Category: Air Quality Issues

Peaker Power Plants and Environmental Injustice

The PEAK coalition has stated that “Fossil peaker plants in New York City are perhaps the most egregious energy-related example of what environmental injustice means today.”  The influence of this position on current New York State environmental policy has led to this issue finding its way into multiple environmental initiatives. However, the presumption of egregious harm is based on selective choice of metrics, poor understanding of air quality health impacts,  and ignorance of air quality trends. 

I am a retired electric utility meteorologist with over 45 years-experience analyzing the effects of meteorology on electric operations.  I have been involved with the peaking power plants in particular for over 20 years both from a compliance reporting standpoint and also evaluation of impacts and options for these sources.  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.

Caveat

There is no question that disadvantaged communities suffer disproportionate environmental impacts but it is important to understand what causes the harms and balance expectations and potential solutions.  I believe the concerns about fossil peaker plants are misguided.  Moreover, there is no currently available technology that has been proven at the scale necessary that can replace fossil-fired generation in New York City safely, reliably, and affordably. If safety, reliability, and affordability are not prioritized, then it could easily result in an electric system that does not maintain current standards.  More importantly, problems associated with them impact disadvantaged communities more than other communities so those concerns must be considered when decisions are made about peaking power plants. 

Peaker Power Plant Articles

I have written multiple articles about peaking power plants and alleged health impacts of these facilities in response to opinion pieces, reports, and policy proposals

I believe that the PEAK Coalition report entitled: “Dirty Energy, Big Money” is the reason that environmental justice organizations vilify all New York City peaking power plants.  I have described this work in three posts.  I published a post that provided information on the primary air quality problem associated with these facilities, the organizations behind the report, the State’s response to date, the underlying issue of environmental justice and addressed the motivation for the analysis.  The second post addressed the rationale and feasibility of the proposed plan to replace these peaking facilities with “renewable and clean energy alternatives” relative to environmental effects, affordability, and reliability.  Finally, I discussed the  Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers (PSE) for Healthy Energy report Opportunities for Replacing Peaker Plants with Energy Storage in New York State that provided technical information used by the PEAK Coalition.

A post describing my comments on the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) decision to deny the NRG Astoria Gas Turbine Power Replacement Project Title V Permit Application summarizes issues and implications of premature retirements.

In February 2023 I wrote an article about the risks of the zero-risk philosophy of environmental justice advocates who vilify peaking power plants.  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 society basically cannot function.  Peaking power plant issues were discussed as an example of this problem in the article.  The over-arching concern in this article is that the Environmental Rights Amendment to the New York constitution will inevitably set a high hurdle for permitting a new facility or keeping an existing source in operation.  The amendment states: “Each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and to a healthful environment.”  It is likely that a debate about what constitutes clean air will ensue for every permit application.

Air Quality and Health Metrics

The Clean Air Act established the primary metric to protect human health and welfare codified in a scientifically-based regulatory program.   The National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) “provide public health protection, including protecting the health of ‘sensitive’ populations such as asthmatics, children, and the elderly”.  My air pollution meteorology career is based on the presumption that air quality that meets the NAAQS is acceptable.

Over my career air quality has improved markedly.  The Environmental Protection Agency keeps track of air quality trends in the country.  The following graph shows air pollution concentration averages.

There is no graph available for the Northeastern US but the data show similar decreases.

For the most part New York air quality reflects national and regional trends.  According to the EPA nonattainment/maintenance status summary, there are multiple counties In New York that do not attain the NAAQS for ozone and New York County does not meet the coarse particulate matter standard.  Note that all of New York State meets the inhalable particulate (PM2.5) NAAQS.  All the other pollutants are in attainment. 

Despite the fact that there have been significant improvements and New York is mostly in attainment with the NAAQS there is another approach to air quality health impacts that regulators and activists have used to claim more reductions are necessary.

Even though New York City is in attainment for inhalable particulates, this pollutant is used as a rationale for shutting down peaking power plants because of claims that reducing inhalable air quality impacts is beneficial.   For example, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s (DOHMH) Air Pollution and the Health of New Yorkers report is often referenced in this regard.  The DOHMOH report concludes: “Each year, PM2.5  pollution in [New York City] causes more than 3,000 deaths, 2,000 hospital admissions for lung and heart conditions, and approximately 6,000 emergency department visits for asthma in children and adults.” These conclusions are for average air inhalable particulate pollution levels in New York City over the period 2005-2007 of 13.9 µg/m3.

In my comments on the Draft Scoping Plan I explained that the following paragraph from Scoping Plan Appendix G: Section II summarizes the fundamental assumption for these health impacts:

Nevertheless, the health impact functions included in COBRA were developed from a specific population exposed to specific levels and compositions of PM2.5, and conditions in NYS have changed since these functions were developed. For example, the health impact function from the Krewski study was based on examining mortality impacts from 500,000 people in 116 U.S. cities between 1980 and 2000. The levels and compositions of PM2.5 have decreased substantially since 2000, as discussed above, with sharp declines in ammonium sulfate, making ammonium nitrate and secondary organic aerosols relatively more important components of PM2.5 However, the synthesis of the research into PM2.5 impacts on public health conducted for EPA’s draft Integrated Science Assessment for Particulate Matter indicates that the literature provides evidence that the health impact functions may be linear with no threshold below which reductions in exposure to PM2.5 provides no benefits. In other words, even though PM2.5 concentrations have been reduced in NYS in the time since the health impact functions were developed, the evidence suggests that the functions can adequately estimate changes in health impacts even at relatively low levels of PM2.5 Similarly, EPA’s draft Integrated Science Assessment finds that the literature is unclear as to whether changes in the composition of secondary PM2.5 species results in differential changes to health impacts. For this reason, this health analysis, along with most other similar benefits analyses, uses the total change in PM2.5 concentrations to evaluate health impacts rather than looking separately at impacts by the different PM2.5 species.

In brief, the Scoping Plan air quality health assessment depends on a linear no-threshold model.  Originally used for radiation assessment, it suggests that each time radiation is deposited in the susceptible target there is a probability of tumor initiation.  Note, however, that its use in radiation assessment is controversial. 

It is important to note that these relationships are not Clean Air Act mandates despite the fact that they are used constantly to justify further emission reductions.  Furthermore, their use in air quality assessments is also controversial.  The epidemiological data used by the Environmental Protection Agency have never been independently reviewed and another health impact study of all deaths in California between the years 2000 to 2012 (more than 2 million) reported no correlation between PM2.5 and death.  Furthermore, I also submitted comments on the Draft Scoping Plan where I showed that the 2018-2020 average PM2.5 concentration was 7.4 µg/m3 which is substantially lower than the DOHMOH goal of 10.9 µg/m3.  If the epidemiological linear no-threshold model is correct, then because inhalable particulate levels have come down uniformly across the country then there should be significant observed health benefits across the country and in New York City.  DOHMOH has not verified their projections against observations.  Until such time that the projected health impacts using this approach are validated with observed data, I will be skeptical of this metric.

Air Quality Impacts of Peaking Power Plants

Even if you accept the inhalable particulate health benefit premise, I don’t think that the arguments made in Dirty Energy, Big Money make a convincing case that the peaking power plants are the primary driver of air quality environmental burdens on neighboring communities.  The ultimate problem with this approach is that the argument relies on environmental burdens from ozone and particulate matter air quality impacts.  However, ozone is a secondary air pollutant and the vast majority of ambient PM2.5 from power plants is also a secondary pollutant.  As a result, there is a lag between the time emissions are released and creation of either ozone or PM2.5. By the time the precursor pollutants convert to ozone or PM2.5 they have moved out of the neighborhood. That means that the peaking power plants do not contribute to the air quality impact problems alleged to occur to the environmental justice communities located near the plants.  In fact, because NOx scavenges ozone the peaker plants reduce local ozone if they have any effect at all. 

Other Consequences

The alleged effects of peaking power plants also is a consideration in the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act.  Chapter 6. Advancing Climate Justice in the Final Scoping Plan states:

Prioritizing emissions reduction in Disadvantaged Communities should help to prevent the formation or co-pollutant emissions despite a reduction in emissions statewide. A broad range of factors may contribute to high concentrations of pollutants in a given location that create a hotspot. The result can be unhealthy air quality, particularly for sensitive populations such as expectant mothers, children, the elderly, people of low socio-economic status, and people with pre-existing medical conditions.

This contention is based on the arguments in Dirty Energy, Big Money.  I have seen indications that there are people who believe that GHG emissions themselves have some kind of air quality impact exacerbated in disadvantaged community hot spots.  That is simply wrong – there are no health impacts associated with carbon dioxide emissions at current observed ambient levels.  Dirty Energy, Big Money and the Scoping Plan arguments are based on co-pollutant emissions (NOx and PM2.5) that allegedly cause impactful hot spots that result in unhealthy air quality.  Note that all facilities in New York State have done analyses that prove that any locations with higher concentrations in the vicinity of power plants do not contravene the NAAQS.  Trying to make the cap and invest program, that is appropriate for controlling GHG emissions to mitigate global warming, also address a neighborhood air quality problem already covered by other air quality rules is not in the best interests of a successful cap and invest program.

Conclusion

The argument that peaking power plants are a source of egregious harm to disadvantaged communities is based on selective choice of metrics, poor understanding of air quality health impacts,  unsubstantiated health impact analysis, and ignorance of air quality trends. 

I maintain that the appropriate metric for determining the impact to human health and welfare is the NAAQS process.  Using a linear no-threshold model approach is not an appropriate metric for permitting decisions related to peaking power plants.  Appeasing activists who demand zero-risks ultimately means that no emissions will be allowed and that will shut down society.

The argument that peaking power plants affect neighborhoods as portrayed is flawed.    The air pollutants that are alleged to be the cause of a significant health impacts in disadvantaged communities near peaking plants are the secondary pollutants ozone and PM2.5.  Because it takes time for the conversion from precursor pollutants, they are unlikely to affect adjacent neighborhoods simply because they are blown downwind during the conversion phase. 

Inhalable particulates (PM2.5) are frequently cited as the primary cause of health impacts but independent studies offer contrary results.  Taken to the ultimate level this concern would ban camp fires.  When the wind shifts and the smoke blows towards a camper, they got a dose of inhalable particulates.  If one person stays in the smoke for days, then there will be a health impact.  On the other hand the campers that sit around a campfire and get a dose of smoke several times a year get much less of a health effect.  The linear no-threshold approach gets its estimates of health impacts by multiplying low health impacts by many people.  In this case if there are a million campers and if the impact is one millionth of the impact to the guy who stayed in the smoke for days, then it is presumed that one out of a million people would get sick the same way. 

The biggest flaw in the argument is that activists argue that the health-related impacts are increasing at the same time that PM2.5 concentrations in the atmosphere are decreasing.  All the air quality trends are going down.  If proponents can show that there have been substantial benefits associated with the observed concentration reductions then I might be more sympathetic to the arguments.

At some point New York State regulators are going to have to step and be the adults in the room.  It is entirely proper to consider environmental justice considerations in disadvantaged communities.  However, that consideration cannot be the final word on the continued operation of peaking power plants.  This overt deference to environmental justice concerns could easily lead to impacts on the reliability, affordability, and safety of the electric grid.  If problems ensue the communities that will be impacted the most will be the ones this mis-guided deference is intended to protect.

The Climate Act and the Astoria Gas Turbine Power Replacement Project

The implementation strategy for New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) is being finalized by the Climate Action Council  in 2022.  Because the schedule is so ambitious state agencies have been making decisions based on what they think will be in the implementing regulations even before regulations are promulgated and the transition strategies are finalized.  This post documents comments I submitted on the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) decision to deny the NRG Astoria Gas Turbine Power Replacement Project Title V Permit Application and a similar comment to the Climate Action Council submittal portal.  This turns out to be another example of the state putting the Climate Act cart before the horse without regard for the ramifications of the action.

I have written extensively on implementation of the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy outstrip available renewable technology such that it will adversely affect reliability and affordability, risk safety, affect lifestyles, will have worse impacts on the environment than the purported effects of climate change in New York, and cannot measurably affect global warming when implemented.   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 am a retired air pollution meteorologist with over 40 years-experience analyzing the relationship between air quality and environmental standards.  I submitted comments based on my familiarity with the NRG Astoria Gas Turbine facility, the role of the facility as a provider of necessary peaking power, and the history of various attempts to re-power it since NRG Energy purchased the facility. Before I retired from NRG in 2010, I was responsible for compliance with the NOx RACT averaging plan and worked with a couple of re-powering applications.  Although I had no involvement whatsoever in the latest re-powering plan, I think my background is unique.

