunately, that is only a solution in urban areas.  None of these proposals benefit rural Upstate New York.

Cleaner modes of transportation require more funding to substantially reduce emissions, Wagner said. New bike lanes and the expansion of car-free pedestrian areas would make an impact on reaching goals and encourage these commuting modes, he added. The budget proposal doesn’t specify how much money will go to these environmentally friendly travel alternatives, and there are no direct amounts either. But these projects can be funded through the state DOT’s small umbrella programs such as the Transportation Alternatives Program and clean air funding initiatives.

Other climate activist strategy favorites are bike lanes and pedestrian areas.  One of the issues with these green solutions is that they don’t work all the time but the activists demand complete compliance.  In the winter bike lanes in many parts of the state are dangerous and pedestrian areas challenging.  Winter is also a reason that many Upstaters are reluctant to depend completely on battery electric vehicles. 

“Is this [budget] going to set us on a completely different path commensurate with the challenge? No,” said Wagner. “It is doing a lot of good things. Not to be ungrateful, but I thought we all recognized that we are in a climate crisis here.”

New York’s Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions are less than one half one percent of global emissions and since 1990 global GHG emissions have increased by more than one half a percent per year.  That does not mean that we should not do something but it does mean that even if there is a climate crisis New York cannot do anything about it alone.  We must make sure that we are not doing more harm than good with the net-zero implementation.

Discussion

This is just a part of the legislative initiatives to meet the Climate Act targets.  There are many member items also up for consideration.  In addition, there are also regulatory initiatives.  For example, the Department of Environmental Conservation is promulgating Part 218: Advanced Clean Cars II (ACC II) as part of the reckless push for all electric transportation.  The emergency/proposed rulemaking will incorporate the State of California’s Advanced Clean Cars II (ACC II) regulation into New York’s existing rules. 

My overarching problem with all these initiatives to meet the recommendations of the Scoping Plan is that the Integration Analysis that provided the background for the Plan did not include a feasibility analysis.  The Integration Analysis is simply a list of potential control strategies with estimated emission reductions that when combined together provide the controlled emissions appropriate for the emission targets.  There was no consideration of “what if and how about” questions like how are all the people who live in homes that have to park on the street going to be able to charge their cars?  What if the magical solution necessary to keep the lights on called dispatchable emissions-free resources is not available on the schedule of the Climate Act.  The Hochul Administration has not given consumers the expected costs or addressed the question what happens after everything is electrified and there is an ice storm.

Consider the feasibility of just one control strategy component.  The article notes that NYSDOT expects funding of $175 million from the federal government as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act over the next five years to build fast charging stations along New York’s interstate highways..  A gas station fuel pump costs about $20,000 and can serve a customer in less than six minutes. A 50-kilowatt fast DC charger costs about $100,000 and can serve an EV customer in about 30 minutes. The gas pump can serve five times as many customers for one-fifth of the capital cost of a high-speed charger.  Think about the feasibility issues.  The $175 million can only fund 1,750 fast chargers.  The closest NYS Thruway service center to my home has ten automotive fuel pumps but is a small service center.  Consider what would be needed to maintain the same level of refueling capacity.  The service center would need 50 charging stations to provide the same amount of refueling capacity and I suspect that would blow through the $175 million for the 27 service centers on the NYS Thruway.  The space available and energy needed for those chargers means physical upgrades are needed at the service centers.  Throw in the fact that for a long time it will be necessary to provide gasoline too.  Finally, the NYS Thruway is just under 500 miles and the total NYS interstate mileage is 1730 miles so the $175 million would provide recharging support for less than half the interstate mileage.  The implementation logistics for this component of the electric vehicle requirement appear unrealistics so the onus should be on the State to prove that this can work.  They have not done this for any of the control strategies included in the Scoping Plan.

If any reader has concerns similar to mine, I encourage you to contact your elected officials and demand answers to these “what if” and “how about” questions before they vote on or support any legislation related to the Climate Act.  There are opportunities to comment on regulations.  A virtual hearing is scheduled for March 1, 2023 at 1 pm for Part 218: Advanced Clean Cars II (ACC II).  The comment deadline is 5 pm, Monday, March 6, 2023. Written comments may be submitted to NYSDEC, 625 Broadway, Albany, NY 12233-3254, ATTN: James Clyne, P.E., or by e-mail to air.regs@dec.ny.gov.

Conclusion

Climate activists like Robert Howarth and Julie Tighe are pushing the state down a road towards a canyon without a bridge.  Howarth’s arguments that Mark Jacobson’s academic analysis of wind, water, and solar energy is proof that a net-zero transition is cost-effective and possible is misplaced.  The reality is that the Climate Act is promoting a system with less stability, robustness, and reliability that will undoubtedly raise costs a lot. 

It is not only the disconnect relative to technical limitations but the attitude of the activists that disappoints.  Tighe said: “We can’t drive our way out of the climate crisis” relegating everyone in the State who must rely on driving because they have no viable alternative to second class citizenship. This is no less demeaning than Marie Antoinette’s infamous “Let them eat cake”.  Unfortunately, it can only get worse.  Now there are climate scientists who are arguing for rationing to fight climate change

If the Hochual Administration wants to solve their alleged climate crisis then they have to come up with a solution that provides the developing world with the prosperity and quality of life that comes with abundant and cheap energy.  It is immoral to deny them that right because the best adaptation strategies for extereme weather require prosperous societies.  The onus is on New York to provide them with affordable emissions-free energy technology or get out of the way.  At home, the only means left to avoid the Climate Act stampede that will destroy our existing reliable and affordable energy system is to speak up now and vote anyone who supports this out of office before the we go over the cliff.

Climate Act Hidden Costs for Upstate New York

I know that there are enormous hidden costs to the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act  (Climate Act).  A friend sent information that lifts the veil of secrecy enough to get an idea how much money is involved and the impacts to Upstate New York

This is another article about the Climate Act implementation plan that I have written 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.  Moreover, the costs will be enormous and hurt those least able to afford increased costs the most.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Transmission Upgrades

North American Wind Power gleefully reported that the “The New York State Public Service Commission has authorized a large number of upstate transmission system upgrades that are designed to alleviate bottlenecks in the grid and allow a higher penetration of renewable energy.”

The article noted:

In its decision, the commission approved requests from Central Hudson Gas & Electric, New York State Electric & Gas, National Grid and Rochester Gas and Electric to develop a total of 62 local transmission upgrades that will reduce congestion in the Capital Region, the southwest and northern region of the state.

“New York is making significant upgrades and additions to the state’s existing transmission and distribution systems to integrate new large-scale renewable energy projects into the state’s energy supply, and we must ensure that these investments are smart and cost-effective,” says commission Chair Rory M. Christian. “The commission recognizes the need to address congestion in certain parts of the state where renewable energy is already bottled and where additional generation projects are in development or likely to be developed in the future.”

In total, the projects will clear the way for 3.5 GW of capacity for clean energy – enough for more than 2.8 million average-sized homes.

“In order to keep moving towards our clean energy goals, New York needed grid investments in these three locations,” comments Anne Reynolds, executive director of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York. “This will allow electricity generating projects to deliver the clean power they make and will facilitate additional renewable energy projects coming online.”

The projects, which will cost an estimated $4.4 billion, include upgrades to existing transmission lines, upgrades to existing substations and the construction of three new substations. The utilities plan to complete the projects between 2024 and 2030.

Upstate Reality

It is not unexpected that the renewable energy crony capitalists are happy to have these projects funded,  For ratepayers it is just the tip of iceberg.   The transmission upgrade projects will cost $4.4 billion to support 3.5 GW of renewable energy or $1.26 billion per GW. An additional 2.8 GW is expected by 2025 and another 4.1 GW by 2030 according to Scenario 2 of the Scoping Plan.  The ratepayers will be on the hook for a total of $13.05 billion through 2030.

