Category: Climate Act

New York Climate Act Affordability Status

In my opinion the biggest problem with the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act or CLCPA) is that it will inevitably lead to extraordinary cost increases.  My last article described the recent rate case decisions that have markedly increased residential customer electric bills. These rate increases arrive amid an escalating affordability crisis, as of December 2024, over 1.3 million households are behind on their energy bills by sixty-days-or-more, collectively owing more than $1.8 billion.  This article documents unresolved affordability issues associated with the Climate Act.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Act net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks.  I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 600 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone. 

Background

There is a fundamental Climate Act implementation issue.  Clearly there are bounds on what New York State ratepayers can afford and there are limits related to reliability risks for a system reliant on weather-dependent resources.  The problem is that there are no criteria for acceptable affordability bounds.

Proponents of the Climate Act argue that the transition strategies in the law must be implemented to meet the net-zero mandates.  However, they do not acknowledge that Public Service Law (PSL) Section 66-P, Establishment of a Renewable Energy Program, is also a law. PSL 66-P requires the Commission to establish a program to ensure the State meets the 2030 and 2040 Climate Act obligations.  It includes provisions stating that the PSC is empowered to temporarily suspend or modify these obligations if, after conducting an appropriate hearing, it finds that PSL 66-P impedes the provision of safe, adequate, and affordable electric service.  This requirement has been noted but, unfortunately, establishing a methodology to resolve the mandate has been ignored.

Petitions for a Hearing

The first unresolved affordability issue is the petitions by the Coalition for Safe and Reliable Energy and the Independent Intervenors submitted to PSC Proceeding Case 22-M-0149 that called for a hearing.  There has been no indication by the PSC that they will respond to those petitions.

The recent filings argued that the PSC should convene a hearing. On August 11, 2025 “Independent Intervenors” Roger Caiazza, Richard Ellenbogen, Constatine Kontogiannis, and Francis Menton petitioned  the  PSC arguing that safety valve provisions for customers in arrears trends in PSL  66-p(4) have been exceeded  which should trigger a hearing.  On January 6, 2026 the Coalition for Safe and Reliable Energy filed a petition with the Public Service Commission (PSC) requesting that the Commission act expeditiously to hold a hearing pursuant to Public Service Law § 66-p (4).  Both filings make similar arguments.  The Independent Intervenors argued that there was an explicit requirement for the hearing because the customers in arrears threshold has been exceeded.  The Coalition makes a persuasive argument that there are sufficient observed threats to reliability that a hearing is necessary to ensure safe and adequate service.

In addition, last summer two members of the Climate Action Council, Donna DeCarolis and Dennis Elsenbeck, sent a letter to Rory Christian, Chair & Chief Executive Officer of the New Yok State Public Service Commission (PSC) that made a similar argument that there are more than sufficient circumstances to warrant the PSC commencing a hearing process to “consider modification and extension of New York Renewable Energy Program timelines pursuant to Public Service Law § 66-p (4).

Agency Affordability Findings

There also have been New York Agency findings that argue that observed issues with schedule and costs suggest a pause to reconsider the mandates is appropriate.

The Draft Clean Energy Standard Biennial Review prepared by Department of Public Service (DPS) Staff and NYSERDA  “details the numerous factors, including inflation, transmission constraints, shifting federal energy and trade policies and interconnection and siting challenges that have adversely impacted renewable development and the state’s trajectory towards achieving the Program’s 2030 target.”  The Biennial Review “concludes that a delay in achieving the 70% goal may be unavoidable.”

The recently completed New York State Energy Plan (SEP) found that “current renewable deployment trajectories are insufficient to meet statutory targets, and that external constraints continue to impede progress.”  Volume 2 “Our Energy Systems” explains that “Considering resource build limitations and increased loads, the model aligns with the CES Biennial Review, projecting the procurement schedule of CES resources through 2035.”  In other words, the SEP acknowledges that the Climate Act schedule is impossible to meet.  The SEP found that Climate Act costs are expected to require $120 billion in annual energy system investments through 2040, equivalent to $1,282 per month per household. This baseline includes what the authors of the SEP characterizes as costs “no matter which future path we take” but I believe that framing is fundamentally deceptive because that scenario includes substantial greenhouse gas reduction programs implemented before 2019 that are necessary to meet the Climate Act goals.

The July 2024 New York State Comptroller Status report “Climate Act Goals – Planning, Procurements, and Progress Tracking” audited PSC and NYSERDA efforts to achieve the Climate Act mandates.  It found that “While PSC and NYSERDA have taken considerable steps to plan for the transition to renewable energy in accordance with the Climate Act and CES, their plans did not comprise all essential components, including assessing risks to meeting goals and projecting costs.”  The report recommended that the agencies begin the comprehensive review of the Climate Act, “continuously analyze” existing and emerging risks and known issues, conduct a detailed analysis of cost estimates, and “assess the extent to with ratepayers can reasonably assume the responsibility” of the implementation costs.  This is the information necessary for the PSL 66-P hearing.

My last article summarized recent residential electric utility customers rate case decisions approved between March 2025 and January 2026.  The New York Public Service Commission (PSC) “approved new multi-year rate plans for five major utilities—Con Edison, National Grid, Central Hudson, and Orange & Rockland—while two additional utilities (New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) and Rochester Gas & Electric (RG&E) have pending rate cases seeking significantly larger increases”.

Kris Martin from NY Solar Divide pointed out:

When we look at those modest Climate Act (CLCPA) percentages on “typical” electric bills, it’s important to understand that we have incurred only a small fraction of Climate Act expenses to date. The bulk of those expenses will really start to impact us in another 5-10 years as we start to seriously build out onshore and offshore wind and grid-scale solar, implement policy changes (e.g., school bus electrification), and deal with increases in demand.

Department of Public Service (DPS) staff is supposed to provide Climate Act information. On September 18, 2025 the PSC announced that they “received an update from DPS staff regarding progress toward the clean energy goals of the Climate Act”.  The Second Informational Report prepared by Department of Public Service (DPS) staff “focuses on Commission actions from January 2023 through August 2025, and includes the estimated costs and outcomes from 2023 through 2029 to provide the most up to date information.”  According to the Summary of Ratepayer Impact for Electric Utilities table, residential impacts of the Climate Act range from 4.6% to 10.3% of 2023 total monthly electric bills.  In my opinion, those estimates are conservative because there is immense pressure on agency staff to minimize the costs of the Climate Act.  In addition, the costs necessary to implement the Climate Act were ramping up in 2023.  As Martin notes these costs are just the tip of the iceberg.