Climate Act Background

The Climate Act establishes a “Net Zero” target by 2050. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that will “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda”.  The Climate Act requires the Climate Action Council to “[e]valuate, using the best available economic models, emission estimation techniques and other scientific methods, the total potential costs and potential economic and non-economic benefits of the plan for reducing greenhouse gases, and make such evaluation publicly available” in the Scoping Plan. Starting in the Fall of 2020 seven advisory panels developed recommended strategies to meet the targets that were presented to the Climate Action Council in the spring of 2021.  Those recommendations were translated into specific policy options in an integration analysis by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants. 

The integration analysis was used to develop the Draft Scoping Plan that was released for public comment on December 30, 2021. The public comment period for the Plan was recently extended to mid-June. The Council will consider the feedback received as it “continues to discuss and deliberate on the topics in the Draft as it works towards a final Scoping Plan for release by January 1, 2023”.  Once that is complete the Energy Plan will be revised to set the state’s energy policies. The goal of the Energy Plan process is to “map the state’s energy future by showing how the state can ensure adequate supplies of power, reduce demand through new technologies and energy efficiency, preserve the environment, reduce dependence on imported gas and oil, stimulate economic growth, and preserve the individual welfare of New York citizens and energy users”.

NRG Astoria Peaking Generation

The proposed project is described by NRG as follows:

NRG is taking measures to fight climate change while minimizing costs and maximizing benefits to New York through the Astoria Replacement Project (the Project). The Project is expected to replace 50-year old power generators in 2023 with state-of-the-art technology reducing the total generating capability of the site and lowering on-site peak air emission rates by up to 99% per hour, while continuing to provide reliable power to New Yorkers when they need it most. This critical infrastructure project will be constructed at no cost to taxpayers or ratepayers. The Project modifies a previously proposed configuration, which was fully approved by the state. In support of New York’s leading efforts to fight climate change, the Project will use technology that can be fully converted to zero-carbon fuel in the future.

In 1999, NRG acquired the 15-acre Astoria Gas Turbines site from Con Edison, which is situated within a larger 300+ acre complex. This complex has hosted electrical generation, transmission, distribution and associated energy activities since the 1890s and remains exclusively a major electric generating and manufacturing complex. In 1999, the site consisted of 33 gas turbine units with total generating capacity of 646 MW. In 2010, NRG proposed to replace the units with a 1,040 MW combined cycle facility. NRG’s modified 2020 Project proposes to replace the 24 remaining units with a single new state-of-the-art simple cycle GE combustion turbine generator having a total generating capability of 437 MW.

Policy Issues

There is a problem because the State of New York is making decisions based on how they believe the Climate Act implementation plan will work before it is complete.  For example, the Department of Environmental Conservation proposed policy to deal with air permit applications is based on compliance with the Climate Act scoping plan which is still a draft.  I posted an article describing my comments that argued that the guidance should be revised to incorporate electric system reliability considerations.  My comments showed there are reliability concerns related to existing electrical generators so the guidance must not preclude continued operation of existing units.  I also argued that DEC should not prevent operators from developing modern generating units that are more reliable than the existing aging units.  Finally, I explained the State has to consider the mandate for safe and adequate electric service as well as the Climate Act requirements. 

I described the DEC’s proposed policy to incorporate Climate Act considerations into air permitting policy before implementing regulations were promulgated as putting the cart before the horse.  Incredibly last year DEC rejected permits for the Danskammer Energy Center and Astoria Gas Turbine Power Project replacement generating facilities because they were inconsistent with the Climate Act.  Clearly, making that decision before a policy was developed was putting the cart before the horse was purchased.  In any event that decision precipitated lawsuits from the developers of both facilities.  I missed the opportunity to comment on the Danskammer permit but did submit comments for Astoria. 

Reliability Comments

I was able to develop a set of comments very quickly because of previous work.  With regards to reliability concerns I essentially re-packaged my comments submitted on the DEC guidance document. 

I noted that the rejection of the permit application is especially troubling because in the DEC’s “Notice of Denial of Title V Air Permit” for the Astoria Gas Turbine Power Project (DEC ID: 2-6301-00191/00014), DEC rejected the use of both hydrogen and renewable natural gas (RNG) as a 2040 compliance mechanism.  The rationale was because the DEC labeled them “speculative” and “aspirational”.  However, the Draft Scoping Plan’s placeholder for a dispatchable, emission-free resource is hydrogen.  Governor Hochul’s recent State of the State address proposes that New York position itself to compete for nearly $10 billion in federal funding for green hydrogen R&D under the federal infrastructure bill.  Obviously, it is in the state’s best interest to preserve the option to use hydrogen in the future.  In the meantime, the options to supplant the dispatchable energy from those facilities with energy storage and renewable energy alternatives are no less “speculative” and “aspirational”.  DEC’s decision to reject the permit on this basis is a serious threat to reliability.

A key component of my comments is that there is a Public Service Commission mandate that overrides the Climate Act requirements.  Public Service (PBS) CHAPTER 48, ARTICLE 4, § 66-p. Establishment of a renewable energy program (4) states:

The commission may temporarily suspend or modify the obligations under such program provided that the commission, after conducting a hearing as provided in section twenty of this chapter, makes a finding that the program impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service; the program is likely to impair existing obligations and agreements; and/or that there is a significant increase in arrears or service disconnections that the commission determines is related to the program.

I interpret that to mean that the Climate Act has to meet the obligation to not impede the provision of safe and adequate electric service (i.e., reliability).  DEC’s focus on meeting the Climate Act targets in its rejection of the Astoria permit ignores this obligation.

The DEC decision letter claimed that “the Project would be inconsistent with or would interfere with the attainment of the Statewide greenhouse gas (GHG) emission limits established in Article 75 of the Environmental Conservation Law (ECL)”.  Because DEC was unable to satisfy elements required by Section 7(2) of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act” the application was denied. However, it seems to be a stretch to claim that the permit has to be denied when the only current regulations associated with the Climate Act specify the GHG emissions targets.  Nothing has been promulgated to specify how the State will meet those limits so I believe it is premature to speculate how future regulations could impact the application.

Air Quality Impacts

The DEC decision letter noted that DEC reviewed information submitted by Astoria, including in the initial Title V air permit application as well as supplemental materials provided in response to requests for additional information, the Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement prepared for the Project, and over 6,600 public comments received from individuals or organizations during the public comment period.  In my opinion, the 6,600 public comments were a primary driver for the decision because I believe most of them argued that the continued operation of the facility was an environmental justice issue.  Unfortunately, the basis for that claim is weak.

The National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) “provide public health protection, including protecting the health of ‘sensitive’ populations such as asthmatics, children, and the elderly”.  According to the EPA nonattainment/maintenance status summary, there are multiple counties In New York that do not attain the NAAQS for ozone and New York County does not meet the coarse particulate matter standard.  Note that all of New York State meets the inhalable particulate NAAQS.  All the other pollutants are in attainment.  My career is based on the presumption that air quality that meets the NAAQS is acceptable.

Despite the fact that New York City is in attainment for inhalable particulates, this pollutant is used as a rationale for shutting down peaking power plants because of claims that reducing inhalable air quality impacts is beneficial.   For example, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s (DOHMH) Air Pollution and the Health of New Yorkers report is often referenced in this regard.  The DOHMOH report concludes: “Each year, PM2.5  pollution in [New York City] causes more than 3,000 deaths, 2,000 hospital admissions for lung and heart conditions, and approximately 6,000 emergency department visits for asthma in children and adults.”  These conclusions are for average air pollution levels in New York City as a whole over the period 2005-2007 of 13.9 µg/m3.

At this time, New York State energy and environmental policy is more about optics than facts.  Nowhere is this more apparent than the recent spate of opinion pieces, reports, and policy proposals related to peaking power plants and the alleged health impacts of inhalable particulates.  In 2020 the PEAK Coalition released a report entitled: “Dirty Energy, Big Money” that has been used by environmental justice organizations to vilify all New York City’s peaking power plants, including the Astoria Gas Turbines.  I have described this work in three posts on my blog Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York.  I published a post that provided information on the primary air quality problem associated with these facilities, the organizations behind the report, the State’s response to date, the underlying issue of environmental justice and addressed the motivation for the analysis.  The second post addressed the rationale and feasibility of the proposed plan to replace these peaking facilities with “renewable and clean energy alternatives” relative to environmental effects, affordability, and reliability.  Finally, I discussed the  Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers (PSE) for Healthy Energy report Opportunities for Replacing Peaker Plants with Energy Storage in New York State that provided technical information used by the PEAK Coalition.

In my comments I showed that the 2018-2020 average PM2.5 concentration was 7.4 µg/m3 which is substantially lower than the DOHMOH goal of reaching 10.9 µg/m3.  All the inhalable particulate health impact projections are based on epidemiological models that have not been validated.  If they are correct, then because inhalable particulate levels have come down uniformly across the country then there should be significant observed health benefits.  Until such time that the projected health impacts are validated with observed data, I remain skeptical.

Furthermore, even if you accept the inhalable particulate health benefit premise, I don’t think that the arguments made by activists makes a convincing case that the peaking power plants are the primary driver of environmental burdens on neighboring communities.  The ultimate problem with this approach is that the peak unit justification relies on environmental burdens from ozone and particulate matter air quality impacts.  However, ozone is a secondary air pollutant and the vast majority of ambient PM2.5 from power plants is also a secondary pollutant.  As a result, there is a lag between the time emissions are released and creation of either ozone or PM2.5. That means that the peaking power plants do not create the air quality impact problems alleged to occur to the environmental justice communities located near the plants.  In fact, because NOx scavenges ozone the peaker plants reduce local ozone if they have any effect at all.  DEC knows this and the fact that they don’t acknowledge it does not reflect well on their scientific rigor.

Conclusion

The comments I submitted on the Astoria permit application argued that the Climate Act has the obligation to not impede the provision of safe and adequate electric service.  DEC’s denial of the Astoria Gas Turbine Title V application because it: ”Does not demonstrate compliance with the requirements of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act”  is at odds with that mandate.

DEC’s transparent appeasement of the many commenters who submitted comments based on misleading air quality impacts from the grey literature PEAK Coalition “Dirty Energy, Big Money” report is ill conceived.   The alleged health impacts are all due to secondary ozone and inhalable particulates.  Because they are secondary pollutants they are not formed until they have been transported away from the immediate neighborhoods that Peak Coalition claims are affected.  Unfortunately, there is no currently available technology that has been proven at the scale necessary that can replace fossil-fired generation in New York City reliably and affordably.  With all due respect to the environmental justice organizations like the Peak Coalition, they have no reliability or affordability responsibilities so their priorities differ.  If reliability and affordability are not prioritized it could easily result in an electric system that does not maintain current standards.  More importantly, those issues impact disadvantaged communities more than other communities so they should be the over-arching priority.

The bottom line is that New York State should be grateful that someone is willing to come in and provide an interim solution that will guarantee New York City electric system reliability standards are maintained. All that DEC needs to do is to add a permit condition that makes it clear that the operating certificate will be pulled if certain conditions are met.  If technology is proven available to replace the proposed Astoria Replacement Project on the Climate Act schedule, then the facility gets shut down at that time.  If it turns out that the “zero-emissions” technology solution is hydrogen combustion in a turbine designed to burn that fuel as well as natural gas as proposed by the applicant, then the facility can continue to operate with that fuel.  It is not clear how DEC can reconcile throwing away these reliability options when there is no other option available.

I concluded that the Climate Action Council should develop criteria for schedule implementation. A collective crossing of fingers that a new technology will maintain existing standards of reliability and affordability is inappropriate. In this instance, DEC’s decision to disapprove two proven interim solutions eliminates reliability options when there is no other commercially proven option available.  The Scoping Plan should establish the milestones and conditions that have to be met before any existing technology is dismantled. 

Air Pollution and Health Impact Projections

The recently released Fossil Fuel End Game report claims that peaking power plants should be replaced with wind, solar and distributed battery storage because it would save money and lives.  However, the basis for that claim ultimately comes down to the belief that there is no acceptable level of air pollution.  This post explains why I think that is absurd and explains how this concept is misused by activists. 