The New York Public Services Commission Case for this decision is 20-E-0197.  The order approving the transmission upgrades is available for download here.  According to the order there is a pressing need for transmission upgrades in three areas of Upstate New York:

The Commission found these areas to be characterized by “the presence of existing renewable generation that is already experiencing curtailments and a strong level of developer interest that exceeds the capability of the local transmission system. ”The Phase 2 Order identified these areas as Hornell and South Perry (NYSEG/RG&E), the Watertown/Oswego/Porter subzone (National Grid), and an area of southeastern New York consisting of facilities owned by NYSEG, National Grid, and Central Hudson. The same locations –referred to in the Phase 2 Order and here as the Areas of Concern (AOC)–are also identified by the New York Independent System Operator, Inc.

In other words, the renewable developers are unable to build as much wind and solar as they want because there are transmission constraints getting it out of those areas.  Because New York City cannot ever hope to install enough wind and solar generating capacity within the City the primary destination of this power is New York City.  However, the Public Service Commission is saying that it is the responsibility of the upstate utilities and their ratepayers to subsidize the renewable developers who want to build in those areas and sell downstate.

The specific impacts are described starting at page 39:

Table 6 below shows the estimated impacts, in dollars annually, of the AOC Projects for typical customers assuming the above noted energy price increase estimates. Table 7 below shows the estimated ratepayer impact, as a percentage, of the dollar increases depicted in Table 6 above for each of the major electric utilities. The percentage increases shown in Table 7 are based on 2021 typical total bills, with the exception of NYSEG and RG&E Industrial High Load Factor (HLF) customers, which is based on 2019 data – the most recent data available for these utilities.

Conclusion

The numbers are clear.  Upstate bills will rise much more than the bills for Con Ed ratepayers in New York City. The bill impacts are nearly double for most of the Upstate ratepayers.  It hardly seems equitable that rural New Yorkers have to bear the brunt of the impacts of the massive renewable development necessary for New York State’s Climate Act but also have to disproportionately pay for the privilege of having it in their backyards.

Making Climate Policy Work, RGGI, and New York Cap and Invest

One of my pragmatic interests is market-based pollution control programs.  In this post I am going to address the take on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)  in an influential book Making Climate Policy Work.  There are also important lessons to be heeded as New York considers a Cap and Invest program.

I follow and write about the RGGI market-based CO2 pollution control program for electric generating units in the NE United States.   I have extensive experience with air pollution control theory, implementation, and evaluation having worked on every cap-and-trade program affecting electric generating facilities in New York including the Acid Rain Program, RGGI, and several Nitrogen Oxide programs. The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Making Climate Policy Work Overview

The description of the book states:

For decades, the world’s governments have struggled to move from talk to action on climate. Many now hope that growing public concern will lead to greater policy ambition, but the most widely promoted strategy to address the climate crisis – the use of market-based programs – hasn’t been working and isn’t ready to scale.

Danny Cullenward and David Victor show how the politics of creating and maintaining market-based policies render them ineffective nearly everywhere they have been applied. Reforms can help around the margins, but markets’ problems are structural and won’t disappear with increasing demand for climate solutions. Facing that reality requires relying more heavily on smart regulation and industrial policy – government-led strategies – to catalyze the transformation that markets promise, but rarely deliver.

The authors recognize the enormity of the challenge to transform industry and energy use on the scale necessary for deep decarbonization.  They write that the “requirements for profound industrial change are difficult to initiate, sustain, and run to completion.”  Because this is hard, they call for “realism about solutions.”  Cullenward and Victor recommend clear thinking and strategy as opposed to “Efforts spent tilting at ephemeral, magical policy solutions waste scarce resources that should instead be invested in things that work.”  The goal of their book is to explain how market-oriented climate policies have fallen far short and how they might be modified so that they work.

RGGI Results

One of my first posts at this blog is still in the top ten viewed articles: Academic RGGI Economic Theory of Allowance Management.  In that article I argued that economic value theory for an allowance market fails to account for the behavior of the affected sources.  In particular, the owners and operators of sources treat the allowances primarily as compliance instruments and not as financial assets.  The important difference is that the academic economic theory holds that affected sources are looking years down the road but in reality, there is no such long-term time horizon for affected sources.  Compliance entities decide to buy allowances based on their expected operations in the period between auctions or, at most, the entire 3-year compliance period including a small margin for operational variations and regulatory compliance.  Contrary to theory there is little attempt to make the allowances a profit center.

I have regularly evaluated RGGI performance on this blog.  Last December I evaluated the 2020 RGGI Investment Proceeds report that describes the results of RGGI investments over the entire region.  I found that since the beginning of the RGGI program CO2 emissions have been reduced more than 50% but that RGGI funded control programs have been responsible for only 5.6% of the observed reductions.  In late December I did a similar analysis of just the New York investment proceed results and found that in New York since the beginning of the RGGI program to 2021 CO2 emissions have been reduced 39% but the reduction was 47% until the State shutdown the Indian Point nuclear station.  The RGGI funded control programs have been responsible for only 16% of the observed reductions.  The main reason for the reductions in RGGI and New York State has been fuel switching to natural gas unrelated to RGGI.

I also recently evaluated New York’s operating plan that guides the investment of RGGI proceeds.  In the next fiscal year, the operating plan has 30 programs but only two programs claim direct CO2 reduction savings.  Over the years 2013 to 2021, the total investment for those two programs is $565 million and the claimed savings are 1,684,616 MWh and 861,442 tons of CO2e with a calculated cost benefit of $656 $/ton.  I classified each program relative to six categories of potential RGGI source emission reductions.  The first three categories cover programs that directly, indirectly or could potentially decrease RGGI-affected source emissions.  Those programs total 45% of the investments.  I also included a category for programs that will add load that could potentially increase RGGI source emissions which totals 27% of the investments.  Programs that do not affect emissions are funded with 21% of the proceeds and administrative costs total another 7%.  In summary, even though the ostensible purpose of RGGI proceeds is to reduce emissions from RGGI-affected sources, less than half of the investments expect to do so.

Even though many RGGI proponents claim the program has been a success, my work shows that depends on how success is defined.  If success is defined as significant cost-effect emission reductions from affected sources then that is not the case.  If success is defined as a functional market-based system that provides proceeds then it is a success.  There is no question the program components work well.  The misuse of RGGI funds for affected source emission reductions is not the fault of the system but the politicians who control fund disbursement. 

Making Climate Policy Work and RGGI

I wondered if this book talked about RGGI and how they rated its results relative to my analyses.  I went through the document searching for and documenting every reference to RGGI to see whether I agreed with their description and evaluation of the program.

The first chapter describes the vision and the reality of carbon reduction market-based policies.  Three example policies are described, including RGGI.  The RGGI description states:

RGGI’s vision is the most realistic and generally applicable precisely because it is the most pragmatic about what is able to be achieved. The program encompasses states with varied political interests around climate change, ranging from the highly ambitious to the cautiously engaged. It covers only the electricity sector – where the technologies for cutting emissions are most mature – with transparent and predictable program rules. Even in the power sector, however, RGGI is not the only or even main show in decarbonizing its participating states’ electric grids. Other policy programs are having a bigger impact, including state renewable portfolio standards; subsidies that keep nuclear power plants, which are prodigious suppliers of zero-carbon power, from shutting down; and other government-managed regulatory and procurement efforts all aimed at making the RGGI states’ power infrastructure less carbon-intensive. In many respects, the RGGI system represents the high-water mark for what subnational markets can do: RGGI supports the broader goal of deep decarbonization, generates discretionary revenue streams for participating governments, and increases the static economic efficiency of a policy portfolio – all in a single sector. Its benefits are clear and relatively  modest. Among purists, RGGI is often mocked because its prices are low (about $5–6 per metric ton of CO2 emissions in 2019) and coverage is limited to just one sector. We see the experience through a completely different lens: RGGI works because its architects knew what they were doing and designed a system that is politically feasible and durable.