Affordability Metrics

PSL law Section 66-p (4) states that the hearing could “temporarily suspend or modify the obligations” of the Renewable Energy Program if the PSC makes a finding that “there is a significant increase in arrears or service disconnections that the commission determines is related to the program”.   This refers to affordability limits, but they are not specific enough.  I believe the PSC must establish specific affordability limits.

This issue was also raised to the DPS last year.  On March 26, 2025, Jessica Waldorf, Chief of Staff and Director of Policy Implementation for the Department of Public Service (DPS) posted a letter responding to a letter from Michael B. Mager Counsel to Multiple Intervenors that had been submitted earlier in March to Chair of the Public Service Commission Rory Christian regarding the affordability standard.       I agreed with the comments submitted by Multiple Intevenors and was disappointed with the DPS response so I submitted a letter to Christian.

As described in my article My Comments on the NYS Affordability Standard: I believe that as part of the Scoping Plan the Climate Action Council should have developed criteria for the PSC to consider affordability and reliability.  That did not happen.  Based on issues observed with the transition it is incumbent upon the Commission to define “safe and adequate electric service” and “significant increase in arrears or service disconnections” as part of this Proceeding.  My letter stated that this is necessary so that there is a clearly defined standard for the temporarily suspending or modifying the provisions of Section 66-p (4).

The Public Service Commission has an existing target energy burden set at or below 6 percent of household income for all low-income households in New York State.  Reviewing it raises questions about its suitability for defining energy affordability acceptability.

The six percent target was included as part of Public Service Commission (PSC) Case Number: 14-M-0565, the Proceeding on Motion of the Commission to Examine Programs to Address Energy Affordability for Low Income Utility Customers.  According to the PSC: “The primary purposes of the proceeding are to standardize utility low-income programs to reflect best practices where appropriate, streamline the regulatory process, and ensure consistency with the Commission’s statutory and policy objectives.”  On May 20, 2016 the Order Adopting Low Income Program Modifications and Directing Utility Findings adopted “a policy that an energy burden at or below 6% of household income shall be the target level for all 2.3 million low income households in New York.” 

The order notes that:

There is no universal measure of energy affordability; however, a widely accepted principle is that total shelter costs should not exceed 30% of income. For example, this percentage is often used by lenders to determine affordability of mortgage payments. It is further reasonable to expect that utility costs should not exceed 20% of shelter costs, leading to the conclusion that an affordable energy burden should be at or below 6% of household income (20% x 30% = 6%). A 6% energy burden is the target energy burden used for affordability programs in several states (e.g., New Jersey and Ohio), and thus appears to be reasonable. It also corresponds to what U.S. Energy Information Administration data reflects is the upper end of middle- and upper-income customer household energy burdens (generally in the range of 1 to 5%). The Commission therefore adopts a policy that an energy burden at or below 6% of household income shall be the target level for all low-income customers.  The policy applies to customers who heat with electricity or natural gas. 

The utility companies submit quarterly reports documenting the number of low-income customers receiving discounts and the amount of money distributed.  However, I have been unable to find any documentation describing how many customers meet the 6% energy burden criteria, much less any information on how those numbers are changing.  The biggest problem with this energy burden program is that it only applies to electric and gas utility customers.  Citizens who heat with fuel oil, propane, or wood are not covered.  Moreover, it only considers utility costs but the economy-wide provisions of the CLCPA include transportation energy burdens.

Clearly, if this parameter is to be used for a CLCPA affordability standard, then defining what is acceptable and what is not acceptable is necessary.  Whatever affordability standard is chosen a clear reporting metric must be provided and frequent updates of the status of the implementation relative to the affordability standard provided.

It is also notable that Assistant Attorney General Meredith G. Lee-Clark submitted correspondence related to the litigation associated with Climate Act implementation.  The State’s submittal  to the petition addressed “two categories of new developments: (1) the publication of the 2025 Draft New York State Energy Plan by the New York State Energy Planning Board on July 23, 2025 and (2) additional actions by the federal government that impede New York’s efforts to achieve the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act’s (the Climate Act) goals in a timely manner.” 

The submittal means that the State of New York argued that it was inappropriate to implement regulations that would ensure compliance with the 2030 40% reduction in GHG emissions Climate Act mandate because meeting the target is “currently infeasible”.  The following paragraph concedes that there are significant upfront cost issues that out-weigh other benefits.

Ordering achievement of the 2030 target would equate to even higher costs than the net zero scenarios and would affect consumers even sooner. Undoubtedly, greenhouse-gas reducing policies can lead to longer-term benefits such as health improvements. This does not, however, offset the insurmountable upfront costs that New Yorkers would face if DEC were forced to try to achieve the Legislature’s aspirational emissions reductions by the 2030 deadline rather than proceeding at an ambitious but sustainable pace.

The letter concluded that the Climate Act is unaffordable:

Petitioners have not shown a plausible scenario where the 2030 greenhouse gas reduction goal can be achieved without inflicting unanticipated and undue harm on New York consumers, and the concrete analysis in the 2025 Draft Energy Plan dispels any uncertainty on the topic: New Yorkers will face alarming financial consequences if speed is given preference over sustainability.

Conclusion

It is impossible to ignore that multiple independent analyses, audits, litigation findings, and party filings in DPS proceedings document that the Climate Act transition will exacerbate energy affordability issues at a time when more than a million New York households are already in arrears on their energy bill.  Unfortunately, the Hochul Administration and Legislature have not adopted clear affordability metrics, a transparent tracking system, or mandatory corrective actions when affordability thresholds are exceeded.  Of course, these are bright line accountability metrics, and no political supporter of the Climate Act wants to admit their role in the New York affordability crisis.

New York Recent Rate Case Impacts on Residential Customers

In my opinion the biggest problem with the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) is that it will inevitably lead to extraordinary cost increases.  This post summarizes recent residential electric utility customers rate case decisions approved between March 2025 and January 2026. I do not discuss gas rate cases.  The New York Public Service Commission (PSC) “approved new multi-year rate plans for five major utilities—Con Edison, National Grid, Central Hudson, and Orange & Rockland—while two additional utilities (New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) and Rochester Gas & Electric (RG&E) have pending rate cases seeking significantly larger increases”. These rate increases arrive amid an escalating affordability crisis, as of December 2024, over 1.3 million households are behind on their energy bills by sixty-days-or-more, collectively owing more than $1.8 billion.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act or CLCPA) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks.  I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 600 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone. 