I am a retired air pollution meteorologist with over 40 years-experience analyzing the relationship between air quality and environmental standards.  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 Clean Air Act, which was last amended in 1990, requires EPA to set National Ambient Air Quality Standards (40 CFR part 50) for six principal pollutants (“criteria” air pollutants) which can be harmful to public health and the environment.  The National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) “provide public health protection, including protecting the health of ‘sensitive’ populations such as asthmatics, children, and the elderly”.  My career is based on the presumption that air quality that meets those standards is acceptable.

In order to achieve and maintain air quality that meets the NAAQS the Environmental Protection Agency working with state and local regulatory agencies have developed extensive procedures.  In this instance the important thing to know is that they have been monitoring air quality ever since the Clean Air Act was enacted and they have developed air quality models that can be used to predict ambient concentrations.  Importantly, the numerical models are based on observations and have been verified as being accurate since the Clean Air Act has been enacted.  Using those tools over the years they have a very good understanding of the status of air quality relative to the NAAQS.  According to the EPA nonattainment/maintenance status summary, there are multiple counties that do not attain the NAAQS for ozone and New York County does not meet the coarse particulate matter standard.  Note that all of New York State meets the inhalable particulate NAAQS.  All the other pollutants are in attainment.

Discussion

There is no question that air pollution can cause health effects.  The issue is whether there is a threshold when the health effect is so weak that it can be ignored.  The linear no threshold model (LNT) is a conservative model used to estimate health effects from small doses of radiation. According to the LNT model, “radiation is always considered harmful with no safety threshold, and the sum of several very small exposures are considered to have the same biological risk as one larger exposure (linearity)”. It is being used today to claim health effects for air pollution levels below the NAAQS. 

There is a fundamental problem with this approach for radiological assessments:

The problem is that, at very low doses, it is practically impossible to correlate any irradiation with certain biological effects. This is because the baseline cancer rate is already very high and the risk of developing cancer fluctuates 40% because of individual life style and environmental effects, obscuring the subtle effects of low-level radiation. Therefore, it is very difficult to validate this model.

Because it is so conservative there are consequences.  It assumes that all radiation is bad and that the health effects increases linearly with dose from the threshold of zero.   As a consequence: “The probabilistic nature of stochastic effects and the properties of the LNT model make it impossible to derive a clear distinction between ‘safe’ and ‘dangerous’, and this creates some difficulties in explaining the control of radiation risks.”

Despite those inherent problems the LNT model has been applied to air pollutants too.  Whenever you hear a claim that such and such a regulation will reduce air pollution and there will be some number of reduced health impacts the LNT model of air pollution impacts was used.  This presumes there is no threshold of an effect on an individual.  It extrapolates observed health effects on a population at high concentration down to low concentrations.  When the resulting small impact is multiplied by a large number of individuals then proponents of this approach claim reducing air pollution will result in a quantitative reduced health impact.

I think this is absurd as I will show in this example.  No one questions the fact that prolonged exposure to wood smoke can cause health problems.  I have no doubt that there are health studies that have conclusively shown that at high pollution levels people have contracted cancer.  For the sake of argument assume that the health studies have found that wood smoke at a continuous dose of 100 ppm for one year causes cancer.  The LNT model can be extrapolate that dose response down to 0.00019 ppm per minute.  Using that extrapolation model if 5,256 people sitting around campfires were exposed to the 100-ppm dose for one minute then the LNT models claims one of them will get cancer from that dose.  Anyone who has sat around a campfire probably has been downwind of the smoke and received a dose of wood smoke.  It does not matter what the actual health impact dose response rate is, if you extrapolate that down to the dose of people sitting around a campfire and multiply that by all the people sitting around campfires the LNT model predicts an impact.

Environmental activists combine the LNT model with epidemiological studies of air pollution to contrive health impact benefits particularly for inhalable particulates.  For example, in September, 2011 US EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson testified to Congress that fine particles kill hundreds of thousands of people in America every year, a claim based on EPA epidemiology and extrapolated projections.  However, Enstrom tested the validity of this relationship and found no effect of fine particulates.  Nonetheless, these results have been used for years to justify regulations and legislation.

Conclusion

I do not accept the premise that there isn’t a threshold of acceptable air pollution.  This presumption is behind the cost benefit analysis of most recent EPA air quality regulations.  Now it is being used in New York to justify the legislative phase-out of fossil fuels.  Coupled with the absence of evaluation of the life cycle environmental and economic impacts of fossil fuel alternatives this is a recipe for poor policy.

Fossil Fuel Phase Out Claptrap

Truthout is a nonprofit news organization dedicated to providing independent reporting and commentary on a diverse range of social justice issues.  According to the about description “Truthout works to spark action by revealing systemic injustice and providing a platform for progressive and transformative ideas, through in-depth investigative reporting and critical analysis. With a powerful, independent voice, we will spur transformations in consciousness and inspire both policy change and direct action.”  If the article Fossil Fuel Phase Out Must Begin Where the Industry Has Hurt People the Most is any indicator, however, their platform is based on emotion and not facts.  The alleged problems with peaking power plants and neighborhood power plant impacts on local health are exaggerated and nearly fact free.  The proposed solution is untested and likely to make the lives that they want to improve worse.

I am a retired air pollution meteorologist with over 40 years-experience analyzing the effects of meteorology on electric operations.  While doing consulting work for the Environmental Protection Agency I evaluated air quality model performance and later worked at a utility company where I was responsible for ambient monitoring networks in the vicinity of power plants and evaluating their air quality impacts.  I have been involved with peaking power plants in particular for over 20 years both from a compliance reporting standpoint and also evaluation of impacts and options for those sources.  This background served me well preparing this post.  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 article is prefaced with a note that “this story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story”.  The author is Leanna First-Arai. “a freelance journalist who covers environmental and climate (in)justice. Her work has appeared in Undark, Sierra Magazine, Yes! Magazine, Outside Magazine, on New England Public Radio and elsewhere”.

The Fossil Fuel Phase Out Must Begin Where the Industry Has Hurt People the Most article describes the claims made in the recently released Fossil Fuel End Game report that I described here.  The basic premise is that New York City peaking power plants only operate a limited days per year, they are usually old and dirty plants located in disadvantaged communities, and they received around $5 billion to keep running in the last decade.  Therefore, they should be the first fossil plants to be replaced by clean energy.

I have been following this peaking power plant initiative for about a year and summarized my work here.  This article is the latest iteration of advocacy releases based on the Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers (PSE) for Healthy Energy report Opportunities for Replacing Peaker Plants with Energy Storage in New York State.  I discussed the PSE report last year and the PEAK Coalition report entitled: “Dirty Energy, Big Money” in two detailed technical posts.  The first post provided information on the primary air quality problem associated with these facilities, the organizations behind the report, the State’s response to date, the underlying issue of environmental justice and addressed the motivation for the analysis.  The second post addressed the rationale and feasibility of the proposed plan relative to environmental effects, affordability, and reliability. 

Oswego Harbor Power Plant

In order to show that this article is based on emotion and not facts consider the description and allegation related to the Oswego Harbor Power Plant.  In this section I have annotated (indented and italicized) my comments after each sentence from the relevant paragraph in the article.

Residents living within a one-mile radius of the Oswego Harbor Power Plant, one of only a handful of such plants left in Upstate New York, are ranked in the 99th percentile for incidence of heart attacks, based on an analysis of New York State Health Department data by the nonprofit research institute Physicians, Scientists and Engineers for Healthy Energy (PSE).

The insinuation here is that the residents within one-mile of the power plant have a high rate of heart attacks because of the power plant. 

The 73-year-old plant only went online six times in 2018 (the most recent year for which data are available).

There is a description of the plant in a US Army Corps of Engineers harbor infrastructure report that explains that there are two 850 MW units in operation and in service since 1975 – 46 years not 73.  The older units have been retired since before the turn of the century. The units burn residual oil that is stored on-site.  At the time of their construction residual oil was cheaper than coal and for many years residual oil was cheaper than natural gas so the units ran a lot in the late 1980’s.  The fuel price differential no longer supports the use of residual oil.  However, in times of great need the facility can generate 1,700 MW of dispatchable power without regard to weather-caused outages.

 The EPA Clean Air Markets Program Database provides data for the most recent quarter within 45 days so more recent data are available than claimed.  Table 1 lists annual data through 2020.  The important point in the context of this discussion is that emissions from the plant are minimal which is not surprising because of the short operating times.

 Table 1: Oswego Harbor Power Annual Emissions and Operations Data

Unit IDYear Operating Time Gross Load SO2 NOx CO2
  (Hours)(MW-h)(tons)(tons)(tons)
520169218,071442417,309
6201614623,212632423,659
520179219,132452517,426
6201714122,678562320,811
5201818626,025683225,075
6201816526,600652423,976
520199515,394371914,225
6201924023,600582522,407
5202024926,736693426,760
6202012523,906622521,024

But if residents suspect hazier-than-usual skies, no federal air quality data exists to help make sense of the short-lived plume of pollution, as the closest Environmental Protection Agency monitors are 40 and 70 miles away, respectively, in Syracuse and Rochester.

The insinuation that the DEC, EPA and owner of the plant know nothing about the plume of pollution is completely baseless.  The author clearly knows nothing about air quality regulations, air quality meteorology, or the Oswego Harbor plant.  The New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is responsible for maintaining air quality that meets the National Ambient Air Quality Standard limits under the guidance of EPA.  They do that by monitoring near emission sources and modeling facility emissions to estimate air quality impacts. 

 At this time there are no DEC air monitoring stations closer than Rochester and Syracuse.  EPA does not monitor air quality in New York.  However, that does not mean that there never was any air quality monitoring closer to the plant.  I know because I as responsible for submitting the data from the network around the Oswego plant.  After several years of not measuring any exceedances from the power plant DEC and EPA agreed that it was no longer necessary to run the monitoring network and it was retired by 1990.   At one time most, if not all power plants, had monitoring networks but one of two things happened.  If, like at Oswego, no measurements indicating problems were found then the networks were retired.  If problems were found then the emission limits were changed for the facility until the monitoring found that there were no problems.  Also note that these data were used to verify that the air quality models used to predict ambient levels near the plants were correct.  Under contract to EPA, I did that verification work using those data sets and later also compared the Oswego Harbor plant modeled impacts to observations.  That work proved that the models correctly characterize nearby air quality.

 It is not surprising that the modeling never showed anything approaching an exceedance of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards or that the highest observed monitored concentrations were accompanied with the smell of chocolate from the Nestles plant that was located in the opposite direction.  The stacks at Oswego are 700’ high and the plume rise from the hot gases pushes the plume higher.  As a result, the pollution plume is nowhere near the ground within a mile of the plant. 

The insinuated claim that the Oswego Harbor Power Plant is somehow associated with local high incidents of heart attacks is unsubstantiated.  The article states that the plant only ran six times in 2018 and the data show it only ran 352 hours so it was online for less than three days at a time.  Present operations are about 1% of the operating times and rates as in 1988 when the monitoring network that showed the plant did not adversely affect air quality.  If I had to guess why there is a high rate of heart attacks my money would be on the fact that Oswego is in the lake-effect snow belt and when it snows, it snows a lot.  Snow removal is a notorious cause of heart attacks.

Peaking Power Plant Replacements

The author and the advocates quoted in the article are unaware of the fundamental problem with the PSE report Opportunities for Replacing Peaker Plants with Energy Storage in New York State.  PSE defined peaking power plants by their current time of operation not by their design capabilities.  The Oswego Harbor Power Plant is the best example of this problem.  The plant was designed to provide base load power when it was thought that residual oil would continue to be a cost-effective fuel.  The two 850 MW units operated well when that was true but with today’s fuel costs it only offers support to system as backup capacity.  There are three nuclear plants within ten miles of the facility and if there is a problem with those units then the power plant can step in to replace their output.  For example, in the 2004 blackout Nuclear Regulatory Commission operating rules required the nuclear units to go offline and the Oswego Harbor Power Plant was called on to support the system until the nuclear units were allowed to go back online.  The units also come online when loads are very high and all power generation is needed.  There are other power plants in New York that operate much less than they were designed to operate that fulfill similar reliability needs.