I have slightly different takes on some of these points but overall I agree with their characterization.

The next two chapters and Chapter 5 only mention RGGI in passing.  Chapter 2: Ambition makes the case that the theory of flexible and economically efficient carbon markets should make them ideal for maximizing the effort to control carbon pollution. This chapter explains why carbon markets have failed to live up to the expectations.  The only reference to RGGI discussed the political process that underpins participation.  The RGGI framework is flexible enough so that the addition and deletion of participating states when political regimes change does not affect the viability of the overall program.  It concludes: “Firms and governments participating in RGGI know that states may come or go, with the consequences managed through an informal political process rather than a legal one.”  Chapter 3 on coverage and allocation notes that RGGI is limited to the electric sector.  Chapter 5 on offsets notes that even though offsets are allowed they have not been a factor in RGGI.  I agree with their characterizations. 

Chapter 4: Revenue and Spending delves into the disbursement of funds collected in the market.  The total RGGI cumulative auction proceeds at the time of this writing is $5,895,274,757.14 since the first auction in September 2008 so RGGI has successfully generated revenues. With regards to spending the chapter notes that “How societies spend the money raised through these sales is vital to understanding the politics of emissions trading.” 

The chapter discussion on RGGI points out that each state controls its revenue spending.  There is a graph from the 2017 RGGI proceeds investment report that describes revenue uses in three categories: general funds; revenue recycling (earmarking revenues for spending that benefits citizens); and green spending (energy efficiency, clean energy, and climate mitigation).  Given the difficulties I have had trying to interpret the RGGI proceeds reports, it is not surprising that there isn’t more detail.

The authors did pick up on some of the revenue problems in RGGI:

The RGGI program also reveals some of the political dynamics that can emerge when political leaders decide to re-purpose funds. The Governors of New York and New Jersey have both diverted RGGI revenues to the state’s general fund at points in the program’s history, raising concern from environmental NGOs and others who have supported a green spending agenda.  

In a section within this chapter titled “Why green spending becomes green pork” the authors explain that there is not much scrutiny how the money is spent.  They define pork as an expenditure that is designed to disproportionately benefit a special interest rather than the broader public good.  They claim that “the organizations that spend RGGI funds are better designed to provide more discipline and accountability on how those funds are spent” than the other example programs discussed. While that may be true with respect to RGGI as a whole, it is not the case for New York.  For example, the authors did not manage to tease out the fact from various unclear reports that New York uses RGGI funds to cover costs that were covered by general funds, i.e., a hidden diversion of revenue to the general fund.  I am sure that had the authors looked into New York’s operating plan for RGGI auction proceed expenditures they would have agreed with my conclusion that green pork is a prominent part of New York’s expenditures.

Chapter 6: Market Links discusses the “institutional challenges of managing cross-border market governance”.  With regards to RGGI I agree with their characterization:

Critically, what holds this system together is not law and the creation of robust, tradeable property rights, but rather a shared vision of parallel efforts at low levels of ambition. Design decisions are made according to the evolving political views of current and prospective participants. And because RGGI features so many parties – none of which hegemonically dominates the group’s overall agenda – the program  must be transparent and predictable. The largely egalitarian cooperation of RGGI states works because it is anchored in stability-oriented market design features that make market behavior more predictable and risk management more tractable.

Chapter 7: Getting the Most Out of Markets explains how to increase program ambition, for example, attracting more jurisdictions or setting more ambitious targets.  The RGGI discussion does a good job explaining how the program addressed an oversupply condition:

The northeastern United States’ RGGI program takes a similar approach through a pair of one-time cap adjustments, as well as a dynamic intervention that resembles the Market Stability Reserve. Like the EU ETS, RGGI experienced market oversupply conditions and very low prices in the 2010s. The situation with RGGI was more extreme, however, because this cap-and-trade program only applies to the electricity sector and the United States’ electricity sector began a profound transformation alongside (but not because of) RGGI. Not only did many of its participating states implement aggressive renewable energy and energy efficiency regulations, but also the rise of cheap natural gas from fracking dramatically accelerated the replacement of high-emitting coal-fired electricity with relatively clean natural  gas and zero-carbon renewables. Emissions have been falling steadily, despite – not because of – anemic RGGI prices. As emissions fell owing to exogenous forces, the market became oversupplied. In response, RGGI’s two cap adjustments removed almost 140 million allowances – about two years’ worth of total emissions – from the supply of allowance budgets through program year 2020.[1]

In addition to these one-time adjustments, RGGI also developed a dynamic mechanism to alter the supply of allowances.[2] This additional market feature is triggered by observed market prices, rather than the EU ETS Market Stability Reserve’s measurement of excess allowance supplies. Like the EU ETS Reserve, RGGI’s approach is two-fold: RGGI features a Cost Containment Reserve that releases 10% of the program-wide allowance budget into the market if prices reach $13 per allowance in 2021; and if prices fall below $6 per allowance in 2021, an Emissions Containment Reserve will absorb 10% of the program’s annual allowance budget and remove these allowances from circulation. When the market remains in between the two triggering prices, allowances supplies are fixed – just as in the EU ETS, where supplies are fixed so long as the total number of surplus allowances stays within a specified range. (Both triggering prices increase at 7% per year to increase ambition over time, but not even the high-end prices are significant when compared to the policy incentives supporting renewable or nuclear energy in participating RGGI states.)[3]

The final chapter is entitled “Rightsizing markets and industrial policy”.  One of the problems identified in the book is that the level of expenditures needed to implement the net-zero transition vastly exceeds the “funds that can be readily appropriated from market mechanisms”.  The chapter describes RGGI as the “the cap-and-trade system  whose design is most purely oriented around generating and spending revenue”.  The authors note that the October 2019 report “The Investment of RGGI Proceeds in 2017” indicates that New York has mobilized just $100 million per year for green spending.  My review of the latest plan to invest New York RGGI auction proceeds indicates that the design plan is supposed  to “support the pursuit of the State’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals”.  Of the five goals listed, only one addresses emission reductions.  The others are vague cover language to justify the use of RGGI auction proceeds as a slush fund for hiding administrative expenses and costs related to Climate Act implementation at the expense of programs that affect CO2 emissions from RGGI affected sources. 

Making Climate Policy Work and New York Cap and Invest

Governor Hochul recently announced a plan to use a market-based Cap and Invest program to raise funds for the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act.  I submitted comments on the Draft Scoping Plan that made opposed the recommendation for such a program.  My initial impression of the Cap and Invest program is that it is more style than substance.  If I had read this book before drafting the comments or my initial impression article, I would have highlighted the findings in this book as part of my arguments against this approach.

The program public relations summary claims that “A Cap-and-Invest Program is the most feasible, efficient, and affordable method to attain a more sustainable future.”  I have been surprised by the amount of support for the plan.  At the February 14, 2023 New York Senate Environmental and Ways and Mean legislative public hearing on the 2023 executive budget the majority of the speakers supported the proposal.  I don’t think that any of the comments that support the program realize the many flaws in that proposal that are described in this book.