Background

There is a fundamental Climate Act implementation issue.  Clearly there are bounds on what New York State ratepayers can afford and there are limits related to reliability risks for a system reliant on weather-dependent resources.  The problem is that there are no criteria for acceptable affordability bounds.

Trying to decipher rate case decisions is a difficult task because of the volume of materials associated with each rate case. The PSC maintains a database that compiles all the filed documents and public comments for each rate case.  The Matter Master file for the current NYSEG rate case lists 913 filed documents and 1967 public comments.  To compile this summary, I acknowledge the use of Perplexity AI to generate summaries and references included in this document.  Assume all the results shown are referenced to the original Perplexity response.

Rate Case Results

Figure 1 summarizes the recent rates cases for Con Edison, National Grid, Central Hudson, and Orange & Rockland that have been completed since 2025.  NYSEG and RG&E have pending rate cases, so their results shown are not directly comparable.

Figure 1: New York Utility Rate Cases Impact on Residential Customer (2025-2026) – Perplexity

The NYSEG and RG&E cases are pending and the results shown represent their initial offer.  All the results shown for the other utilities had much higher initial rates. For example, Con Edison initially requested annual revenue increases of $1.612 billion for electric service (18.0 percent increase in base delivery revenues) and $440 million for gas service (18.8 percent increase in base delivery revenues). Following intense public opposition, intervention by Governor Kathy Hochul, and even comments by President Trump, and extensive settlement negotiations, the PSC approved a dramatically reduced three-year rate plan on January 22, 2026.   The approved joint proposal represents an 87 percent reduction from Con Edison’s initial request.

Utility Summaries

Con Edison’s service territory covers New York City and Westchester County with 3.6 million residential customers.  For typical NYC residential customers using 280 kilowatt-hours monthly, electric bills will increase by approximately $4 per month (3.9 percent) in 2026, $3.55 per month in 2027, and $4.22 per month in 2028, resulting in a cumulative 10.4 percent increase over three years. Westchester County residential customers using 425 kWh monthly face increases of $5.25 (2.6 percent) in year one, $4.84 (2.3 percent) in year two, and $4.95 (2.2 percent) in year three, totaling 10.1 percent over the period

National Grid’s rate case was approved on August 13, 2025.  The service territory covers 1.7 million electric customers across 25,000 square miles in Upstate New York. For residential electric customers using an average of 625 kilowatt-hours per month National Grid’s three-year upstate rate plan includes a $14.32 per month increase in year 1, a $6.44 per month increase in year 2, and a $4.34 per month increase in year 3 with an expected total increase over three years of 31%.

Central Hudson 315,000 residential customers in its Hudson Valley and Mid-Hudson region service territory.  Central Hudson’s rate case followed a unique trajectory, proceeding through litigation rather than settlement, ultimately resulting in a one-year rate plan approved on July 18, 2024, followed by a subsequent multi-year joint proposal filed on May 13, 2025, and approved on August 14, 2025.  Typical residential electric customers will experience total bill increases of approximately 7.85 percent, equating to approximately $12.65 per month.

Orange & Rockland serves 233,000 residential electric customers in Rockland, Orange, and Sullivan counties.  On March 19, 2025, the PSC adopted a three-year rate plan for Orange & Rockland that substantially reduced the utility’s initial request, keeping electric revenue flat for the first year while authorizing incremental increases in subsequent years. For residential electric customers using 600 kilowatt-hours per month the 2025 total bill increase will be 4.6 percent, in 2026 the total bill increase will be 3.3 percent and in 2027 the total bill increase will be 3.5 percent total bill increase.

New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) and Rochester Gas & Electric (RG&E) filed rate case proposals on

June 30, 2025.  The case is currently under review.  I am an active party in the rate cases and am unsure what I can say about the status.  I don’t think it is inappropriate to note that an evidential hearing is scheduled for early February.  The service territories of the two utilities are all over the state but is primarily located in Central and Western New York.  NYSEG serves 921,000 customers and RG&E serves 392,00 customers. The initial NYSEG electric request asked for an amount that works out for a typical residential customers (600 kWh electric usage) to a $33.12 per month increase (23.7 percent increase to total bill).  The initial RG&E electric request asked for an amount that works to a $33.01 per month increase (26.0 percent increase to total bill).

 Climate Act Impacts

It is unfortunate that the utilities fail to provide a breakdown of how much implementation of the Climate Act adds to these rate case costs.  I used a Perplexity AI search of the National Grid rate case to provide Climate Act cost estimates.   It found that the approved rate plans do not contain explicit breakdowns of specific dollar amounts or percentages of the rate increases allocated specifically to the Climate Act projectsand state mandated programs. The query response included the following:

CLCPA-Related Investments Identified

While specific cost breakdowns are not provided, the orders identify several CLCPA-related investment categories within the approved rate plans:

Electric System CLCPA Investments

Transmission Infrastructure:

  • CLCPA Phase 2 Transmission Projects
  • Smart Path Connect
  • Grid Modernization

Distribution System Enhancements:

  • Enhanced grid capabilities for solar, wind, and energy storage interconnection
  • Smart grid technologies to manage intermittent renewable resources
  • Electric vehicle infrastructure support programs

Historical CLCPA Investment Context

Previous utility filings and planning documents provide context for CLCPA-related costs across New York utilities:

Statewide CLCPA Transmission Investments:

  • Phase 1 Projects: Approximately $4.16 billion in transmission investments and $2.64 billion in distribution investments across all New York utilities
  • Phase 2 Conceptual Estimates: $7.62 billion in transmission and $2.16-$2.85 billion in distribution investments (conceptual estimates)

National Grid’s Historical CLCPA Share:

  • Phase 2 Transmission: $1.37 billion estimated for National Grid transmission projects
  • Phase 2 Distribution: $510 million to $1.2 billion estimated for National Grid distribution projects

Department of Public Service (DPS) staff is supposed to provide Climate Act information. On September 18, 2025 the PSC announced that they “received an update from DPS staff regarding progress toward the clean energy goals of the Climate Act”.  The Second Informational Report prepared by Department of Public Service (DPS) staff “focuses on Commission actions from January 2023 through August 2025, and includes the estimated costs and outcomes from 2023 through 2029 to provide the most up to date information.”  According to the Summary of Ratepayer Impact for Electric Utilities table, residential impacts of the Climate Act range from 4.6% to 10.3% of 2023 total monthly electric bills.  In my opinion, those estimates are conservative because there is immense pressure on agency staff to minimize the costs of the Climate Act.  In addition, the costs necessary to implement the Climate Act were ramping up in 2023.  I expect that these costs will continue to climb.