The PSE report claims that all of the plants that they claim are peakers can be replaced by renewable energy and storage.  The problem with that is that their definition is based solely on operating times and does not consider the capabilities of the peaking units.  The New York electric system has more stringent rules than Texas.  In the wake of the blackouts last February, Texas is wrestling with how to prevent similar problems in the future by asking should power generators be required to guarantee that they can provide a certain amount of electricity?  New York’s response to this issue includes capacity payments to Oswego Harbor Power for 1700 MW of power six times a year.  This resource is dedicated to that need and can provide that capability because the capital investments necessary have already been paid, even though the fuel is relatively expensive it provides concentrated energy capable of 1700 MW, and the costs to maintain that much power capability are relatively low. 

The first problem with the PSE report claims that the steam turbine units like Oswego that provide peak capacity support can be replaced by renewable energy and storage is that the capital cost to develop enough energy storage to replace all those units has to be paid for a rarely used resource.  A major reason that New York’s capacity payments are as low as they are is because the resources needed to meet New York’s requirements has paid off those costs.  Replacing those facilities with anything will be much more expensive.  The second problem is that the renewable and energy storage approach proposed has never been implemented at the scale needed for New York’s electric resource requirements.  Replacing a system that has worked for decades with unproven technology could very well lead to reliability issues as the system is de-bugged.

Conclusion

All these analyses vilify peaking power plants oblivious to their value to the grid.  The PSE study estimated that they received around $5 billion in the last decade but only ran less than 5% of the time.  The New York electrical system pays for these units to provide capacity and ancillary services so that the electric system can reliably provide power when it is needed most.  The Texas energy system does not have a similar policy in place.  While Texas average prices are lower than New York prices their system is vulnerable to blackouts when peaking power is unavailable.  Simply put, New York peaking power plants are an insurance policy to prevent Texas-style blackouts.  The February 2021 Texas blackouts caused dozens of deaths and tens of billions of dollars in damages.  The New York peaking power plant insurance policy looks like a good deal to me.

Another big driver in the vilification of peaking power plants is the claim that they adversely affect air quality in neighboring disadvantaged communities. However, I don’t think that the PSE approach made a convincing case that the peaking power plants are a primary driver of environmental burdens on neighboring communities.  My primary objection to this claim is that the health effects attributed to peaking power plants are based on air quality impacts from ozone and particulate matter.  However, ozone is a secondary air pollutant and the vast majority of ambient PM2.5 from power plants is also a secondary pollutant.  As a result, there is enough of a lag between the time emissions are released and creation of either ozone or PM2.5, that the impact is away from the adjoining neighborhoods.  That means that the accused peaking power plants do not create the air quality impact problems alleged to occur to the environmental justice communities located near the plants.  In fact, because NOx scavenges ozone the peaker plants reduce local ozone if they have any effect at all.

The claims that peaking power plants are dangers to neighboring environmental justice communities are based on emotion.  The existing simple cycle peaking turbines in New York City are old, inefficient and much dirtier than a new facility and clearly should be replaced.  However, they reliably produce affordable power when needed most. Importantly regulations are now in place that ensure that they are retired or that their pollution control equipment is upgraded on a schedule that guarantees in-kind replacement of capacity and ancillary services.   In order to maintain existing levels of affordability and reliability I think it is best to rely on a proven solution using fossil fuels.  The solar plus energy storage approach advocated by PSE and the PEAK Coalition will likely increase costs significantly if it works.  I cannot over-emphasize the fact that it may not work because wind, solar, and energy storage is not a proven technology on the scale necessary to provide New York City’s peaking power requirements.  Sadly, in the rush to prove politically correct credentials this unproven technology may be chosen despite the risks to power reliability.  It is the height of hubris that the New York legislature has pending bills to over-ride the reliability planning process and existing environmental regulations without including a feasibility study to define the wind, solar and energy storage resources needed, the technological readiness of those resources at the scale needed and the costs of that approach.

Finally, I do not disagree with the premise that disproportionate environmental risks to disadvantaged communities need to be addressed.  However, that goal has limits.  First, and foremost, it simply is not good policy to expect the removal of all environmental impacts.  For example, a replacement state-of-the-art natural gas fired combustion turbine that reduces existing impacts substantially should be an acceptable choice because it provides a proven affordable solution and reduces well-known impacts.  The proposed alternative of renewable energy and energy storage is unproven technology at the scale needed, is costly when the cost to provide uninterruptable power is considered, and could very well lead to worse overall environmental impacts especially when the effects of the rare earth metals needed for those resources is included.  The result is there is a high likelihood of problems with affordability, reliability, and environmental impacts due to the implementation of the proposed solution.  If those problems occur then the disadvantaged communities that these advocates want to protect will be disproportionately impacted.  I don’t think that the advocates understand that those impacts could be worse than the problems that they want addressed.

New York Pollution Justice Act of 2021 – What Were They Thinking?

Just when I think New York politicians cannot do anything more stupid something comes out that proves me wrong.  On March 3, 2021 the New York State Senate passed the New York Pollution Justice Act of 2021.  According to this law power plants that only run during peak periods are ripping off consumers, causing health impacts, and can be replaced with renewable energy systems.  The premise is wrong, the rationale is incorrect, and the solution is risky.  Coming so close to the Texas energy debacle any rational politician might think it would be inappropriate to try to dictate energy policy but the New York Senate majority thinks otherwise.

I am a retired electric utility meteorologist with nearly 40 years-experience analyzing the effects of meteorology on electric operations.  I have been involved with peaking power plants in particular for over 20 years both from a compliance reporting standpoint and also evaluation of impacts and options for these sources.  This background served me well analyzing this issue.  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.

Overview of the New York Pollution Justice Act of 2021

The law affects a power plant that is located within one mile of an environmental justice community and is a “Replaceable peaker plant” defined as a major electric generating facility as defined in paragraph b of subdivision one of section 19-0312  that burns coal, oil, diesel or natural gas and was operational and generated electricity less than fifteen percent of the year during at least two years between two thousand ten through two thousand  nineteen.  Such plants must be replaced by the construction and operation of a renewable energy system, battery or energy storage, or transmission and distribution infrastructure that enables the provision of the equivalent maximum annual power output achieved by the replaceable peaker.

The owner or operator of a replaceable peaker plant has to include a mandatory replacement and compliance plan with an application to renew an operating permit.  That plan has to include a proposed strategy to “replace the plant with renewable energy systems or battery storage or a combination thereof”.  A timetable for implementation of the proposed replacement strategy is required that “shall not exceed five years from the date of renewal of the operating permit and that shall ensure that the renewable energy systems and battery storage are fully operational, and the operations of the peaker plant can be completely replaced, on or before five years from the date of renewal of the operating permit”

Background

The genesis of this law is the Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers (PSE) for Healthy Energy report Opportunities for Replacing Peaker Plants with Energy Storage in New York State.  The text for the New York specific report describes the alleged problem:

“Across New York, 49 oil- and gas-fired peaker power plants and peaking units at larger plants help meet statewide peak electric demand.  These include both combustion turbines designed to ramp quickly to meet peak demand, and aging steam turbines now used infrequently to meet peak needs. More than a third of New York’s peaker plants burn primarily oil, and three-quarters are over 30 years old resulting in numerous inefficient plants with high rates of greenhouse gas and criteria pollutant emissions for every unit of electricity generated. Some of these plants are in very urban areas: ten plants have more than a million people living within three miles. One-third of the plants are located in areas the state considers to be environmental justice communities, where vulnerable populations typically already experience high levels of health and environmental burdens. New York has set energy storage targets and recently designed peaker plant emission reduction targets, providing an opportunity to replace inefficient, high-emitting peaker plants in vulnerable communities throughout the state with energy storage and solar.”

These findings were picked up on by the New York City PEAK Coalition.  They released a report in the spring of 2020 entitled: “Dirty Energy, Big Money”.  Last year I wrote three posts on this topic.   The first post provided information on the primary air quality problem associated with these facilities, the organizations behind the report, the State’s response to date, the underlying issue of environmental justice and addressed the motivation for the analysis.  The second post addressed the rationale and feasibility of the proposed plan relative to environmental effects, affordability, and reliability.  Finally, I discussed the Opportunities for Replacing Peaker Plants with Energy Storage in New York State document that provided technical information used by the PEAK Coalition.  I  summarized all three of the technical posts in simpler fashion.  Finally note that I looked at the trends of inhalable particulates in New York City relative to the claims of a dire health threat.

Statement of Findings

In this post I will address the points made in § 19-1301, Statement of findings in the text of the Pollution Justice Law.  I will list the text and follow that with italicized and indented comments.

  1. Electric generating units that generally operate during periods of peak electricity demand are known as peaker plants. Many peaker plants in the state are older fossil fuel-fired units that emit greenhouse gases and a variety of other harmful air pollutants including sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, particulates and mercury.

In order to identify peaking power plants PSE evaluated data from power plants across the country based on fuel type, capacity, technology and how much they ran.  This is a blunt approach that cannot address any of the nuances that have resulted in some units running for short times.  These units are typically vilified as old, inefficient, and high emitters but the PSE classification includes newer efficient units with low emission rates. There are simple cycle turbines in New York City that were built specifically to provide peaking power which have been the focus of regulatory efforts that are old, inefficient and high emitters but last year the Department of Environmental Conservation promulgated regulations to phase them out.  Large oil-fired units that run little because their fuel costs are so high are also included and the proposed legal remedy is not a cost-effective replacement for those units.

 The pollutants listed are misleading.  Greenhouse gases are emitted but there is a law specifically designed to address them.  No New York power plants burn coal so only natural gas and oil are burned and that means that mercury is not emitted at detectable levels.  There are stringent sulfur in fuel limits for oil across the state but particularly in New York City, so sulfur oxides emissions are low.  Particulate emissions from oil-firing are also low.  Natural gas emissions of particulates and sulfur oxides are essentially zero.  In my opinion then, the emissions of those pollutants are non-issues.  The New York metropolitan area is in non-attainment for ozone so the real pollutant of concern is nitrogen oxides because it is a precursor to ozone. 

  1. A substantial number of peaker plants are located in or adjacent to environmental justice communities in the city of New York and Long Island that already bear disproportionate pollution burdens due to a history of siting pollution sources in those communities. More than one million New Yorkers live within one mile of a peaker plant.

Potential environmental justice areas, based on DEC Commissioner Policy 29 on Environmental Justice and Permitting (CP-29), are U.S. Census block groups of 250 to 500 households each that, in the Census, had populations that met or exceeded at least one of the following statistical thresholds:

          1. At least 51.1% of the population in an urban area reported themselves to be members of minority groups; or
          2. At least 33.8% of the population in a rural area reported themselves to be members of minority groups; or
          3. At least 23.59% of the population in an urban or rural area had household incomes below the federal poverty level.

I closed out my career working at the NRG Oswego Harbor Power plant. It turns out that the neighborhood surrounding the plant is a potential environmental justice area. This plant has two 850 MW oil-fired boilers and because the cost of oil is usually higher than natural gas the unit does not run much.  Therefore, because this is a peaking power plant and in an environmental justice neighborhood, I believe the law applies to the plant.

  1. Pollutants from peaker plants contribute to significant public health problems. According to the New York city department of health and mental hygiene’s air pollution and the health of New Yorkers report: “each year, PM2.5 pollution in (New York City) causes more than 3,000 deaths, 2,000 hospital admissions for lung and heart conditions, and approximately 6,000 emergency department visits for asthma in children and adults.” According to the report, each year exposures to ozone concentrations above background levels cause an estimated “400 premature deaths, 850 hospitalizations for asthma and 4,500 emergency department visits for asthma.”

 The claim that there are significant public health problems is based on the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s (DOHMH) Air Pollution and the Health of New Yorkers report.  Based on their results the report notes that: “Even a feasible, modest reduction (10%) in PM2.5 concentrations could prevent more than 300 premature deaths, 200 hospital admissions and 600 emergency department visits”.  In my analysis of New York City inhalable particulates, I found that between the time of this study and the most recent comparable three-year period the PM2.5 concentrations decreased 38%.  In order to convince me that the PM2.5 health impacts claimed by MOHDOH and this law are correct I need to see confirmation with observed data showing health improvements on the order of the claimed health impacts.

  1. Peaker plants often operate during summer months when air pollution levels are highest and their emissions add to existing pollution burdens in environmental justice communities and contribute to adverse health effects in those communities from air pollution.