In my opinion, a fundamental flaw in the Scoping Plan is that it does not include feasibility analyses to determine whether the laundry list of control strategies will be feasible.  The Plan does not demonstrate that the proposed strategies will be maintain current standards of reliability and safety or can keep energy costs affordable.  This lack of analysis extends to the Cap and Invest proposal.  Proponents claim that it is the most feasible option but that is relative to a short list of options and does not necessarily mean that it will work as proposed.  The preface of the book notes the importance of feasibility:

In telling the story of how market-based climate policy works in the real world, we adopt the premise that idealized markets would be desirable if they were feasible. We hope this choice allows us to reach readers who identify strongly with the power of market forces, since we hope to change their minds. We want them to understand how political forces constrain what market-based policies can do, especially at the early stages of deep decarbonization, because wishing those forces away isn’t practical and hasn’t worked.

The Cap and Invest fact sheet notes that this program will be similar to RGGI that “has helped reduce greenhouse gases from power plants by more than half and raised nearly $6 billion to support cleaner energy solutions”.  As noted previously my analyses show that RGGI was only a minor cause of the observed emission reductions.  Chapter 1 this book also argues that RGGI is not the primary cause: “Other policy programs are having a bigger impact, including state renewable portfolio standards; subsidies that keep nuclear power plants, which are prodigious suppliers of zero-carbon power, from shutting down; and other government-managed regulatory and procurement efforts all aimed at making the RGGI states’ power infrastructure less carbon-intensive.”  Based on my work I believe fuel switching has been the primary cause of New York observed reductions but there are two aspects to consider.  The reductions were because natural gas was a cheaper alternative than coal and oil.  However, the subsidies for nuclear power plants kept emissions from rising.  That is until the State made the irrational decision to shut down 2,000 MW of nuclear power at Indian Point.  Since 2019, when the staged closure began, New York electric utility CO2 emissions have increased 5.8 million tons or 23%.

The Scoping Plan recommendation for an economy-wide strategy to address the financing and emission limitations is based on a naïve understanding of market-based programs.  Cullenward and Victor explain the reality:

Market-based policies on a planetary scale, the theory goes, would empower firms and governments with the flexibility to focus investment on the least expensive options for controlling emissions. Flexibility would reduce costs, allowing more environmental protection with fewer resources; in turn, frugality would make it easier to mobilize business and voter support for ever-deeper climate pollution reductions.

They go on to explain that this vision has completely failed:

Many pollution markets exist, but nearly all are smokescreens that create the impression that market forces are cutting emissions when, in fact, other policies are doing most of the real work of decarbonization. Almost everywhere that market systems are in place they operate at prices that are so low as to have little impact on key decisions such as whether to invest in or deploy new technologies.

The Cap and Invest solution is being marketed as both a compliance and financing tool.  The belief is that the cap will establish compliance limits and the auction will provide the funding to make the reductions.  There are issues with these tools.

The use of the cap as a binding compliance mechanism is unprecedented.  Consider, for example, the EPA Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR).  This cap-and-trade program is in place to limit nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions in the eastern United States for ozone compliance.  There have been multiple iterations of this rule that have progressively reduced the cap.  The distinction between CSAPR and a binding cap is that EPA evaluated emissions, existing control technology, and potential improvements or additions for all the sources in the CSAPR-affected states.  The cap was determined using this control technology evaluation to set a feasible limit.  A binding cap is one chosen arbitrarily without any such feasibility evaluation.  In 2030 New York GHG emissions must be 40% lower than the 1990 baseline but this is an arbitrary target mandated by the Climate Act. 

There is another aspect of any GHG emissions reduction program.  There are no cost-effective add-on control technologies available for existing sources.  The only options available for an affected source are to change the fuel to something with lower GHG emissions, make the system more efficient, to reduce operations, or shut down.  As noted previously, New York reduced its electric system emissions significantly because of fuel switching but that strategy is tapped out for any future significant reductions.  In order to get more reductions from the electric generating system, zero-emissions resources must be deployed to displace the fossil resources.  This is particularly difficult because the loss of Indian Point’s zero emissions generation has increased recent emissions.  The control strategies are similar for all other sectors. 

Cullenward and Victor make the point that it is easier to make reductions with existing technology:

In a few places, carbon prices from market-based policies have been powerful enough to induce some changes in emission patterns – such as when firms decide whether to produce electricity from high-emission coal plants or lower-emission rivals. Those impacts, however, have nearly always involved commercially mature technologies competing in stable environments and under other highly restrictive conditions.

In order to meet the 2030 GHG emissions target technology that has not been proven commercially viable at the necessary scale is needed.  This challenge is a problem with the Climate Act deep de-carbonization targets that the Scoping Plan recommendations ignore:

On another front, what markets do best – creating transparent, marginal price signals that encourage firms and households to optimize their choices – is misaligned with the industrial challenges facing deep decarbonization today. In most sectors the world is not far along with deep decarbonization: key technologies, demonstration projects, and the emergence of new firms to back low-carbon technologies are fledgling at best (see Figure 1.2).9 Industrial firms and consumers aren’t waiting for a faint, marginal signal from markets to nudge their behavior. Instead, they need active programs to mobilize and apply resources to new technologies that, with time and effort, will launch the global process of deep decarbonization and displace incumbent industries. Well-designed market signals, at best, are good at encouraging optimization when technologies are commercially mature and strategic choices are clear – such as when the UK electricity market had a signal to select mature renewable energy technologies and gas instead of coal. The hardest challenges of deep decarbonization involve redirecting  investment toward technologies and businesses that are the opposite: beset with risk and danger for first movers. Creating those new industries requires a policy strategy – industrial policy, in effect – that is focused on the problem at hand, rather than inducing marginal changes in behavior with known technologies and production methods.

The authors address three issues related to the fact that the existing systems have failed to live up to expectations.  The first issue is related to the technology issues noted above:

We explain why idealized, “first-best” designs for pollution markets envision systems that produce high carbon prices as a powerful incentive for change. In the real world, the outcome has been the opposite: prices are low and often volatile, which undercuts the incentive to invest in ambitious new technologies and to make changes in production methods beyond those that are straightforward with few risks. First-best visions for pollution markets also imagine that markets should cover many sectors simultaneously, allow extensive interconnection with markets overseas, raise large amounts of revenue, and spend those revenues efficiently to offset distortions in the economy. On every front the real world has produced outcomes that are the opposite from theory: markets are fragmented, links are few, sectoral coverage mostly is narrow, and revenues raised are small.

Details for the proposed Cap and Invest program are sketchy but my impression from what I have heard is that it will also be the opposite of this theory.

As an alternative, the author describe how to make market-based programs more effective.  Their second issue is necessary market reforms:

Some reforms are needed to make market signals more reliable – an outcome that requires shifting away from cap-and-trade systems, where market structures create volatile prices, and toward systems where prices are managed within narrow bands. In effect, cap-and-trade systems can be made more effective when they are designed to behave more like taxes; it is no accident that the few jurisdictions with the highest prices and the greatest level of effort use taxes, not cap-and-trade. More stable prices will make it easier for firms to invest in anticipation of market signals and to build political coalitions that are supportive of that investment. Systems that are designed like taxes also perform better in the real world where market policies are implemented alongside other regulatory programs. In that setting, cap-and-trade schemes merely trade the residual and get little work done in cutting emissions – they are Potemkin markets. Tax approaches, by contrast, create a clear incentive for change (the specified tax level), which persists even as other policy instruments have big impacts on behavior as well.

This approach is basically RGGI without a binding cap.  Unfortunately, Climate Act proponents are convinced that the transition schedule is possible despite the lack of any evidence supporting evidence and that the climate crisis necessitates the aggressive schedule of the Climate Act.  Even though New York GHG emissions are less than one half of one percent of global emissions and global emissions have been increasing by more than one half of one percent per year this rationale for the Climate Act schedule is a major obstacle against this common sense approach.