Discussion

The Perplexity summary of the rate cases raised some overarching issues.  New York residential utility bills consist of two primary components, each subject to different pricing mechanisms and contributing to overall cost increases through distinct channels.

Delivery Charges account for approximately two-thirds of bills. These charges represent what customers pay utilities to build, maintain, and operate the physical infrastructure that transmits electricity and natural gas to homes and businesses. Delivery charges remained relatively stable historically but have increased substantially in recent years to fund:

  • Infrastructure Modernization and Replacement: Utilities must replace aging equipment that has reached the end of its useful life, including transformers, substations, transmission lines, and distribution networks.
  • Grid Hardening and Storm Resiliency: Utilities must enhance system resiliency to manage severe weather events. This includes vegetation management, reinforced poles and wires, and backup systems.
  • Clean Energy Integration Infrastructure: The Climate Act mandates necessitate substantial transmission and distribution system upgrades to connect renewable energy resources, accommodate distributed generation, manage bi-directional power flows, and handle increased electrification of transportation and heating.
  • Property Taxes: Utility companies pay significant property taxes on their infrastructure, which are passed through to customers. Note that the clean energy infrastructure increases the property tax burden.
  • Return on Equity (Profit Margin): Regulated utilities earn a PSC-approved rate of return on their capital investments. Approved returns on equity in recent cases range from 9.4 percent (Con Edison) to 9.5 percent (National Grid).

Supply Charges  account for approximately one-third of bills.  They represent the actual cost of purchasing electricity or natural gas in wholesale markets. These charges fluctuate based on market conditions and are typically adjusted monthly. These have increased for the following reasons:

  • Explosive Demand Growth: New York and the broader Northeast region are experiencing unprecedented electricity demand growth driven by several factors that are fundamentally reshaping the supply-demand balance. The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) reports that the pace of new energy sources coming online is insufficient to keep pace with demand growth.
  • Wholesale electricity prices have responded predictably to this supply-demand imbalance. The average monthly wholesale electricity price in New York soared by 67 percent over the past year according to NYISO data.
  • Thermal Generation Fuel Costs: Natural gas remains the marginal fuel setting electricity prices in New York’s wholesale markets during most hours. Natural gas commodity prices have increased due to growing domestic demand (particularly for heating during cold winters), export demand for liquefied natural gas, and supply constraints.
  • Weather-Driven Consumption: The 2025-26 winter has proven particularly severe, with temperatures 15-20 percent colder than the prior year. Colder weather increases heating demand, driving up both consumption (measured usage) and market prices due to heightened competition for available supply.

Conclusion

These rate case results are unsustainable.  For all the noise made by politicians about affordability, the fact remains that the New York State Legislature or Administration has not defined affordable energy.  The Public Service Commission has an existing target energy burden set at or below 6 percent of household income for all low-income households in New York State.  I have been unable to find any documentation describing how many customers meet the 6% energy burden criteria, much less any information on how those numbers are changing.  The biggest problem with this energy burden program is that it only applies to electric and gas utility customers.  Citizens who heat with fuel oil, propane, or wood are not covered.  There is a clear need for an affordability metric that can be tracked.

Investments for New York’s Future

According to a new report from Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Greenline Insights, New Yorkers will “realize significant economic benefits, including household savings and new job creation, with the Clean Air Initiative.”  This article explains why this report is bogus on multiple levels.

I have extensive experience with market-based pollution control programs.  I have been involved in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) program process since its inception and have no such restrictions when writing about the details of the RGGI program.  I have worked on every cap-and-trade program affecting electric generating facilities in New York including RGGI, the Acid Rain Program, and several Nitrogen Oxide programs. I have also been following the New York Cap-and-Invest (NYCI) program and other similar programs in New York   The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated

Clean Air Initiative

My first thought when I read this was what is the Clean Air Initiative?   The report states: “state agencies have developed proposals for an economy-wide cap-and-invest program – known as the Clean Air Initiative (CAI).”  I have been following the economy-wide cap-and-invest program and I was unaware of any agency calling the economy-wide program anything other than the New York Cap-and-Invest (NYCI) program.  So, I used Perplexity AI to ask if any New York agencies used CAI instead of NYCI.    The response stated:

No New York State agency officially refers to the cap-and-invest program as the “Clean Air Initiative.” Throughout all Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) official documentation, press releases, regulatory proposals, and public communications from 2023 through early 2026, the program is consistently designated as:

  • New York Cap-and-Invest (NYCI) – the primary official name
  • Cap-and-Invest Program – the standard reference

I believe the answer to why these organizations use this nomenclature is directly related to the mission of the organizations. Greenline Insights “provides non-partisan research to drive smart decision-making. We specialize in modeling, analysis, and policy design to maximize positive outcomes for local workforces, businesses, and communities.” Their description of services provided states: “We work with clients to develop compelling research questions and build the right mix of tools to answer them.”  Reading between that line I think it means that if a client wants a particular answer, they will get that result.

EDF claims “Guided by science and economics, and committed to climate justice, we work in the places, on the projects and with the people that can make the biggest difference.”  According to another Perplexity AI query EDF has “strongly supported the economy-wide cap and invest program proposal included in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) Scoping Plan” finalized in 2022 and since then “has engaged in extensive and sustained lobbying and advocacy efforts to advance New York’s economy-wide cap-and-invest program since early 2023.”  EDF has a vested interest in the success of an economy-wide program.

The Perplexity AI “Deep Research” response to my query about the use of CAI the AI program concluded “The Environmental Defense Fund and allied advocacy organizations strategically adopted “Clean Air Initiative” as alternative branding to frame the program around air quality and public health benefits in their campaigns to pressure Governor Hochul to finalize and implement the regulations.”

In other words, the Clean Air Initiative terminology  is all about the messaging.

Clean Air Initiative Claims

The January 8, 2026 CAI  report announcement states:

NEW YORK — New Yorkers will realize significant economic benefits, including household savings and new job creation, with the Clean Air Initiative, a new report from Environmental Defense Fund and Greenline Insights finds.  