There is a well-established peaking power plant problem.  In the first place, in order to provide electricity to everyone who needs it when they need it the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) has to balance power availability with the load on the system.  NYISO is responsible not only for the real-time deliver of power but also for reliability planning.  If the load did not vary this would be much less difficult but the reality is that load varies diurnally and seasonally.  Most important is meeting demand when loads are highest in the summer and winter when it is necessary to provide electricity to maintain the health and well-being of customers. Ultimately the problem boils down to the fact that there are short periods when so much load is needed that there are units dedicated by intent or circumstances to provide just that load during the year. 

 The second driver for this issue is that the hot and humid conditions that cause the high energy use in the summer peak are also the conditions conducive to ozone formation and higher levels of PM2.5.  New York State has been working on the issue of emissions and air quality on high electric demand days specifically since at least 2006.  While there is an undeniable link between high energy demand and the high emissions that create peak ozone levels there also should be an over-riding requirement to keep the power on when it is needed most.

 The argument made here is that these peaking plants are dis-proportionally dis-advantaging the neighboring environmental justice communities.  However, the health impacts that they cite are from inhalable particulates and ozone.  Both of the these are secondary pollutants not directly emitted by power plants.  It takes time for inhalable particulates and ozone to be created by emissions from the plants and in that time the pollution has been transported away from neighboring communities.  It is simply incorrect to ascribe health impacts from these pollutants to neighborhood power plants.  Finally, claiming neighborhood impacts at Oswego is absurd because the pollutants are emitted from stacks that are 700 feet high.  It is virtually impossible for any pollutants to reach the ground in the adjacent neighborhood.

  1. The owners and operators of peaker plants have received billions of dollars in capacity payments from ratepayers over the last decade to subsidize operation of their plants, even though the plants primarily operate during peak load periods.

One of the reasons that there were blackouts in Texas during a period of peak load was that Texas does not pay for capacity.  Simply put, the politicians in Texas decided that subsidizing power plants to run when you need them most was not necessary.  New York Senators apparently agree that a power plant that makes money by providing blackout protection for consumers is such a bad thing that they are willing to risk it in New York. However, the fact that these units are paid to only operate during peak load periods is an insurance feature not a flaw.

  1. Fossil fuel-burning peaker plants can be replaced with renewable energy systems that will eliminate or significantly reduce air pollution impacts to environmental justice communities from peaker plant operations.

Renewable advocates rarely acknowledge that there are inherent advantages to fossil fuels.  At the top of the list is the fact that fossil-fired power plants can be dispatched when needed.  The Oswego power plant burns oil that is stored on-site and can operate throughout any peak load period.  Many of the other plants targeted by this legislation also store oil on-site for precisely the same reason.  In order to replace these units with renewable energy it is not enough to just build wind turbines and solar panels but enough storage has to be provided for at least a couple of days of operation.

 The 2030 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) energy storage target is 3000 MW.  Conspicuous by its absence is how many hours are associated with that figure but my guess is they are talking about 4 hours so the total is 12,000 MWh.  In order to replace just the Oswego power plant’s capability to run for say 36 hours with renewable and storage would take over half the 2030 power storage capacity goal but over five times as much energy would be needed.  In order to replace the Oswego’s peaking capability energy storage and renewable power has to be dedicated to that purpose.  It does not make economic sense to invest in that much renewable power and energy storage only to be used less than 10% of the time.

 NYISO’s reliability planning process determines if there are sufficient resources when the probability of an unplanned disconnection of firm load (loss of load expectation, or “LOLE”) is equal to or less than the standard of once in every 10 years or 0.1 events per year.”  In Texas there were seven cold snaps similar to the one that caused the outages in the last 60 years so the probability is 0.13 events per year.  The peaking power plants targeted by this legislation are part of the solution to LOLE reliability planning.  It is not clear to me what combination of solar, wind, and energy storages would be required to meet replace the peaking power plants in a multi-day winter wind lull but I am sure that the numbers would be extraordinary.  Presumably at some time the CLCPA implementation process will address this but at this time no one knows.

  1. Replacement of fossil fuel-burning peaker plants with renewable energy systems is in the public interest, will save millions of dollars in environmental and human health-related damages, will promote environmental justice and will assist in meeting the greenhouse gas emission reduction and energy storage goals of the climate leadership and community protection act.

The public interest is affordable and reliable electricity.  State agencies have not identified the renewable resources necessary to replace all fossil-fired generation by 2040 and meet current reliability standards so it is presumptuous of the New York Senate to presume that their mandated solution is possible in the time frame in this law.  The millions of dollars in damages claims is not substantiated and given that the emissions from units that run so little are small it is unlikely.  The purported effect on environmental justice communities is based on air quality impacts from inhalable particulates and ozone that are not direct impacts on those communities.  It is unclear why another law is needed to assist in meeting the CLCPA and logic suggests that it is likely that a better choice to let the CLCPA play out than to add a complicating factor.

Implementation

Besides the facts that the premise is wrong, the rationale is incorrect, and the solution is risky, there are a couple of implementation concerns.  Peaking power plants are a critical resource during peak load periods.  However, definition 8 in § 19-1303 says “’Replace’ or ‘replacement’ means the construction and operation of by the construction and operation of a renewable energy system, battery or energy storage, or transmission and distribution infrastructure that enables the provision of the equivalent maximum annual power output achieved by the replaceable peaker”.  Power output is the capacity in MW and the peak load need is the energy in MWh.  The critical parameter for peak load is energy output.  This language directly benefits renewable developers who cannot provide dispatchable energy but it puts New York at risk of a blackout similar to Texas because renewables may not be available to provide all the energy needed during peak loads whatever their maximum annual power output is.

I am also concerned about the language requiring a replaceable peaker plant owner or operator to include a proposed strategy to “replace the plant with renewable energy systems or battery storage or a combination thereof” in an operating permit.  Developing such a strategy requires a major investment in time and money that could well be beyond the capabilities of an owner or operator.  My suspicion is that in such a case the independent power producer will simply surrender the permit and walk away from the state.

The bill authors have not identified the affected units nor has any study been done that shows proposed replacement solutions can keep the system reliable.  I could find no list of units to be affected by this bill. It only seems decent that the authors should identify the units, provide notice to the affected generators and host communities. What about the real property tax implications?  The existing fossil generating stations pay taxes but replacement renewables won’t by located in the same communities nor will they pay taxes at a rate equivalent to fossil plant.

Conclusion

This is deeply flawed legislation.  The premise is wrong because peaking power plants are not inherently bad because they provide critical support to the electric system when needed most.  The rationale that these peaking power plants are directly affecting air quality in adjacent environmental justice neighborhoods is incorrect because the health impacts are claimed from secondary pollutants that do not form before they are transported away from the neighborhood.  Replacing all the peaking plants covered by this law in the time frame mandated is extremely risky because the technology available today is not up to the task as shown in the Power Generation Advisory Panel emphasis on research and development.

Given that there was a power outage disaster in Texas less than a month ago I am extremely disappointed that the New York Senate as taken it upon themselves to dictate energy policy to the electric sector.  Although the complete story of what happened in Texas is unknown at this time, it is clear that extremely cold weather caused a major peak load event.  Past New York energy policy has emphasized the need for diverse set of dispatchable resources to prevent reliability problems in these situations.  This legislation risks reliability in its mandate for resources that are not diverse and technology that have not been tested at the scale needed.

 

Environmental Justice Risks from Hyper-Local Monitoring are Exaggerated

Note:  This post was also published at Watts Up With That

According to Bloomberg Law, Biden’s Hefty Clean Air To-Do List Follows Early Big Promises means that air quality standards have to be revised and must incorporate social justice and climate concerns.  Based on what I have seen this push will rely less on science and more on emotion.

The Bloomberg article states:

“Revising clean air rules is a cornerstone of climate and justice policies, two areas that the Biden administration has set as priorities.  Clean air experts in areas that carry a disproportionate burden of dirty air say that runaway air pollution remains a chronic problem, reflecting neglect of low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, exacerbated by air monitor disparities.”

“Portable air quality monitors used in the South Bronx and Brooklyn caught particulate matter quantities 20 times higher in some areas than levels reported by state-run monitors, according to new data from a neighborhood-level air monitoring study by the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, or NYC-EJA.  The findings highlight insufficient air monitoring for targeted environmental justice communities, and show why one generalized air policy may not be enough to mitigate pollution for hard-hit areas, said Jalisa Gilmore, research analyst for NYC-EJA.  “That’s why we have a little bit more emphasis on hyper local monitoring, and making sure that we actually get the interventions that are most appropriate for the community,” she said.”

The New York City hyper local monitoring program is described in the Community Air Mapping Project for Environmental Justice (CAMP-EJ) findings and recommendations report.  In brief:

“Because New York City has only 13 high-performance ambient air monitoring sites, air pollution exposures are poorly characterized at the neighborhood level. To address this data gap, CAMP-EJ utilized dozens of low-cost, portable air quality monitors to measure hyperlocal air quality and characterize air pollution exposures at more refined spatial and temporal scales than is possible using existing City and State data. The results of our air monitoring campaign shed light on the disproportionate public health burdens imposed on environmental justice communities from industrial pollution, trucking, and transportation infrastructure.”

The analysis found that local facilities and expressways are big polluters, traffic congestion fouls the air twice every day, and that hyperlocal measurements show inhalable particulate matter are twenty times higher than state-run monitors.  I was not surprised by the first two findings but the claim that hyperlocal measurements were much higher than state-run monitors surprised me.

I have experience running air quality monitoring networks with particulate matter monitors.  I found that measuring particulates was always difficult to do correctly and more so with smaller aerodynamic particles like the inhalable or 2.5 micron particles.  In the project, “CAMP-EJ participants used the AirBeam2, a low-cost, palm-sized air quality instrument that measures PM2.5, and AirCasting, an open-source environmental data visualization platform that consists of an Android app and online mapping System”.

The going price for an AirBeam 2 is around $250 and the state-run monitors systems use instruments that go for $25,000.  The state-run system has a detailed quality assurance plan and includes quality control tests which I doubt were included in the community monitoring program so my first thought is just how accurate are these personal monitors?  According to the report: “The AirBeam2’s PM2.5 measurements are “quite accurate” according to a performance evaluation conducted by South Coast Air Quality Management District, which compared the performance of the AirBeam2 to reference monitors.”

However, the South Coast Air Quality Management District evaluation report I found told a different story.  Three sensors were tested against a reference FEM FRIMM PM 2.5 monitoring instrument similar to the one used in the New York State network.  According to the concluding discussion:

“Accuracy: Overall, the three AirBeam sensors showed very low accuracy compared to FEM GRIMM at 20 °C and 40% RH, when varying PM2.5 mass concentration from 10 to 50 μg/m3. The AirBeam sensors significantly overestimated the FEM GRIMM readings. According to the method of calculating accuracy, the % accuracy for the sensors were all negative. When PM2.5mass conc. was over 50 μg/m3, Airbeam sensors reached plateau of 315 μg/m3.”

Don’t get me wrong, I have no doubt that the CAMP-EJ main conclusions, local facilities and expressways are big polluters and traffic congestion fouls the air twice every day, are correct.  However, the monitors used over-estimated inhalable particulate concentrations considerably, particularly at the higher rates they claimed are hurting local communities.  As a result, the numbers that they claim prove the need to act are incorrect.

Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act Environmental Justice Tradeoffs

On January 11, 2021 the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) Generation Advisory Panel met as part of the Climate Action Council Scoping Plan development process.  During that meeting one discussion considered the health effects of New York City peaking power plants on environmental justice communities.  The CLCPA process focus on this problem needs to consider the impacts of the solutions proposed as alternatives.

On July 18, 2019 New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the CLCPA which establishes targets for decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing renewable electricity production, and improving energy efficiency.  I have written extensively on implementation of the CLCPA closely because its implementation affects my future as a New Yorker.  I have described the law in general, evaluated its feasibility, estimated costs, described supporting regulations, listed the scoping plan strategies, summarized some of the meetings and complained that its advocates constantly confuse weather and climate.  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 January 11, 2021 the Generation Advisory Panel notes document the discussion about New York City peaking power plants.  Following the publication of the  Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers (PSE) for Healthy Energy report Opportunities for Replacing Peaker Plants with Energy Storage in New York State last summer, these plants became a touchstone for environmental justice issues in New York City.  I discussed how the analysis was used in the PEAK Coalition report entitled: “Dirty Energy, Big Money”.  In another post provided information on the primary air quality problem associated with these facilities, the Peak Coalition organizations, the State’s response to date, the underlying issue of environmental justice and addressed the motivation for the analysis.  A second post addressed the rationale and feasibility of the proposed plan relative to environmental effects, affordability, and reliability.  All three reports were also summarized.