In addition to the compliance mechanism the proposed Cap and Invest program is intended to provide revenues for the transition.  I have no doubts that the program will generate revenues and suspect that the Hochul Administration will decide the revenue targets based on just how much they think they can get away with rather than basing them on the results of their RGGI auction proceeds.  Cullenward and Victor address this aspect:

Our playbook for market reform offers some insights into why so many of the visions for market-oriented climate policy won’t happen under real-world political conditions. For  example, many advocates for market-based policies imagine that the adoption of market schemes will occur alongside massive policy reforms that roll back regulation. We explain why, politically and administratively, those regulatory and industrial policies are not easily rolled back. Moreover, we explain why pushing for that outcome would be a bad idea – since those other regulatory policies, in fact, are doing most of the serious work in cutting emissions.

One of the most important contributions of markets is among the least appreciated today: well-designed market schemes can raise revenue. A politically savvy strategy for market reforms requires paying closer attention to how program revenues are spent – and specifically to allocating funds to activities that will build experience with new technologies and thus also catalyze new interest groups that are supportive of accelerating deep decarbonization.

Because of the enormity of the challenge another issue is discussed.  In particular, what else is needed:

The key is to channel resources into the sectors that are critical for deep decarbonization. Rather than link all sectors together into a common market system, each must be treated independently because each has its own political economy and state of technology. In sectors where technologies are immature, industrial policy should focus on research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) in a diverse array of options – an approach that yields knowledge and also builds political coalitions around new low-carbon industries.

The New York Climate Act covers all sectors.  It may be possible to breakout the sectors based on such a recommendation.  However, the looming problem is that a binding cap will limit emissions even if the zero-emissions resources are not available to displace the existing emissions.  Carbon dioxide emissions are directly tied to fossil-fuel combustion and energy production.  If for any number of reasons, the zero-emissions are not deployed fast enough in all the sectors there won’t be enough credits available to cover the emissions necessary to provide the energy needs.  In the worst case, an electric generating unit needed to keep the lights on will refuse to operate because they have insufficient allowances. 

The obvious solution to this concern is a feasibility analysis of the schedule for technological innovations necessary to maintain affordability and reliability.  The authors suggest “Doing better requires recognizing the structural limits to what is achievable with market-based approaches – limits that are rooted in how the politics and technological opportunities are organized in each sector.”

Conclusion

The Hochul Administration proposes a Cap and Invest program that will provide revenues and establish a compliance mechanism.  I agree with the authors that the results of RGGI and other programs suggest that the Cap and Invest proposal will generate revenues.  However, we also agree that the amount of money needed for decarbonization is likely more than any such market can bear.  The problem confronting the Administration is that in order to make the emission reductions needed they have to invest between $15.5 and $46.4 billion per year.  I don’t think that range is politically palatable.

The use of Cap and Invest as a compliance mechanism is more of a problem.  The Hochul Administration has not acknowledged or figured out that the emission reduction ambition of their Climate Act targets is inconsistent with technology reality.  Because GHG emissions are equivalent to energy use, limiting GHG emissions before there are technological solutions that provide zero-emissions energy means that compliance will only be possible by restricting energy use.  Unless a miracle occurs in 2030 when there are insufficient allowances someone has to choose who gets to operate.

This is a good book and I recommend it to anyone interested in energy and climate policy and emissions trading programs.


[1] The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, “Elements of RGGI,” https://www.rggi.org/program-overview-and-design/elements; see also The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, “RGGI Program Review: Summary of Proposed Changes to RGGI Regional CO2 Allowance Budget” (Nov. 21, 2013); The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, “Second Control Period Interim Adjustment for Banked Allowances Announcement” (March 17, 2014).

[2] The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (2014), supra note 11.

[3] New York and Illinois (the latter of which is not in RGGI) created the first zero-emission credit (ZEC) subsidy programs for nuclear energy in the United States. See Nuclear Energy Institute, “Zero-Emission Credits” (Apr. 2018). These policies were challenged in court  and ultimately upheld in two parallel cases. Coalition for Competitive Electricity v. Zibelman, 906 F.3d 41 (2nd Cir. 2018) (New York); Electric Power Supply Association v. Star, 904 F.3d 518 (7th Cir. 2018) (Illinois). Following these favorable outcomes, New Jersey (once again part of RGGI) adopted a similar program. Robert Walton, “New Jersey moves ahead on nuke subsidies, approving ZEC application process,” Utility Dive (Nov. 21, 2018). For an overview of state renewable energy policies, see Galen L. Barbose, “US Renewables Portfolio Standards: 2019 Annual Status Update,” Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (2019), https://emp.lbl.gov/projects/renewables-portfolio.

New York Good Intentions Unsullied  by Reality 

My entire career as an air pollution meteorologist has been devoted to upholding the Clean Air Act (CAA).  Several New York initiatives are combining to undermine the very foundation of that law.  Furthermore, these initiatives are contrary to the premise of my Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York blog that practical tradeoffs of environmental risks and societal benefits are necessary for workable solutions.  This post describes the initiatives and what I believe will be the inevitable consequence.

I have extensive experience with air pollution control theory, implementation, and evaluation over my entire career.  I write about New York energy and environmental issues at the Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York blog.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Background

It has been over 50 years since Congress established the basic structure of the Clean Air Act in 1970.  The EPA summary describes control of common pollutants:  

“To protect public health and welfare nationwide, the Clean Air Act requires EPA to establish national ambient air quality standards for certain common and widespread pollutants based on the latest science. EPA has set air quality standards for six common “criteria pollutants“: particulate matter (also known as particle pollution), ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, and lead.”

“States are required to adopt enforceable plans to achieve and maintain air quality meeting the air quality standards.   State plans also must control emissions that drift across state lines and harm air quality in downwind states.”

“Other key provisions are designed to minimize pollution increases from growing numbers of motor vehicles, and from new or expanded industrial plants.  The law calls for new stationary sources (e.g., power plants and factories) to use the best available technology, and allows less stringent standards for existing sources.”

My first professional job in 1976 was with a consulting company that did contract work for the Environmental Protection Agency developing emission factors that could be used to analyze and project impacts to public health and welfare.  Later I worked for other consultants that evaluated the air quality dispersion models to make sure they provided adequate estimates of predicted air quality impacts from polluting sources.  Eventually I went to work for an electric utility where I was responsible for maintaining air quality compliance at their facilities.  All my work was a tiny part of the national effort to develop a robust methodology to protect public health and welfare nationwide.  On behalf of all my colleagues I want to say it is a pretty darn good system.

The goal of the regulatory process is to maintain air quality impacts below the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).  The Clean Air Act established two types of national air quality standards.  The primary standards protect public health with an adequate margin for safety.  The secondary standards are “designed to protect the public welfare from adverse effects, including those related to effects on soils, water, crops, vegetation, man-made (anthropogenic) materials, animals, wildlife, weather, visibility, and climate; damage to property; transportation hazards; economic values, and personal comfort and wellbeing”.  The entire point of this background section is that United States air quality regulation is built around the concept that there is a threshold for adequate safety and if the measured or projected air quality is below those standards then public health is protected.

New Paradigm

In the past several years the Precautionary Principle, a strategy to cope with possible risks where scientific understanding is incomplete, has led many to rely on the idea that to be safe we have to eliminate all risks as a precaution.  At its core that means that there is no such thing as a threshold for adequate public health safety.

David Zaruk has explained that the resulting problem is that policy-makers and politicians have confused this uncertainty management tool with risk management.  He authors the Risk Monger blog “meant to challenge simplistic solutions to hard problems on environmental-health risks”. He is a professor at Odisee University College where he lectures on Communications, Marketing, EU Lobbying and Public Relations. 