The report comes as New Yorkers continue to await the launch of the Clean Air Initiative: an economywide cap-and-invest program that works by simultaneously putting a limit on the tons of pollution companies can emit — “cap” — while requiring them pay for each ton of emissions, funding clean energy projects that create health and cost-saving benefits for communities — “invest.” At the same time, energy affordability remains an issue that’s top of mind for New York voters.  

“Our analysis shows that the vast majority of New Yorkers are missing out on savings and economic opportunities across the state due to delays in implementing the Clean Air Initiative,” said Kate Courtin, Senior Manager for State Climate Policy & Strategy. “The sooner this program is implemented, the sooner communities will see billions in investments that will expand access to cleaner, cheaper energy, cut pollution and create healthier, more resilient communities.” 

The report finds that, over its first decade, the Clean Air Initiative would deliver: 

$6.9 billion in net savings, or an average of $1,060 per household earning $200k per year or less — about 85% of households in the state.  

Over 300,000 new jobs, with job growth strongest in fields like construction and transit as a result of investments in clean transportation services, decarbonization of buildings, and the build-out of clean energy infrastructure.

$48 billion in economic growth supported by program investments across the state. 

“The data is clear that the Clean Air Initiative is a potent job creator and economic development tool.” said Jonah Kurman-Faber, Founder and Principal at Greenline Insights. “The program’s investments play to the state’s economic strengths and provide meaningful financial benefits to an overwhelming majority of the population.” 

Pollution Control

EDF claims without any evidence that setting a cap ensures compliance with the arbitrary limits of the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act).  The report claims that the “economywide cap-and-invest program works by simultaneously putting a limit on the tons of pollution companies can emit — “cap” — while requiring them pay for each ton of emissions, funding clean energy projects that create health and cost-saving benefits for communities — “invest.”  That is the theory.

I recently published several articles about RGGI, the existing New York cap-and-invest program for electric utility generating units that shows reality is different.  I showed that the reason NY utility emissions have dropped is because NY power plants switched from using coal and oil to using natural gas.  Natural gas emits less CO2 and was cheaper, so the observed reductions are mostly because of economic fuel switching not RGGI.  I compared the observed reductions and RGGI investment emission savings and found that the total cumulative annual emission savings represents a reduction of only 4.2% from the pre-RGGI baseline.  That comparison also found that the observed cost per ton of emissions removed is $583.  None of these results suggest that the CAI will work as claimed.

GHG emissions are directly related to energy generation.  When a GHG pollution control program caps emissions it caps energy use so capping emissions essentially rations energy use.   Combined with the RGGI results, that means that compliance with the cap can only occur if energy use is rationed

Economic Benefits

According to the announcement, Kate Courtin, Senior Manager for State Climate Policy & Strategy said that “The sooner this program is implemented, the sooner communities will see billions in investments that will expand access to cleaner, cheaper energy, cut pollution and create healthier, more resilient communities.”   I am not an economist so I submitted another Perplexity AI query asking about opportunity costs and the Greenline Insights analysis.  The summary notes:

The “Investments for New York’s Future” report by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Greenline Insights, released in January 2026, projects that New York’s Clean Air Initiative (cap-and-invest program) would generate $6.9 billion in household savings, create over 300,000 jobs, and support $48 billion in economic growth over the program’s first decade (2026-2035). While the specific methodological details of this report remain inaccessible through the provided URL, extensive research into Greenline Insights’ comparable analyses, standard input-output (I-O) modeling practices, and economic impact assessment literature reveals fundamental concerns about the treatment—or more precisely, the omission—of opportunity costs in such economic analyses.

Even a non-economist like me understands that if an analysis does not consider how the money raised by NYCI might have been used elsewhere is not considered, then that is a problem: 

Opportunity cost represents “the value of the alternative foregone by choosing a particular activity”—the benefits that could have been realized if the same resources were deployed differently. In climate policy analysis, this concept is essential because government spending and regulatory mandates redirect capital, labor, and productive resources from alternative uses. A comprehensive economic evaluation must compare not just the projected benefits of a policy against its direct costs, but also assess what economic activity would have occurred absent the intervention—the counterfactual baseline.

The response to my query raised the following issues with the Greenline Insights methodology:

1. The “Missing Peter” Problem

As economists from the Beacon Hill Institute articulated in critiquing renewable energy economic impact studies: “They are robbing Peter [existing economic activities] to pay Paul [the supported sector], and claiming the program increased total spending because now Paul spends more, but they ignore accounting for Peter”.

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Every dollar collected through allowance auctions or allocated to climate investments is a dollar unavailable for alternative economic uses—whether private consumption, business investment in other sectors, or different government priorities. Standard I-O models “cannot compute possible reductions in output and jobs elsewhere in the economy, due to the reallocation of resources towards the supported project”.

2. Assumption of Idle Resources

The typical economic impact study assumes “that the dollar that flows through the industries identified by model’s I-O tables, and the resources that they are commanding, would not otherwise be used”. This assumption may be defensible during severe recessions with high unemployment and underutilized productive capacity, but becomes increasingly problematic as economies approach full employment.

New York State added over 1 million private sector jobs since April 2020 and reached record employment levels as of September 2024. In this context, labor and capital redirected to clean energy investments necessarily displace activity in other sectors. One analysis noted explicitly: “IMPLAN cannot be used to model nonresidential sector opportunity costs, so those were not included”—a tacit acknowledgment of the methodology’s inherent limitation.

3. No Counterfactual Baseline

Rigorous policy evaluation requires comparing outcomes under the policy scenario against a well-specified counterfactual: what would have happened in the policy’s absence. This counterfactual must account for:

  • Alternative deployment of capital: If the $61-126 billion in projected cap-and-invest revenues were instead left with households and businesses, what consumption and investment would occur?
  • Baseline economic trajectories: What job growth, wage increases, and economic output would materialize under business-as-usual conditions?
  • Displaced economic activity: Which sectors contract as resources shift toward clean energy, and what are the productivity implications?

Standard I-O models do not construct this counterfactual. They measure gross economic activity associated with program spending but do not subtract the economic activity that would have occurred with alternative resource allocation.