Since the Power Generation Advisory Panel meeting, I prepared a post explaining that the Peak Coalition analysis of peaking plants misses the point of peaking plants and their environmental impacts.  The claimed air quality health impacts are from ozone and inhalable particulates.  Both are secondary pollutants that are not directly emitted by the peaking power plants so do not affect local communities as alleged.  On the other hand, the proposed solutions have much greater health impacts than the air quality problems that are present in New York City’s environmental justice communities.

NYC PM2.5

I prepared a post specifically on New York City PM2.5 because the primary public health reference in the PEAK Coalition report was the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s (DOHMH) Air Pollution and the Health of New Yorkers report.  The PEAK coalition description of air quality public health impacts quotes the conclusion from the DOHMOH report: “Each year, PM2.5 pollution in [New York City] causes more than 3,000 deaths, 2,000 hospital admissions for lung and heart conditions, and approximately 6,000 emergency department visits for asthma in children and adults.”  These conclusions are for average air pollution levels in New York City as a whole over the period 2005-2007.

In my analysis I found that the DOHMOH report claimed that:

Even a feasible, modest reduction (10%) in PM2.5 concentrations could prevent more than 300 premature deaths, 200 hospital admissions and 600 emergency department visits. Achieving the PlaNYC goal of “cleanest air of any big city” would result in even more substantial public health benefits.

It is rarely noted by environmental activists that PM2.5 air quality has improved markedly since 1999 mostly because of national reductions in sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions.  The NYS DEC air quality monitoring system has operated a PM2.5 monitor at the Botanical Garden in New York City since 1999 so I compared the data from that site for the same period as this analysis relative to the most recent data available (Data from Figure 4. Baseline annual average PM2.5 levels in New York City). The Botanical Garden site had an annual average PM2.5 level of 13 µg/m3 for the same period as the report’s 13.9 µg/m3 “current conditions” city-wide average (my estimate based on their graph).  The important thing to note is that the latest available average (2016-2018) for a comparable three-year average at the Botanical Garden is 8.1 µg/m3 which represents a 38% decrease.  That is substantially lower than the PlaNYC goal of “cleanest air of any big city” scenario at an estimated city-wide average of 10.9 µg/m3.

Note that in DOHMOH Table 5 the annual health events for the 10% reduction and “cleanest” city scenarios are shown as changes not as the total number of events listed for the current level scenario.  My modified table (Modified Table 5. Annual health events attributable to citywide PM2 5 level) converts those estimates to totals so that the numbers are directly comparable.  I excluded the confidence interval information because I don’t know how to convert them in this instance. I estimated the health impact improvements due to the observed reductions in PM2.5 as shown in the last three columns in the modified table.  I estimate that using the DOHMOH methodology the observed reduction in PM2.5 concentrations prevented nearly 1,300 premature deaths, 800 hospital admissions and 2,400 emergency department visits. It is important to note that New York’s power generation fleet cannot do much more to continue these health improvements simply because the emissions are so low now tht comparable emission reductions are not possible.  In any event the peaker units in the city don’t contribute to these secondary pollutant impacts.

Environmental Justice Hypocritical Tradeoffs

The apparent preferred option to fossil-fired power plants is to use energy storage ultimately powered using renewables. Energy storage, wind generation and solar generation technology all require rare earth metals found in terrestrial rocks in infinitesimal amounts which have superb magnetic, catalytic and optical properties needed for these resources.  Therein lies an environmental justice problem unless it is addressed in the CLCPA process..

French journalist and documentary filmmaker Guillaume Pitron has been following the global trade in rare earth metals. Unfortunately, mining these materials come with heavy environmental and social costs. Mining generates massive amounts of polluted wastewater, which left untreated, poisons crops and makes people sick. Guillaume documents these issues in his 2018 book “Rare Metals War’.  Recently his work was summarized in the article “Toxic secrets behind your mobile phone: Electric cars, wind turbines and solar panels… how our so-called green world depends on the mining of rare metals which is a filthy, amoral industry totally dominated by China”.

 

Pitron explains that he visited the Weikuang Dam – an artificial lake into which metallic intestines regurgitate torrents of black water from the nearby refineries. He looked ten square kilometres of toxic effluent.  He went to a village called Dalahai on another side of the artificial lake. Here, the thousands of inhabitants breathe in the toxic discharge of the reservoir as well as eating produce, such as corn and buckwheat, grown in it.  What he found was a real environmental nightmare:

Cancer affects the local population and many villagers have died. The hair of young men barely aged 30 has suddenly turned white. Children grow up without developing any teeth.

One villager, a 54-year-old called Li Xinxia, confided in me despite knowing it’s a dangerous subject. He said: ‘There are a lot of sick people here. Cancer, strokes, high blood pressure… almost all of us are affected. We are in a grave situation. They did some tests and our village was nicknamed “the cancer village”. We know the air we breathe is toxic and that we don’t have that much longer to live.’

The provincial authorities offered villagers compensation to relocate but these farming folk were reluctant to move to high-rise flats in a neighbouring town.

In short, it is a disaster area.

When you consider the immense effort necessary to produce these rare earth metals for batteries I believe it is hypocritical to demand replacement of fossil-fired power plants without considering the environmental impacts of its alternatives.  In the case of New York City power plants, the health impacts associated with the power plants are statistical creations whereas the health impacts of rare earth metal extraction are incontrovertible acute impacts.  While there still is room for improvement in New York, no children are growing up without developing teeth.

Conclusion

One of the fundamental problems with any Greenhouse Gas emission reduction program is leakage.  Pollution leakage refers to the situation where a pollution reduction policy simply moves the pollution around the globe rather than actually reducing it. Similarly, economic leakage is a problem where the increased costs inside the control area leads to business leaving for non-affected areas.  There also is an economic leakage effect in electric systems where a carbon policy in one jurisdiction may affect the dispatch order and increase costs to consumers in another jurisdiction.  I also submit that environmental impact leakage where efforts to reduce much greater impacts are the result elsewhere.

The CLCPA specifically mandates that emissions inventories for the energy sector include an estimate of what may be referred to as the lifecycle, fuel cycle, or out-of-state upstream emissions associated with in-state energy demand and consumption.  However, because the replacement renewable energy resources are dependent upon rare earth metals there is a large environmental problem associated with their deployment.  It is hypocritical for the CLCPA to demand lifecycle analyses of one aspect of energy development but not all others.  Therefore, the implementation process should demand ethically sourced rare earth metals be used for batteries, wind energy, and solar energy.

Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act Con Ed Peaking Power Plant Solution

On January 11, 2021 the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act Power (CLCPA) Generation Advisory Panel met as part of the Climate Action Council Scoping Plan development process.  The meeting tested a consensus building process to address the “problem” of peaking power plants.  I recently published a post on that issue.  It has come to my attention that Consolidated Edison recently submitted a petition to the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) proposing a solution to the peaking power plant problem.  This post describes that solution relative to the CLCPA.

On July 18, 2019 New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which establishes targets for decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing renewable electricity production, and improving energy efficiency.  I have written extensively on implementation of the CLCPA closely because its implementation affects my future as a New Yorker.  I have described the law in general, evaluated its feasibility, estimated costs, described supporting regulations, listed the scoping plan strategies, summarized some of the meetings and complained that its advocates constantly confuse weather and climate.  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

As described in my previous  post, peaking power plants are used to ensure that there is sufficient electricity at the time it is needed most.  The problem is that the hot, humid periods that create the need for the most power also are conducive to the formation of ozone.  In order to meet this reliability requirement ~ 100 simple cycle turbines were built in New York City in the early 1970’s that were cheap and functional but, compared to today’s standards, emitted higher levels of nitrogen oxides that are a precursor to ozone.  In 2020 the Department of Environmental Conservation promulgated a new regulation that will result in the retirement of these simple-cycle combustion turbines presently used exclusively for peaking power uses in order to address ozone nonattainment.

On December 30, 2020 Consolidated Edison (Con Ed) submitted a petition for “approval to recover costs of certain transmission reliability and clean energy projects” as part of DPS Case 19-E-0065 as part of their currently effective rate plan.  They propose three transmission reliability and clean energy projects that will address reliability issues associated with DEC’s new regulation affecting these peaking units.

Concerns

The biggest CLCPA Power Generation Advisory Panel problem with the Con Ed solution is that it only addresses the simple-cycle combustion turbines used for peaking services.  The environmental justice community and some members on the Advisory Panel use a more expansive definition of peaking power plants including generating units that are not covered by this proposal.  In the Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers (PSE) for Healthy Energy report Opportunities for Replacing Peaker Plants with Energy Storage in New York State peaking power plants are defined based on the following criteria: fuel type: oil & natural gas; Capacity: ≥ 5 MW; capacity factor: ≤15% (3-yr. avg.); unit technology type: simple cycle combustion turbine, steam turbine & internal combustion; application: entire peaker plants & peaking units at larger plants; and status: existing and proposed units.  This definition of peaking units includes boilers used for electric power, boilers used for steam, and recently built combined cycle combustion turbines as well as the 100 or so peaking turbines that industry considers peaking units.  The Peak Coalition definition includes units that do not necessarily exist solely to address peak load problems but also have other uses.

In October 2020, The New York Power Authority (NYPA) and the PEAK Coalition “unveiled an agreement to assess how NYPA can transition its natural gas fired ‘peaker’ plants, six located in New York City and one on Long Island with a total capacity of 461 megawatts, to utilize clean energy technologies, such as battery storage and low to zero carbon emission resources and technologies, while continuing to meet the unique electricity reliability and resiliency requirements of New York City”.  As far as I can tell, the Con Ed transmission projects will not address the NYPA combined cycle combustion turbines.  Also note that the Con Ed Petition specifically dismissed the clean energy technologies in the NYPA agreement:

“The Company also evaluated whether non-wires solutions, load reductions and/or load transfers, renewable resource or energy storage deployment within the Transmission Load Area (TLA), local transmission additions, or a combination of these solutions, could address both the local reliability need and the constraints. The Company determined that only the Transmission Reliability and Clean Energy (TRACE) projects would both solve the local system reliability needs and alleviate transmission system constraints to enable the State to achieve its clean energy goals. Specifically, physical space limitations within the TLAs challenge or virtually foreclose the addition of utility scale photovoltaic (“PV”) and large-scale energy storage systems there. And, as described below, storage within the TLA can only partially address reliability needs because the TLA deficiencies, which extend over 10 to 14-hour periods often over consecutive days, exceed the capability of storage technologies to respond.”

It may be that the physical space limitations may differ near the NYPA turbines but we are dealing with New York City which is notorious for limited space.

There is another aspect that I know exists but don’t have sufficient knowledge to address in this context.  The power still has to come from somewhere.  There are specific requirements for in-city generation that were developed to address previous blackouts in New York City.  I am not sure how those requirements will be satisfied within the constraints of the CLCPA.

The Con Ed petition claims that their projects are necessary to “facilitate achievement of the State’s clean energy goals as defined in the CLCPA” by enabling retirement of the peaking power plants and solving the associated reliability needs without the addition of any new fossil-fired power plants.  Note however that the proposed cost of these projects is $780 million and only provides delivery of the power not replacement power production.

Conclusion

I agree with the Con Ed petition’s claim that the three transmission projects are “multi-value, ‘no regrets’ solutions”.  Not only do they “provide critical reliability contributions that require their construction to meet established reliability design criteria, but also put in place the necessary foundation to achieve the CLCPA’s goals.”   Unfortunately, the public will never know the comparative cost of this CLCPA-consistent solution relative to an alternative solution that used fossil fuels.  As a result there will be a hidden CLCPA cost.

The bigger problem is the ramifications relative to the environmental justice advocates and their allies on the Power Generation advisory panel.  In the first place, even though Con Ed’s solution checks all the CLCPA technology boxes it only addresses the facilities that have generally been considered “peakers”, not the facilities that the Peak Coalition considers “peakers”.  Secondly, Con Ed considered and discarded as technically inappropriate, the alternatives that the Peak Coalition is advocating for the NYPA peaking turbines.  Those turbines provide peaking services but they also are clean and efficient.  It boils down to whether the environmental justice advocates can accept minimal risks from those facilities or will only be satisfied if there is zero risk from their pre-conceived notion of the problem.  I am not comfortable that they understand the trade-offs of different risks from different options.