I recently compared his analysis of this approach to risk management in the European Union relative to New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) implementation.  He explained that “patronizing activists with special interests solely dedicated to seeing industry and capitalism fail is destroying trust in all industries (excluding them from the policy process and equating the word “industry” with some immoral interpretation of lobbying)”.  The activists are using the same tactics that worked with the decline of the tobacco industry: “Using the emerging communications tools to create an atmosphere of fear and hate, these activists have successfully generated a narrative that the only solution to our problems is no risks and no thresholds.”  Policymakers, perceiving these loud voices as representative, have adopted the path of virtue politics rather than Realpolitik (that is to say policy by aspiration and ideology rather than practical solutions relying on the best available evidence).

Three Zero-Risk Initiatives

There are three examples of initiatives in New York that rely on the zero-risk approach.  The Climate Act has a net-zero by 2050 goal that presumes that all GHG emissions have risks and must be eliminated.  The New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has an Environmental Justice initiative.  It includes Commissioner Policy 29 (CP-29) that provides guidance for incorporating environmental justice concerns into DEC environmental permit review process and the DEC application of the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQR).  Finally, in November 2021, New York State passed an Environmental Rights Amendment to the New York constitution.  It added  a new section to the state constitution that reads: “Each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and to a healthful environment.  This Amendment will be the focus of this article.

I was prompted to write this article after reading Celebrating the 1-Year Anniversary of the New York Environmental Rights Amendment written by a litigation assistant at Earth Justice.  This article includes a link to a webinar: “The environmental rights amendment: by and for New Yorkers” that lays bare the planned use of the Equal Rights Amendment to further the agenda of New York activists who apparently want to see industry fail.  I don’t claim that they necessarily want industry to fail but their expectation that aspirational environmental demands based on ideology are compatible with overall societal needs is naïve such that the end result of their vision will be the shutdown of all industry including power generation.

The four webinar speakers were Anthony Rogers-Wright, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest; Rebecca Bratspies, City University of New York School of Law; Maya van Rossum, Green Amendment for the Generations & Delaware Riverkeeper Network; and Michael Youhana, Earthjustice.  I am comfortable saying that these folks epitomize the special interest activists described by Zaruk.

I suggest that anyone interested in this issue take the time to listen to the entire webinar.  I am not going to dissect every speaker’s presentation, but I do want to highlight the comments of Professor Bratspies starting at 15:46 of the recording.  She was asked how the Environmental Rights Amdendment could be used to influence decision making.

Bratspies explained that environmental justice is about “fair treatment and meaningful involvement” of people in decision making that affects them.  She believes that the New York regulatory program is about process and not substance.  People get to participate but they “have no substantive hook” to affect the outcome.  She referred to a Supreme Court decision that “prohibits uninformed rather than unwise decision making.”  She said that the Environmental Rights Amendment changes that because it puts fair treatment of how environmental burdens and benefits are distributed on the table:  “Now it is not just about process, it is about substance.”  She then stated that now there is a substantive right to a clean environment, not just a right to participate in the process.

She went to explain that the Amendment creates new possibilities for challenging “unequal” decisions.  As an example, she thinks this can be used when permitting decisions are made.  The following is a lightly edited version of her end game explanation starting at 17:55 of the  webinar recording:

“All the polluting infrastructure in New York City requires permits from the government in order to operate.  Those permits specify levels of pollution that facility is allowed to emit.  Those levels of pollution are set based on a pretty complicated formulas about national standards.  But now the people who live nearby who have been so long viewed as in energy sacrifice zones can go in and say that I have the right to breathe clean air.  You can’t let this facility emit so much pollution that it impacts my ability to breath clean air.  My kids have the right to not have asthma.  Pollution and asthma are intimately intwined.“

This interpretation of the Environmental Rights Amendment presumes that it is supposed to provide assurance of good health (e.g., no asthma) for all.  Individuals in EJ communities near existing sources of air pollution believe that poor health outcomes are attributable to those sources based on environmental activist studies.   They do not understand the proven NAAQS protections for the population.  Activists have stoked their fears by funding projections that claim there is no threshold for health impacts and that there is a relationship between health impacts and ambient concentrations below the NAAQS standards.

At its core this argument relies on a zero-risk approach.  Bratspies espouses the view that the NAAQS are not protective of human health because pollutants are still emitted and present in the air.  She believes that asthma observed in EJ neighborhoods must be caused by local facilities.  The fact that there are decades of experience that support the ambient air quality standards and the methodologies used to ensure that no one is subjected to air quality over those standards are immaterial.  New York City EJ activists, like all the speakers on the webinar, believe the PEAK coalition conclusion that “Fossil peaker plants in New York City are perhaps the most egregious energy-related example of what environmental injustice means today.”  Unfortunately, the analysis that forms the basis of that conclusion is flawed.  The health impacts claimed are for ozone and inhalable particulates that are secondary pollutants that form far downwind of the adjoining neighborhoods.  Bratspies believes that air pollution and asthma are “intimately intwined” but does not acknowledge that ambient air pollution levels have gone down over the same period that asthma rates have gone up. 

This approach threatens the viability of any facility that emits pollution  From the get go, if clean air is defined as zero then no emissions from power plants are allowed.  But where does it end?  No emissions from natural gas for heating or cooking?  No emissions from the cooking process itself? If you can smell something cooking that is a volatile organic compound pollutant that is a precursor to ozone which is regulated by the Clean Air Act.  The intentions of the Environmental Rights Act are good but they are also based on an incomplete understanding of the situation and science.

The other two initiatives have similar issues.  New York’s Climate Act has an aggressive schedule that mandates a zero-emissions or zero-risk electric generating sector by 2040.  Buried in the law is a requirement that State agencies are supposed to consider the Climate Act requirements in their actions.  Late last year the DEC issued a policy document that outlines the requirements for Climate Act analyses as part of the air pollution control permit applications.  As part of the zero-risk mindset even the risks of a permitted source somehow affecting Climate Act implementation must be addressed and discussed even though there are no specific promulgating regulations. 

Finally, the DEC Environmental Justice initiative includes Commissioner Policy 29 (CP-29) that provides guidance for incorporating environmental justice concerns into DEC environmental permit review process.  The guidance explicitly addresses the need for meaningful public participation by minority or low-income communities in the permit process; the availability or accessibility of certain information to the public early in the permit process; and the need for the permit process to address disproportionate adverse environmental impacts on minority and low-income communities.  Based on the webinar this is still insufficient for the activists because it does not guarantee the right to clean air and a healthful environment.  

Conclusion

However noble the concept of eliminating any risks from any source of pollution, if it is construed to mean that anything that might be contributing to bad health must be prohibited, then there will be massive consequences. 

A zero-risk standard sets a high hurdle for permitting a new facility or keeping an existing source in operation.   All applicants follow the existing permitting requirements demonstrating that their facility does not exceed the applicable air quality standards.  New York’s new permitting guidance then requires public hearings and consultation with stakeholders whose goal is no risk.  At the very least the permitting process is slowed down to go through more public stakeholder steps which adds time and expenses for the source owners. When the activists say “It is not just about process, it is about substance” what they mean is we must get the answer we want and if we don’t, it is clear from the webinar that their planned response is to litigate on the grounds of the right to clean air. 

Going to court always adds time and expense but could also shut down the state.  The court is going to have to decide what clean air means.  It is easy to see an argument that a standard must be developed but once that approach is initiated, it is hard to imagine a new standard that is more defensible than the existing NAAQS.  We already have a process to evaluate permits relative to those standards so what is the point? Rationally I would hope that the court would decide in favor of the Clean Air Act but who knows.  If the definition of clean air and water is zero pollution, then the State might as well shut down now because nothing meets that standard. 

There is no question that past inequities in environmental burdens were wrong and should be avoided in the future.  Nor is there any question that everyone deserved the right to clean air and water.  The problem is that if this good intentioned solution insists on zero risk, then the reality is that it requires no emissions.  If no tradeoffs are allowed then the only solution is to shut down or not build.