4. The Economist’s Critique

The academic economics community has long criticized the misapplication of I-O analysis for policy advocacy. As one prominent critique states: “There’s a joke among economists who look at economic impact studies, and we say ‘Define all costs as benefits, and double them'”. This captures the tendency of such analyses to:

  • Present gross job creation without netting out job displacement
  • Calculate multiplier effects on program spending without comparable analysis of opportunity cost multipliers
  • Report total economic output without addressing whether this represents additional output or reallocated output

The response to my query concludes:

For policymakers and stakeholders evaluating the economic case for New York’s Clean Air Initiative, this means:

  • The reported economic benefits are overstated to the extent they represent reallocation of economic activity rather than net additions
  • The true net economic impact depends on the relative productivity of clean energy investments versus displaced alternatives—a comparison the analysis does not make
  • The strongest case for the policy rests on climate and health benefits, not the economic multiplier effects emphasized in the report’s communications
  • More rigorous analysis following a similar Resources for the Future approach or comprehensive cost-benefit frameworks would provide better-informed decision-making

Conclusion

This report is simply a lobbying presentation that was commissioned by EDF to support their arguments that NYCI is a good idea.  One common aspect of all these analyses is that the benefits are overstated, the costs are minimized if not ignored, and the methodology is sketchy.  I do not think that any of the job estimates and economic projections are credible.

New York Nuclear Renaissance

Governor Hochul plans to pursue “the most ambitious development of nuclear power in America, setting a new goal to build five gigawatts of new nuclear capacity”.  I believe that nuclear power is the best option to reduce electric system GHG emissions but there are issues.  This post includes Richard Ellenbogen’s description of practical deployment issues and my observations relative to the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act).

Richard Ellenbogen has been speaking to NY State policy makers and regulators since 2019 regarding the deficiencies inherent in NY State Energy policy.  He has a proven record implementing carbon reduction programs at his own manufacturing business in Westchester County where it has reduced its electric utility load by 80% while reducing its carbon footprint by 30% – 40% below that of the downstate system.  I have previously published other articles by Ellenbogen including a summary description of his issues with the Climate Act.

I am convinced that implementation of the Climate Act net-zero mandates will do more harm than good because the energy density of wind and solar energy is too low and the resource intermittency too variable to ever support a reliable electric system relying on those resources. I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 600 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Hochul Proposal

Hochul’s State of the State Book describes the nuclear proposal in the following two sections:

Establishing a Nuclear Reliability Backbone for a Zero-Emission Grid

As New York transitions to a zero-emission electric grid, the State must ensure reliable and cost effective baseload power to keep homes, businesses, and critical infrastructure running at all hours.  Governor Hochul will ensure that New York State leads in the race to harness safe and reliable advanced nuclear energy to power homes and businesses with zero-emission electricity for generations to come.

To catalyze progress towards those goals, the Governor will advance a new initiative, the Nuclear Reliability Backbone, directing state agencies to establish a clear pathway for additional advanced nuclear generation to support grid reliability. The Nuclear Reliability Backbone will be developed by a new Department of Public Service (DPS) process to consider, review, and facilitate a cost-effective pathway to four gigawatts of new nuclear energy that will combine with existing nuclear generation and the New York Power Authority’s (NYPA) previously announced one gigawatt project, to create an 8.4 gigawatt “backbone” of reliable energy for New Yorkers.

This effort will provide firm, clean power that complements renewable energy resources and reduces reliance on fossil fuel generation. By creating a stable foundation of always-on energy, the Backbone will allow renewable resources to operate more efficiently and flexibly. Together, these actions will support a resilient, flexible, and zero-emission grid that meets New York’s growing energy needs.

Ensuring New York’s Nuclear Power Future is Built By and For New Yorkers

As New York expands advanced nuclear energy, the State must ensure that New Yorkers benefit from these jobs and investments, including making sure New Yorkers are prepared to build, operate, and sustain this emerging industry. Governor Hochul will launch NextGen Nuclear New York to develop a skilled, in-state nuclear workforce through coordinated education and training pathways.

The initiative will expand partnerships across K–12 schools, higher education institutions, labor organizations, and training programs to align curricula, credentials, and career pathways with industry needs. It will also support workforce transitions for existing energy workers and increase public awareness of nuclear career opportunities. By investing in people and skills, New York will ensure its nuclear future is powered by New Yorkers, for New Yorkers.

Practical Deployment Issues – Ellenbogen

Ellenbogen recently sent an email that described his concerns about the proposal to add 5 Gigawatts (GW) of nuclear to NY State’s generation fleet that forms the basis for this article.  Because we are closely aligned on our thoughts I am not going to try to differentiate between his material and my supplemental information.  However, I take responsibility for the contents of this article and accept that I may have misquoted or misrepresented Ellenbogen’s beliefs.

For background consider New York’s nuclear power plants (Table 1).  Five gigawatts of nuclear is basically equivalent to building five new traditional reactors like Nine Mile 2, the last completed plant in New York. Note that Shoreham was completed, tested, and then shut down before it operated in the mid 1980’s.

Table 1: New York Nuclear Generating Plants

We agree on one thing completely: It’s a step in the right direction but it is too little, too late.  Building this amount of capacity will take a long time.  Nine Mile 2 construction took 13 years, and the most recent reactors built in the US at Vogtle, Georgia took 15 years from the start of initial site work.

According to a Perplexity AI query, The new Vogtle units are Westinghouse AP1000 designs with passive safety systems; The capacity of each unit is on the order of 1.1 GW.  Construction went over schedule and budget “as the first new U.S. nuclear build in decades, became a protracted megaproject with schedule slips and cost growth to roughly the mid‑$30‑billion range, widely characterized as one of the most expensive infrastructure projects in U.S. history”. These issues were caused by a “combination of incomplete design and planning, contractor and supply‑chain problems, first‑of‑a‑kind AP1000 implementation issues, weak project management and oversight, and the 2017 Westinghouse bankruptcy, which disrupted construction and financing”. 

Most of these underlying factors will be problems for New York State.  If new technology is used the design and planning will have to evolve as the plants are built.  There are contractor and supply-chain problems with existing infrastructure construction so this will be more of a problem for the new technology.  If the deployment goes so far as to mandate that the facilities are “built by and for New Yorkers”, then there will be delays because there are insufficient skilled trade workers available today.