 

Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act Power Generation Advisory Panel Peaking Power Plants

On January 11, 2021 the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act Power (CLCPA) Generation Advisory Panel met as part of the Climate Action Council Scoping Plan development process.  The meeting tested a consensus building process to address the “problem” of peaking power plants.  This post addresses that discussion.

On July 18, 2019 New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), which establishes targets for decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing renewable electricity production, and improving energy efficiency.  I have written extensively on implementation of the CLCPA closely because its implementation affects my future as a New Yorker.  I have described the law in general, evaluated its feasibility, estimated costs, described supporting regulations, listed the scoping plan strategies, summarized some of the meetings and complained that its advocates constantly confuse weather and climate.  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

Last summer I wrote that New York State energy and environmental policy is more about optics than facts as exemplified by  opinion pieces, reports, and even policy proposals related to peaking power plants in New York City.  The perception that they have significant local impacts and have no use in the future has now invaded the CLCPA implementation process.

The optics post summarized three detailed technical posts all related to the PEAK Coalition report entitled: “Dirty Energy, Big Money”.  The first post provided information on the primary air quality problem associated with these facilities, the organizations behind the report, the State’s response to date, the underlying issue of environmental justice and addressed the motivation for the analysis.  The second post addressed the rationale and feasibility of the proposed plan relative to environmental effects, affordability, and reliability.  Finally, I discussed the  Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers (PSE) for Healthy Energy report Opportunities for Replacing Peaker Plants with Energy Storage in New York State that provided technical information used by the PEAK Coalition.

In brief, peaking power plants are used to ensure that there is sufficient electricity at the time it is needed most.  The problem is that the hot, humid periods that create the need for the most power also are conducive to the formation of ozone.  In order to meet this reliability requirement ~ 100 simple cycle turbines were built in New York City in the early 1970’s that were cheap and functional but, compared to today’s standards, emitted a lot of nitrogen oxides that are a precursor to ozone.  The Peak Coalition report claims that peaking units operate when energy load spikes, are mostly old, and have high costs.  However, they expand the definition of peaking units to just about every facility in the City including units that are new, have low emission rates, and have lower costs than claimed. Environmental Justice advocates claim that the expanded definition peaking power plants are dangers to neighboring environmental justice communities.  However, my analyses found that the alleged impacts of the existing peaking power plants over-estimate impact on local communities relative to other sources. 

There is a category of existing simple cycle peaking turbines in New York City that are old, inefficient and much dirtier than a new facility and clearly should be replaced.  However, they reliably produce affordable power when needed most.  PSE and the PEAK Coalition advocate a solar plus energy storage approach and that has become the preferred approach of the majority of the Power Generation Advisory Panel members.  It is not clear, however, if that is a viable option.

Peaking Power Plant Status

By definition, for EPA reporting purposes 40 CFR Part 75  §72.2, a combustion unit is a peaking unit if it has an average annual capacity factor of 10.0 percent or less over the past three years and an annual capacity factor of 20.0 percent or less in each of those three years. As noted previously the utility industry considers the combustion turbines built expressly for peak periods as the New York City peaking plants.  PSE chose to select peaking power plants based on the following criteria: fuel type: oil & natural gas; Capacity: ≥ 5 MW; capacity factor: ≤15% (3-yr. avg.); unit technology type: simple cycle combustion turbine, steam turbine & internal combustion; application: entire peaker plants & peaking units at larger plants; and status: existing and proposed units. 

There is another nuance to the peaking units story. Because the primary concern with the combustion turbines that run so little is ozone attainment, they only are required to report data during the Ozone Season (May 1 to September 30). The NYC Peaking Unit Annual Ozone Season Load graph shows the trend of the simple cycle combustion turbine peaking unit and the Peak Coalition peaking unit ozone season load. Since 2001, the simple cycle turbines load trend is down and in 2020 the ozone season total energy produced was only 8,155 MWh compared to a peak over this period of 897,939 MWh in 2005. On the other hand, the Peak Coalition peaking units have only been trending down since 2017. Over that short a period the effects of weather may be the primary driver of any load changes.

The New York City Ozone Season Trends table categorizes the units as simple cycle turbines (the industry “peakers”), all the other turbines, boilers that provide electricity and steam boilers that provide steam.  In the last 20 years a number of combined cycle combustion turbines that are more efficient than the simple cycle turbines and the boilers.  In 2020, that category provided the most energy of any of the units considered displacing most of the simple cycle turbine output and a big chunk of the boilers producing electricity.  As shown in the table, in 2020 the “peakers” only generated 8,155 MWh and emitted 6,927 tons of CO2 and 28 tons of NOx.  The combined cycle turbines produced 3,968,562 MWh, 1,772,752 tons of CO2 and 103 tons of NOx and the boilers produced 2,172,185 MWh in 2020, 1,654,514 tons of CO2 and 752 tons of NOx in the 2020 Ozone Season.

Alternatives

I don’t think that many of the members of the power generation advisory panel really understand the electric system.  Although the simple cycle turbine peaking units have run less and less, completely eliminating them is still a significant undertaking.  Nonetheless, last year the Department of Environmental Conservation promulgated a new regulation that will shut them down on a schedule based on complete assurance that equally reliable options are available.  In order to eliminate the units in the Peak Coalition report is a much more difficult problem.  Unfortunately, to the ill-informed it is a simply a matter of political will.

The apparent preferred option is to use energy storage ultimately powered using renewables.  In December 2020, 74 Power Global and Con Edison announced the signing of a seven-year dispatch rights agreement for the development of a 100-megawatt battery storage project, the East River Energy Storage System, in Astoria, Queens.  The NRG Astoria Gas Turbine facility presently consists of 24 16MW simple cycle turbines is also located at the same location.  The East River Energy Storage System is rated to provide 4 hours at 100 MW capacity or 400 MWh.  On the other hand, those 24 16MW turbines can run all day if the need arises to produce 9,216 MWh or 23 times more energy. 

Unfortunately, that is not the end of the bad news for energy storage.  Last year I estimated the energy storage requirements of the CLCPA based on a NREL report Life Prediction Model for Grid-Connected Li-ion Battery Energy Storage System that describes an analysis of the life expectancy of lithium-ion energy storage systems.  The abstract of the report notes that “The lifetime of these batteries will vary depending on their thermal environment and how they are charged and discharged. To optimal utilization of a battery over its lifetime requires characterization of its performance degradation under different storage and cycling conditions.”   The report concludes: “Without active thermal management, 7 years lifetime is possible provided the battery is cycled within a restricted 47% DOD operating range. With active thermal management, 10 years lifetime is possible provided the battery is cycled within a restricted 54% operating range.”  If you use the 54% limit the 400 MWh of energy goes down to 216 MWh and the existing turbines can produce over 42 times as much energy in a day.

The mantra of the environmental justice advocates on the power generation advisory panel is that “smart planning” and renewables will be sufficient to replace fossil generation peaking plants.  In the absence of what is exactly meant by “smart planning” I assume that it will be similar to the New York Power Authority agreement to “assess how NYPA can transition its natural gas fired ‘peaker’ plants, six located in New York City and one on Long Island with a total capacity of 461 megawatts, to utilize clean energy technologies, such as battery storage and low to zero carbon emission resources and technologies, while continuing to meet the unique electricity reliability and resiliency requirements of New York City.”  Beyond the press release however, is a major technological challenge that if done wrong will threaten reliability. 

Moreover, the costs for this technology seem to be an afterthought.  The Energy Information Administration says the average utility scale battery system runs around $1.5 million per MWh of storage capacity. That works out to $600 million for the East River Energy Storage System.  NYC currently peaks at around 13,000 MW– just to keep the city running. I get the impression that one aspect of “smart” planning is to shave peaks but the CLCPA targets will require electrification across all sectors.  I don’t think that any peak shaving programs can do much to reduce the current summer peak and the peak will certainly shift to the winter when peak shaving and shifting of heating is unrealistic.  Assuming the same peak level and that the daily total peak above the baseline requires 104,000 MWhr, that means that 481 East River Energy Storage Systems operating at the NREL 54% limit would be needed to cover the peak at a cost of $289 billion.  Throw in the fact that the life expectancy is ten years and I submit this unaffordable.

NYC Solar

Even if you have enough energy storage, the mandates of the CLCPA require the use of solar and wind resources to provide that energy.  There are specific in-city generation requirements for New York City that have been implemented to ensure there is no repeat of blackouts that were caused by issues with the transmission and generation system.  It is not clear to me how this will be handled within the CLCPA construct but there is a clear need for in-city generation.  Clearly massive wind turbines are a non-starter within NYC so that leaves solar.  The problem is that a 1 MW solar PV power plant will require between 2.5 acres and 4 acres if all the space needed for accessories are required.  Assuming that panels generate five times their capacity a day 43.2 MW of solar panels can generate the 216 MWh of energy available from the East River Energy Storage System and that means a solar array of between 108 and 173 acres.  To get the 104,000 MWh needed for the entire NYC peak between 10 and 16 square miles of solar panels will be needed. 

Public Policy Concerns

I have previously described how the precautionary principle is driving the CLCPA based on the work of David Zaruk, an EU risk and science communications specialist, and author of the Risk Monger blog.  In a recent post, part of a series on the Western leadership’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, he described the current state of policy leadership that is apropos to this discussion: 

“The world of governance has evolved in the last two decades, redefining its tools and responsibilities to focus more on administration and being functionary (and less on leadership and being visionary). I have written on how this evolution towards policy-making based on more public engagement, participation and consultation has actually led to a decline in dialogue and empowerment. What is even more disturbing is how this nanny state approach, where our authorities promise a population they will be kept 100% safe in a zero-risk biosphere, has created a docilian population completely unable and unprepared to protect themselves.”

His explanation that managing policy has become more about managing public expectations with consultations and citizen panels driving decisions describes the Advisory Panels to the Climate Action Council.  He says now we have “millennial militants preaching purpose from the policy pulpit, listening to a closed group of activists and virtue signaling sustainability ideologues in narrowly restricted consultation channels”.  That is exactly what is happening on this panel in particular.  Facts and strategic vision were not core competences for the panel members.  Instead of what they know, their membership was determined by who they know.  The social justice concerns of many, including the most vocal, are more important than affordable and reliable power.  The focus on the risks of environmental justice impacts from these power plants while ignoring the ramifications if peaking power is not reliably available when it is needed most does not consider that a blackout will most likely impact environmental justice communities the most.

Conclusion

There are significant implementation issues trying to meet the CLCPA mandates in New York City.  Energy storage at the scale needed for any meaningful support to the NYC peak load problem has never been attempted.  The in-city generation requirements have to be reconciled with what could actually be available from solar within the City.  All indications are that the costs will be enormous. Importantly, I have only described the over-arching issues.  I am sure that there are many more details to be

reconciled to make this viable and there are as yet unaddressed feasibility issues.

I have previously shown that the Peak Coalition analysis of peaking plants misses the point of peaking plants and their environmental impacts.  The primary air quality health impacts are from ozone and inhalable particulates.  Both are secondary pollutants that are not directly emitted by the peaking power plants so do not affect local communities as alleged.  While nothing detracts from the need to retire the old, inefficient simple cycle turbines, replacing all the facilities targeted by the Peak Coalition is a mis-placed effort until replacement technologies that can maintain current levels of affordability and reliability are commercially available.  At this time that is simply not the case.

My Comments on the Cross State Air Pollution Rule Update December 2020

This post describes the comments I submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on their latest proposed revision to the Cross State Air Pollution Rule.  I have only posted once since Thanksgiving because I was called out of retirement to help the Environmental Energy Alliance of New York (EEANY) develop their comments on this rule-making but despite all the time I spent on them I was unable to include everything I thought was important.  So, I submitted my own comments.  This is a simple description.  I have prepared  a detailed summary of my comments on updated Cross State Air Pollution Rule that provides more details.