Thanks to Russell Schussler for comments and the title.

New York Annual Climate Act Cap and Invest Revenue Targets

One of the biggest questions related to Governor Hochul announced plan to use a market-based program to raise funds for the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) is the revenue target.  I incorporate the latest 2020 GHG emissions inventory data and some other bits of information to follow up on a couple of earlier posts that addressed this issue. 

I submitted personal comments on the Climate Act implementation plan and have written over 280 articles about New York’s net-zero transition 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.  I also follow and write about the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) market-based CO2 pollution control program for electric generating units in the NE United States.   Before I retired I had extensive experience with air pollution control theory, implementation, and evaluation having worked on every cap-and-trade program affecting electric generating facilities in New York including the Acid Rain Program, RGGI, and several Nitrogen Oxide programs. The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Background

The first related article I posted gave my initial impression of the New York cap and invest program.  That post gives background information on the Climate Act’s  economy-wide strategy and my overarching concerns.  I explained that I had evaluated New York’s RGGI auction proceeds funding status report and found that the projected costs of the current programs are $776.1 million, the net greenhouse gas emission savings are 1,656,198 tons and that works out to emission cost per ton removed of $469.  If all the RGGI administrative and operating costs are included another $113 million is added to the total and the emissions cost per ton removed is $537 per ton.   I also evaluated existing emissions and the reduction trajectory necessary to meet the 2030 Climate Act emissions target.  Those numbers will be updated in this post.  The post also lists some practical considerations that should be a concern for this initiative.

The second related article determined different annual revenue targets.  I determined the emissions reduction trajectory needed to meet the 2040 GHG emissions target, calculated the control cost per ton removed based on the RGGI auction proceed investments, and found that a total of $7.9 billion per year is needed.  That is the low-end cost of the projections.  At the upper end three projections exceed $45 billion a year.  I will update those projections below.

New York GHG Emissions

In order to understand the challenge it is necessary to know where we stand for our GHG emissions.  The following table (the link is to the full table because I cannot figure out how to make tables in the text get bigger when a reader clicks on it) lists the New York State GHG emissions (MMT CO2e AR5 20 yr) by sector from the DEC emissions inventory .  It also includes the annual change in emissions since 1997.

I evaluated current emissions relative to the 2030 Climate Act target of a 40% reduction by 2030.  The following table lists the trajectory of observed, projected, and interpolated emissions consistent with the 2030 requirement to reach 245.87 million metric tons of CO2e.   New York State has released the official GHG emissions for New York State for 2018, 2019, and 2020 and they are highlighted in gold.  I estimated emissions for 2021 and 2022 using the observed electric generating unit emissions and historical averages for other sectors.  Note that emissions increase due to the shutdown of the Indian Point nuclear generating facility.  The 2030 levels are fixed and are highlighted in rose. There are six columns that list the emissions trajectory necessary to get from the observed emissions (gold) to the target.  The annual reduction in the trajectory is the difference between the observed emissions and the 2030 target divided by the number of years.  For example, the estimated GHG emissions in 2021 were 381 million metric tons. If the emissions are reduced by 15 million tons per year, then in 2030 the emissions will meet the target of 245.87 million metric tons.  Two projections are listed for 2022 that give bounds to the reductions necessary.  One uses the estimated emissions and the other assumes that total state GHG emissions stay constant between 2020 and 2022. 

Ostensibly the goal of the cap and invest program is to generate the revenues necessary to make the required reductions.  The following table uses the range of 2022 emission estimates (384.92 and 345 million metric tons of CO2e) and the range of cost per ton reduced ($533.79 and $487.75) to place bounds on the required reduction costs.  If the assumption is made that all the reduction costs will be financed by auction proceed investments, then the annual revenue needed for the high bound is $9.278 billion and the low bound is $6.044 billion.  That assumes that all the money collected is invested.  However, Hochul announced that there would be a Climate Action Rebate of 30%.  In order to maintain the revenue needed to meet the emission targets that means that the total collected has to increase from $9.278 billion to $12.254 billion increasing the cost per ton reduced to $763.  In addition, she announced another 3% for small businesses and, this being New York, I assume that the administrative costs will be the same as the 7% as in RGGI.  Incorporating those costs raises the total needed to between $15.463 million and $10.073 billion.  That assumes that all the environmental justice targeted money can be invested in reductions that benefit environmental justice communities.  If the interpretation of the 40% for environmental justice communities is in addition to the investments needed to meet the reduction targets, then the annual totals increase between $46.390 billion and $30.219 billion.

There are a couple of other potential annual revenue target methodologies.  The clearing price at the last RGGI auction was $12.99 and assuming that 385 million allowances were auctioned off the revenues would be $5 billion.  The highest auction clearing price would increase revenues to $5.35 billion.  Keep in mind that that the allowances auctioned will decrease over time so this is the upper bound.  In addition, there are mandates for set asides so that is not a true reflection of the number of allowances that would be auctioned.  The annual reductions could also be set to the NYS Value of Carbon which is set at $129 in 2025 and $172 in 2050.  The estimates for those revenues range between $1.6 and $3.0 billion.

Discussion

The sectors affected by the Climate Act Cap and Invest Program are most interested in the revenue target for the auction.  Regulatory staff claim that they are interested in the emission reductions and not the revenues which would argue for setting the cap at a defensible value that could provide the reductions necessary.  There are many issues with this simple approach.  It is assumed that there are no other sources of funding to make the reductions.  It also assumes that the cost per ton reduced is constant but control programs will increase as control efficiencies necessarily get tighter.  There are also issues with how the EJ set-aside is invested and how much money is used for administration.

Conclusion

There is no clear and obvious revenue target.  As with all GHG market-based control programs the real concern is that the costs necessary to make reductions are so high that they exceed the Value of Carbon and the likely limits of the public’s willingness to pay.

There is another concern.  The Scoping Plan requires an ambitious emission reduction trajectory.  Because there are no cost-effective control options for GHG emissions, the reductions will have to come from indirect displacement of fossil-fired energy use or simply reducing fossil-fuel use.  The ultimate compliance control strategy is stop operating when there are no allowances available to be had.  Energy demand is inelastic so there will be interesting times ahead as this plays out.

Following the Climate Crisis Money

I have been helping provide research support to readers of my blog when they have questions about the implementation of Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act  (Climate Act).  In this instance a question came up about an organization that is helping the New York Columbia County Climate Smart Task Force.  Every time I look into any aspect of the Climate Act, I find support for my conviction that the primary driver is all about the money.

This is another article about the Climate Act implementation plan that I have written 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.  Moreover, the costs will be enormous and hurt those least able to afford increased costs the most.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

The Money

I have been meaning to document the fact that major new organizations are getting funding to provide climate change coverage and this seems to be a good time to explain.  The Associated Press has assigned more than two dozen journalists to cover climate issues paid for through philanthropic grants of $8 million.  Last fall National Public Radio launched a “climate desk”:

NPR’s climate expansion has also been made possible by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, whose funding is helping NPR to add a new Climate Solutions reporter, as well as The Rockefeller Foundation, whose support will allow for more local and regional reporting on how climate change affects the most vulnerable populations.

There is no plausible reason to expect that these organizations will not provide coverage that suits their funding sources. If evidence surfaces that contradicts the narrative, how long will they ignore it?

In my post about the New York plans for a gas stove ban I referenced a post by Robert Bryce titled  The billionaires behind the gas bans.  He explained that “despite numerous claims about how nefarious actors are blocking the much-hyped ‘energy transition’” that the non-governmental organization-corporate-industrial-climate complex has far more money than the pro-hydrocarbon and pro-nuclear groups. He showed that the five biggest anti-hydrocarbon NGOs are now collecting about $1.5 billion per year from their donors and that is roughly three times more than the amount being collected by the top five non-profit associations that are either pro-hydrocarbon or pro-nuclear.