Climate Act Schedule and Reliability Issues – Ellenbogen

The Climate Act has a requirement for zero emissions electric generation by 2040.  There is no possibility that all the nuclear capacity proposed by Hochul could be built by 2040 and there is a low probability that any new nuclear could be built by then.  Last June Hochul ordered the New York Power Authority (NYPA) to develop at least on gigawatt of nuclear capacity.  NYPA has not even announced where they might consider siting new nuclear capacity.  In my experience with power plant permitting, it takes at least three years to secure permits for existing design equipment.  There have been indications that New York would favor new designs which would slow down permitting substantially.  Finally, “Nuclear” has been a four-letter word in New York State for about 45 years so we expect opponents to try to delay permitting in every way possible.

Last November the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) released its 2025-2034 Comprehensive Reliability Plan (CRP).  The report found that “the electric grid is at an inflection point driven by the convergence of three major trends: the rapid growth of large loads, (e.g.: microchip manufacturing and AI-related data centers); the aging generation fleet; and a lack of new dispatchable generation resources being added to the system.”   The description of the CRP went on to say:

The CRP highlights that the future reliability of the grid depends on the development of flexible generation capable of performing during extended periods of high consumer demand and extreme weather. The report examines lessons-learned from the June 2025 heatwave and the need for a planning framework that better reflects present challenges of operating the grid while anticipating plausible future risks.

“The system requires additional dispatchable generation to serve forecasted increases in consumer demand,” said Zach Smith, Senior Vice President, System and Resource Planning. “We also need to refine and evolve our planning processes to better reflect this period of great change on the grid and a broader range of plausible future outcomes.”

The CRP demonstrates that due to emerging reliability challenges, traditional planning methods built around a single forecast are no longer sufficient. To maintain system reliability and protect public safety, the economy and quality of life, the CRP recommends actions that will strengthen planning processes across a broad spectrum of system conditions and advance needed investment before reliability margins disappear.

Our biggest concern is the reliability margin crisis described in the CRP.  The NYISO plausible range of reliability margins illustrates the problem (Figure 1).  The CRP doesn’t explain what is going to keep the lights on after 2033, and possibly as early as 2027 if replacement capacity does not keep up with retirements.  My Perplexity AI search found that there are no new fossil-fired capacity proposed.  While adding new nuclear capacity is appropriate, replacement of existing capacity must also be considered.  The youngest of the 3.4 GW of existing nuclear in NY State will be reaching 60 years of age by 2040.

Figure 1: Plausible Range of Statewide System Margins NYISO 2025-2034 Comprehensive Reliability Plan     

Reason to Pause – Caiazza

Over the last year I have written many articles describing various reasons to pause implementation and reconsider the schedule and scope of the Climate Act.  The State Energy Plan and the CRP both include multiple future energy projections that include estimates of capacity and grid infrastructure additions.  The CRP “recommends actions that will strengthen planning processes across a broad spectrum of system conditions and advance needed investment”. The State Energy Plan advocates massive deployment of as much wind, solar, and energy storage capacity as possible as fast as possible hoping that it will work out.

Wind and solar energy resources are diffuse, intermittent, and correlated.  Because they are diffuse, utilizing wind and solar means that transmission and distribution systems must be upgraded.  Because they are intermittent, that means that energy storage is needed on daily to seasonal scales.  Because wind and solar are correlated, new dispatchable emissions-free resources (DEFR) are needed to make the electric energy system viable during extended periods of low wind and solar resource availability.  I believe the only likely viable DEFR backup technology is nuclear generation because it is the only candidate resource that is technologically ready, can be expanded as needed, and does not suffer from limitations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Every day that the resolving the DEFR requirement is delayed the costs associated with what may be a false solution increase.  If the only viable DEFR solution is nuclear, then the wind, solar, and energy storage approach cannot be implemented without nuclear power.  Nuclear power works best as a baseload resource so using it solely as DEFR backup is inappropriate.  Developing baseload nuclear eliminates the need for a huge DEFR backup resource and means that the “build as much as we can as fast as we can” wind and solar buildout currently in progress is unnecessary.  Climate Act implementation should be paused until the most appropriate path forward is determined.

Discussion

Both Ellenbogen and I have been harping about reliability for years.  Unfortunately, no one at the state level seems to be ready to confront the problem.  It is absolutely necessary to come to grips with it.  The state government keeps trying to defy physical law by pushing technologies that can’t keep the lights on.  They need to get out of their bubble because the time frame required to fix what has become a massive problem is getting increasingly small.  The rapidly decreasing margins and negative capacity margins appear likely before new generation of any type can be built.

One of the biggest takeaways from this latest political energy proposal is the danger of political interference in energy policy.  New York politicians now claim that we need 5 GW of nuclear generating capacity.  New York politicians shut down 3.1 GW of nuclear capacity since 1984.  Hochul’s announcement is encouraging but until it must be accompanied by a pause in Climate Act implementation to be credible.  If timely decarbonization using nuclear power is appropriate, then a restart at Indian Point should be considered because it is the cheapest and quickest option.  However, that would be politically toxic so I cannot imagine that ever being proposed by the Hochul Administration. 

Conclusion

In my opinion, nuclear power should be part of New York’s electric system future.  However, Hochul’s proposal is too little, too late as part of the Climate Act implementation without revising the schedule.  It is necessary first to pause implementation and reassess the schedule and ambition of the Act so that it can play a meaningful role.

Coalition for Safe and Reliable Energy Petition

On January 6, 2026 the Coalition for Safe and Reliable Energy filed a petition with the Public Service Commission (PSC) requesting that “the Commission act expeditiously to hold a hearing pursuant to Public Service Law § 66-p (4) to evaluate whether to temporarily suspend or modify the obligations under the Renewable Energy Program established as part of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.”  Last August I described a filing and supporting documentation that I prepared with Richard Ellenbogen, Constatine Kontogiannis, and Francis Menton (Independent Intervenors) submitted to the same PSC Proceeding (Case 22-M-0149).  Our filing made a similar argument.  This article compares the filings.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act or CLCPA) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks.  I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 600 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone. 

Background

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and has two electric sector targets: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040.

There is a fundamental Climate Act implementation issue.  Clearly there are bounds on what New York State ratepayers can afford and there are limits related to reliability risks for a system reliant on weather-dependent resources.  The problem is that there are no criteria for acceptable bounds and New York energy policy has not openly reassessed where we stand relative to acceptable affordability and reliability risk.