I am a mostly retired air quality meteorologist who was involved in continuous emissions monitoring system compliance reporting at the start of the Acid Rain Program, regulatory analysis of all the subsequent cap and trade programs affecting New York, and several regional ozone modeling efforts.  I was asked to help develop the EEANY comments on this rule because I was the primary author for the last iteration of their comments.  I submitted the comments to expand on some of their arguments and to address additional issues not in their purview.  The opinions expressed in this post and in my comments do not reflect the position of EEANY, any other of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, they represent my personal opinion.

Background

CSAPR was promulgated to address Ozone air quality which is the most intractable air quality problem in the United States.  Despite years of effort, ozone regularly exceeds the national ambient air quality standard.  It is formed in a photo-chemical reaction from nitrogen oxides (NOx,) created in any combustion process, and volatile organic compounds, basically anything with an odor.  As a result, there are many sources, both man-made and natural, that must be considered on a regional scale, which complicates the transport and dispersion of the pollution, in order to develop a control program to limit ozone.  Because the pollution crosses state lines this has become a controversy between states.  In the eastern US, the conditions conducive to ozone formation (Hazy, hot and humid heat waves) also drive-up energy demand and increase emissions from the electric generating sector.

This specific rule was amended because a court ruled that previous attempts still do not reduce observed levels of ozone enough.  According to EPA the rule works as follows:

EPA sets a pollution limit (emission budget) for each of the states covered by CSAPR.  Authorizations to emit pollution, known as allowances, are allocated to affected sources based on these state emissions budgets. The rule provides flexibility to affected sources, allowing sources in each state to determine their own compliance path. This includes adding or operating control technologies, upgrading or improving controls, switching fuels, and using allowances. Sources can buy and sell allowances and bank (save) allowances for future use as long as each source holds enough allowances to account for its emissions by the end of the compliance period.

In the proposed rule, like any other emissions trading program, each affected source is required to submit one allowance for each ton emitted during the trading season.  In CSAPR EPA set a cap for each state and then allocated allowances amongst the affected sources.  There is another complicating aspect of the rule related to interstate pollution.  In order to limit a state’s contributions to downwind exceedances the proposed program includes assurance levels that act as a cap on a state’s NOx emissions during the Ozone Season.  The assurance level equals the allowance allocation plus the variability limit that accounts for the year-to-year differences due to weather, electric demand and disruptions.   If a state exceeds their assurance level then sources that exceed their assurance levels within that state will be assessed a 3-to-1 allowance surrender for each ton emitted above the  assurance level.

My concern and that of the EEANY member companies is that the proposed New York emission budget is so limited and New York sources have such limited opportunities for further reductions that the sources will be forced to rely on the market for the allowances needed to operate throughout the ozone season.  However, there are aspects of the proposed rule that are unprecedented and, especially since the program is not finalized but will start on May 1, 2021, that mean that the market may not be as liquid as EPA assumes.  In the following I will explain these issues from a New York-centric position.

Comments

NYS Electric Generating Units (EGUs) have made significant reductions in NOx emissions as shown in the New York State Ozone Season NOx and Operating Parameters Trends table.  There are two implications to the current observed NOx emissions rates in New York.  Firstly, because emissions are so low the pollution control costs for any further reductions will be very high.  Secondly, there may not be many more reductions possible no the matter the cost.  As a result, it is important that EPA allocate the appropriate number of allowances to New York.

The CSAPR update rule is a cap-and-trade air or emissions trading pollution control program.  The first phase in any such program is to establish how many allowances are to be allocated.  In this rule EPA used a three-step methodology:

      1. Determine a future baseline that represents the current emissions levels with adjustments for retirements and new sources,
      2. Factor in additional mitigation controls that adjust the baseline to account for reductions available at a specified cost threshold, and
      3. Account for shifts in generation caused by the baseline adjustments and additional controls.

My biggest problem with EPA’s methodology is that EPA does not account for the retirement of nuclear generation.  When the last unit at the Indian Point nuclear generating station retires before the 2021 ozone season that means that 12% of the state’s generation will have to be replaced compared to the baseline that EPA used.  In the short term that means replacing zero-NOx emitting generation with generation that does emit NOx.  The EEANY comments explain that nuclear retirements in the 12-state trading system mean that the baseline should be adjusted.  EEANY shows that the authors of the rule did not understand the implications of the metric used to determine whether further controls are possible at their chosen cost threshold so that means EPA over-estimates potential NOx reductions.  EEANY proposed specific recommendations and suggestions for baseline and control technology changes and suggested incorporating a safety valve to offer a compliance pathway in the face of the uncertainties.

My Comments

EEANY discussed potential issues with the emissions trading market.  I included a description of several broad aspects of cap-and-trade programs to expand on the arguments for improving the chances of market success.  Despite the success of all previous EPA cap and trade programs there are aspects of the proposed action that are unprecedented and could conceivably threaten the viability of this trading program.  My comments illustrated the potential impact of the proposed allocations on New York by way of examples.

In my comments I developed an example ozone season emissions scenario to test the EPA allocations that were based on 2019 emissions.  I simply used the preliminary emission estimates from the 2020 ozone season.  Indian Point Unit 2 retired in April 2020 so last summer’s emissions reflect the additional generation needed to replace that retired energy.  In order to account for the retirement of Indian Point Unit 3 I prorated 2020 ozone season emissions by the ratio of generation produced by Indian Point 3 to the total ozone season generation in 2020. That adds 512 tons of NOx to the baseline.  The preliminary 2020 Ozone Season data available from EPA Clean Air Markets Division air markets program data website is 3,563 tons and would be projected to be 4,075 tons when the replacement power emissions are added.

The next step in the projection is to determine how many allowances are available.  EPA proposes a New York emissions budget of 3,137 tons.  The variability limit is 659 tons.  Recall that is supposed to account for year-to-year differences due to weather, electric demand and disruptions and that if state-wide emissions are greater than the sum of the budget and variability limit, or assurance level, that EPA imposes penalties.  The 5% set-aside for New Sources affects this projection in two ways.  Firstly, 157 tons are taken from the budget and not available to existing sources.  Secondly, in this example, the 94 tons emitted by the new sources in New York during 2020 are covered by this set-aside.  The allowances at the beginning of the ozone season equal the emissions budget plus the allowance bank or variability limit less the 157-ton new source set-aside. As a result, there will be 3,639 allowances available at the start of the Ozone Season on May 1, 2021.

In my example I compared 2020 adjusted emissions to the allowances available.  EPA acknowledges that affected sources set aside a contingency to account for monitoring problems and for sources that have to purchase allowances for compliance. I believe a minimum of 2.5% or 102 tons of the 4,075 emissions expected is appropriate for this contingency.  The correct emissions to compare relative to the 3,659 allowances available is the 2020 adjusted emissions plus the contingency buffer minus the 2020 new source emissions or 4,083 tons.  Note that the difference between the total set-aside and the emissions (63 tons) flows back into New York’s available allowance pool but not until after reconciliation so that means that the allowances available for New York sources are effectively reduced by 63 tons in this example.

The allowance margin represents the difference between emissions and allowances.  The difference between the available allowances and effective emissions is -444.  The negative number means that New York State will have to obtain allowances from the market to meet its compliance obligations and monitoring contingency.  Importantly, because the emissions in this example are 279 tons greater than the assurance level two additional allowances for each excess ton would have to be surrendered for compliance for a total of 558 additional allowances meaning that a total of 4,641allowances would be needed to cover the emissions, the CEMS contingency buffer, and the compliance assurance penalty.  In this example New York sources would have to go outside the state for 1,002 allowances for compliance.

In my comments I included a second example that calculated the numbers on a unit-by-unit basis and then determined the allowances need for each facility.  There are 70 CSAPR Group 3 facilities in New York.  In the analogous example case only 31 of the facilities would be able to comply with the proposed allocations.  Seven facilities would be able to comply without exceeding their assurance levels but 32 facilities would be required to surrender additional allowances.  I concluded that New York facilities would have to get 2,534 allowances from the market.

Unquestionably market-based emissions trading programs have been a success to date.  However, past success does not necessarily ensure future success.  I think market certainty is a primary driver for success and believe that the proposed program has enough uncertainty that success is not assured.

 A successful emissions trading program has a robust and liquid allowance market that allows affected sources to operate as needed while meeting the emissions reductions. There are several conditions that lead to a successful program.  I believe the most important key to success is the ability for some sources to be able to over control.  Sources that can install cost-effective controls and reduce emissions below their allowance allocations, can sell excess allowances to sources with more expensive compliance options. In order for that to work the cap has to be set so that over-control is possible.  In addition, in order to be able to use the allowances produced by sources who can over control, the market must be mature enough that those sources have enough market certainty that they are willing to generate those allowances and sell them.  Most programs have included a substantial time period between the final rule promulgation and start of the program that included credit for early reductions such that additional allowances were generated. Finally, the market must be large enough that other trading considerations don’t influence the market.  Many of the states in the affected region are de-regulated so generating companies compete with each other.  It is not unreasonable to expect that might influence a decision to sell allowances.

The proposed rule may not meet all these conditions.  EEANY’s comments showed that unless the baseline includes an adjustment for nuclear retirements it will be set so low that NY generators who have few remaining options to make further reductions will have to rely on the market to match historic operations.  EEANY also described issues with EPA’s assumptions for potential SCR optimization that mean that even meeting the proposed allocation levels may not be possible.  The short time between promulgation and the start of the trading program prevents any early reductions.  In my comments I described other factors affecting trading decisions.  In my comments I explained that there is a disconnect between market-based program theory and industry reality that leads regulators and academics to believe that emissions trading will be driven by economic considerations.  I believe there are regulatory, corporate, and personal reasons for an affected source to treat allowances as a compliance mechanism rather than a commodity for potential sales profit as presumed by market theory.  I described several other practical issues with emissions trading why the program in the proposed rule may not be as successful as past programs.

I also explained that EPA’s proposed allocations reduce the 12-state baseline, allocations and allowance bank for the five-month Ozone Season in an attempt to reduce emissions are fatally flawed. Ozone exceedances are an episodic feature associated with high energy demand lasting no more than several days and there is no guarantee that emissions during the episode are lowered sufficiently to reduce ozone during episodes using a seasonal trading program.  As it stands a higher emitting unit will incorporate a high price for their energy produced reflecting the scarcity of allowances.  As a result, the unit will not be called on to provide power unless the price is high and because high prices occur when demand is high the higher emitting units will still operate during ozone episodes.  In my opinion the only way to address the episodic nature of ozone episodes with a cap-and-trade program is to have a trading program over a time period consistent with the problem.

There is one final aspect of all this that needs to be mentioned.  The electric generation sector is not the only source of ozone precursor emissions.  Emissions from this sector are an easy target because the ultimate costs to the consumer are buried in utility bills so regulators can “hide” from the ramifications of the added costs.  On the other hand, motor vehicle exhaust is a major source of pre-cursors but any limitations on mobile sources directly impact the public so regulators could not deny their culpability.  My point is that even with all realistic electric sector reductions, that there still is no guarantee that the ozone levels will get below the national ambient air quality standard limits.

Conclusion

Despite the success of cap-and-trade air pollution control programs to date, it is inappropriate to expect that future programs will necessarily succeed as well if the reasons for past success are not considered.  The proposed EPA CSAPR trading programs does not consider those factors in its allowance allocations and schedule.

I have concerns about the level of the cap.  New York State has a remarkable record reducing NOX emissions and has a new regulation that will further reduce emissions with new limits on its peaking units.  Nonetheless, EPA’s proposed cap requires half the state’s facilities to rely on trading to meet their compliance requirements if future emissions equal 2020 emissions.  No sources in New York can over-control and provide sufficient allowances for state compliance which means that the inter-state trading is required and that means that the compliance assurance penalty is a concern.  EPA’s proposed baseline does not account for the fixed increase in emissions due to nuclear retirements over and above the inter-annual variability due to weather, demand or disruptions.  In New York the loss of 12% of the state’s nuclear generation means that this will definitely impact future emissions. The theory of cap-and-trade markets does not recognize the reality of industry practices that all lead to the inescapable conclusion that mark liquidity is a real concern in the proposed program.

Therefore, it would be prudent for EPA to revise the baselines to account for nuclear retirements and correct the SCR optimization reductions for new allocations and variability limits.  Furthermore, because of the aggressive schedule a safety valve which allows the use of Group 2 allowances is a reasonable backstop in the event of unexpected developments.  If adjustments are not made to the allowances available and weather, demand or disruptions increase NOx emissions, then there could be situations where the only compliance option available is to limit operations.