It is not just the news organizations and NGOs that plan to cash in on the climate change crisis narrative.  Now the State is lobbying local communities to pledge to fight the battle with the lure of funding for “green and clean” infrastructure.

New York Climate is a Crisis Money

The Climate Act has prompted an enormous private industry to implement the net-zero transition that has a vested interest in spending as much money as possible as soon as possible all in the name of saving the planet.  In addition, local governments are eyeing the gravy train.  As part of the transition, the Climate Act Scoping Plan Chapter 20 strategy for Local Government recommended:

Support capacity-building for local governments and related public entities: The State should provide educational materials and training to local governments and related public entities, so that they understand what resources are available to them and are prepared to receive funding.

The lure of this pot of money has led to a rush for the cash.  For example, on January 30 2023, newly elected Ulster County executive Jen Metzger presented the first executive order of her four-year term.  Metzger’s order aims to bring county operations into alignment with the Climate Act.  According to Hudson Valley One:

All government buildings will be assessed for on-site solar and battery storage, with the goal of fulfilling the electricity needs of the government by 2030. All major renovations of county buildings will require electric-only power sources and be equipped with EV charging as well. All new construction will require solar systems.  “We’re setting a goal,” said Metzger, “of diverting 100 percent countywide organic waste and incinerators by 2030.”

A key part of the executive order are efforts to attract more state and federal assistance and incentives.” Metzger sees “tremendous opportunity coming down the pipe from the Inflation Reduction Act, and she intends that Ulster County will be ready for it.”

There already is a state program in place that addresses the recommended strategy in the Scoping Plan. The Climate Smart Communities (CSC) program helps local governments take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to a changing climate. In fact, Ulster County was the first county in New York to be silver-certified as a climate-smart community.   According to the CSC fact sheet:

Climate Smart Communities (CSC) is a New York State program that supports local governments in leading their communities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, adapt to the effects of climate change, and thrive in a green economy. The benefits of participating include leadership recognition, free technical assistance, and access to grants. Local governments participate by signing a voluntary pledge and using the CSC framework to guide progress toward creating attractive, healthy, and equitable places to live, work, and play.

The State claims a few CSC Benefits:

  • Receive funding for climate change mitigation and adaption projects via the DEC CSC Grant program.
  • Reduce the cost of clean vehicles and associated charging/fueling stations via the DEC Municipal Zero emission Vehicle Rebate program.
  • Receive free technical assistance for clean energy and climate change initiatives from regional
  • coordinators.
  • Discover online guidance and decision-support tools via webpages.
  • Learn about best practices through CSC webinars.
  • Network with like-minded community leaders at CSC events and workshops.

The fact sheet describes how communities participate:

Columbia County Climate Smart Communities

One of my readers has attended meetings of the Columbia County Climate Smart Communities Task Force.  That organization has a coordinator who organizes the county’s response to the CSC program.  The goal of local communities is to become certified as “climate smart” community. To date five towns have achieved bronze certification in Columbia County.  A friend who is more attuned to this program explained there are climate committees in every village all chasing money for charging stations and many of the same people are pushing back against fossil infrastructure projects.

I was asked to provide some information about an organization that was present at a recent Task Force meeting.  In particular, the question was about the ICLEI. According to their website:

ICLEI is the first and largest global network of local governments devoted to solving the world’s most intractable sustainability challenges. Our standards, tools, and programs credibly, transparently, and robustly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve lives and livelihoods and protect natural resources in the communities we serve. 

I spent a long time trying to figure out the acronym but ended using Wikipedia:

ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability (or simply ICLEI) is an international non-governmental organization that promotes sustainable development. ICLEI provides technical consulting to local governments to meet sustainability objectives.

Founded in 1990 and formerly known as the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, the international association was established when more than 200 local governments from 43 countries convened at its inaugural conference, the World Congress of Local Governments for a Sustainable Future, at the United Nations in New York in September 1990.

As of 2020, more than 1,750 cities, towns, counties, and their associations in 126 countries are a part of the ICLEI network.

As of 2021, ICLEI has more than 20 offices around the world.

ICLEI’s role in the CSC process is support to help communities prepare components of their certification program. I believe but did not confirm that the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority provides funding for communities that need their services.  ICLEI has developed an online program for the GHG inventory, forecasts, climate action plans, and monitoring of communities.  Another aspect of the CSC plan is preparing a contribution plan and ICLEI has a toolkit for that.  They have other tools and resources. 

Discussion

From the top to the bottom of the “climate change is a crisis” NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex  there is an enormous pot of money available for those who adhere to the party line.  In New York any community willing to adopt the CSC Pledge has access to resources and funding.  The pledge is interesting:

I offer a challenge to the local governments that have made this pledge.  Go for it, but not just this virtue-signaling public relations gesture to get some money.  Francis Menton writing at the Manhattan Contrarian blog wrote that a demonstration project of a mainly renewables-based electrical grid is a common sense prerequisite before there are any more plans or pledges.  Climate Smart Communities of New York should prove their bona fides and develop a demonstration project for their community to address the issues he raised:

Could anybody possibly be stupid enough to believe the line that wind and solar generators can provide reliable electricity to consumers that is cheaper than electricity generated by fossil fuels? It takes hardly any thought about the matter to realize that wind and solar don’t work when it is calm and dark, as it often is, and particularly so in the winter, when it is also generally cold. Thus a wind/solar electricity system needs full backup, or alternatively storage — things that add to and multiply costs. Surely, our political leaders and top energy gurus are fully aware of these things, and would not try to mislead the public about the cost of electricity from a predominantly wind/solar system.

……………..

Nobody would be happier than me to see a demonstration project built that showed that wind and solar could provide reliable electricity at low cost. Unfortunately, I know too much about the subject to think that that is likely, or even remotely possible. But at least the rest of us need to demand a demonstration project from the promoters of these fantasies.

Conclusion

I wanted to make a few points about the climate crisis money trail so this response to one small component of New York’s Climate Act gave me the opportunity.  The world is filled with seemingly authoritative voices asserting with complete confidence that wind and solar generators are the answer to providing consumers with cheaper electricity and solving the climate crisis.  Their arguments are long on emotion and short on facts.  It is particularly troubling to me that major news organizations are funded by organizations that ascribe to that narrative.  No wonder that few if any of the practical considerations are mentioned by those organizations.

Given the constant drumbeat of climate doom and fantastical energy solutions that are clean and cheap, it is no wonder that communities across New York are signing the CSC pledge to reduce GHG emissions.  If I ever run short of topics to address the pledge itself certainly deserves a response.  It is a perfect example of the politically correct narrative that climate change is an existential threat.  Most of the articles posted on this blog address and dispute that story.  I will stand corrected if any jurisdiction develops a system to always provide reliable electricity at low cost that relies on intermittent wind and solar.

In the absence of a demonstration project it is all about the money.  Climate Smart Communities are at the top of the list for electric vehicle chargers that are considered a marketing advantage.  They also get support developing plans that are supposed to attract the clean energy jobs that are a selling point for the Climate Act.  I cannot help but wonder why if all these plans have so many advantages, why they depend upon direct subsidies.

Finally, the answer to the original question.  ICLEI is an organization that provides technical support to local communities who want to “solve” climate change by reducing GHG emissions, in this case, the New York Climate Smart Communities.  It would be a good question to ask County legislators whether the costs for ICLEI are covered by NYSERDA or there is some cost-sharing agreement.  If NYSERDA picks up the entire tab localities that is one thing.  However, if Columbia County does have to contribute funding for ICLEI services I think it is appropriate to ask what benefits accrue to county residents.