Coalition for Safe and Reliable Energy

According to their petition the Coalition for Safe and Reliable Energy (Coalition) is “a diverse coalition consisting generally of associations, chambers of commerce and other groups representing various businesses, industries, manufacturers and constituencies from across the state, as well as two members of the state’s Climate Action Council”. Clearly, they have a vested interest in affordability because it affects their competitiveness.  Coalition members include:

  • Buffalo Niagara Builders Association
  • Buffalo Niagara Manufacturing Alliance
  • Buffalo Niagara Partnership
  • Builders Exchange of the Southern Tier
  • Business Council of Westchester
  • Capitol Region Chamber of Commerce
  • Center for Economic Growth
  • Commercial Real Estate Development Association – Upstate Chapter
  • Construction Exchange of Buffalo and Western New York
  • Engineers Labor Employer Cooperative 825
  • Greater Binghamton Chamber of Commerce
  • Greater Rochester Association of REALTORS
  • Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce
  • Manufacturers Alliance of New York
  • Manufacturers Association of Central New York
  • Manufacturers Association of the Southern Tier
  • Multiple Intervenors – An unincorporated association of approximately 55 large industrial, commercial, and institutional energy consumers with manufacturing and other facilities located throughout New York State
  • National Federation of Independent Businesses
  • New York State Association of Plumbing, Heating and Cooling Contractors
  • New York State Builders Association
  • New York State Economic Development Council
  • Niagara USA Chamber of Commerce
  • North Country Chamber of Commerce
  • Northeastern Retail Lumber Association
  • Northeast Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association
  • Power for Economic Prosperity – An active coalition of manufacturing companies that depend on low-cost hydropower from the New York Power Authority in order to maintain their operations in the Buffalo/Niagara Region.
  • Rochester Technology and Manufacturing Association
  • The Business Council of New York State – The leading business organization in New York State, representing the interests of large and small firms throughout the state. Its membership is made up of approximately 3,500 member companies, local chambers of commerce and professional and trade associations.
  • The Council of Industry, Manufacturers Association of the Hudson Valley
  • The Manufacturers Alliance of New York
  • Western New York Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Contractors
  • Also included in the Coalition are Donna L. DeCarolis and Dennis W. Elsenbeck, both members of the state’s Climate Action Council established by the CLCPA. 

The Coalition petition provides a description of each of its members

Independent Intervenor Filing

For comparison purposes I will describe the Independent Intervenor filing submitted on August 12, 2025, first.  My first post described our main argument and the second post described the supporting exhibits.  In brief, Public Service Law (PSL) § 66-p (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”.  We argued the hearing was necessary because of the significant increase in arrears threshold has been exceeded.

Independent Intervenors – Affordability 

Exhibit 3 – Affordability-Focused Recommendations documents references to affordability and reliability recommendations in the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) Document and Matter Management (DMM) System.  Rather than wading through the system I acknowledge the use of Perplexity (https://www.perplexity.ai/) to generate summaries and references included in the document.

The Perplexity summary provided the following key takeaway:

Since 2022, at least six concrete safeguards have been proposed in the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) record to keep the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act affordable for households and businesses. They call for (1) rigorous public cost reporting, (2) objective “safety-valve” triggers under Public Service Law §66-p(4), (3) systematic pursuit of alternative funding, (4) expansion of low-income bill-protection programs, (5) transparent data dashboards, and (6) stricter benefit-cost and rate-design standards.

In my opinion, these safeguards haven’t been implemented well enough to ensure affordability.  There has been no DPS staff response to any of the calls to develop affordability triggers.

Independent Intervenors – Reliability

The biggest unresolved reliability risk associated with Climate Act implementation is addressed in Case 15-E-0302 – Proceeding on Motion of the Commission to Implement a Large-Scale Renewable Program and Clean Energy Standard.  Responsible New York agencies all agree that new Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource (DEFR) technologies are needed to make a solar and wind-reliant electric energy system viable during extended periods of low wind and solar resource availability. 

Two exhibits addressed these reliability concerns.  To adequately address the amount of DEFR required it is necessary to determine how much is needed. Exhibit 4 – Resource Gap Characterization describes the challenges of defining the frequency, duration, and intensity of low wind and solar resource availability (known as dark doldrums) events.  One fundamental flaw in the Climate Act is the mistaken belief by the authors of the law that existing wind, solar, and energy storage resources would be sufficient and that no new technology would be required.  Exhibit 5 – Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources explains that this presumption is not correct. There is a need for a resource that is not currently commercially available.  This reliance on unknown solutions risks investments in false solutions and poses significant reliability risks. 

Coalition Filing

The Coalition petition states:

The Coalition for Safe and Reliable Energy, a diverse coalition consisting generally of associations, chambers of commerce and other groups representing various businesses, industries, manufacturers and constituencies from across the state, as well as two members of the state’s Climate Action Council (hereinafter referred to as the “Coalition”), hereby petitions the New York State Public Service Commission to hold a hearing pursuant to Public Service Law § 66-p (4) to evaluate whether to temporarily suspend or modify the obligations under the Renewable Energy Program established as part of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.

The preceding statement includes a footnote referencing the Independent Intervenor filing and another regulatory action that argued a heating was appropriate.  The Coalition lays out the basic argument:

 This Petition seeks Commission action authorized by the CLCPA. Recent evidence suggests that the Renewable Energy Program, and its associated renewable energy targets, may impede the provision of safe and adequate electric service and upset the necessary balance of reliable, economic and sustainable energy in New York State. This evidence justifies commencement of the hearing process in PSL § 66-p (4), which will allow the Commission to determine whether the temporary suspension or modification of the Renewable Energy Program obligations is necessary to ensure the continued provision of safe and adequate electric service. Further, the Coalition believes that any hearing held pursuant to PSL § 66-p (4) should examine the relationship between Renewable Energy Program costs and customer arrears.

The Executive Summary provides an excellent overview of the status of Climate Act implementation.

The CLCPA set extraordinarily ambitious targets for renewable energy generation in New York State, requiring that by 2030, 70% of statewide electricity generation be from renewable energy systems and that by 2040, the electric grid be zero emissions. Recent data from the Commission demonstrates that New York will not achieve – or even come close to achieving – the 70% target by 2030. In addition, recent developments at the federal level impacting clean energy are likely to have a negative impact on renewable energy in the near term. With respect to the target of zero emissions by 2040, the necessary emission-free generation resources are not currently available at commercial scale. The inability of New York to develop the amount of renewable energy generation necessary to meet the 70% target by 2030, the increasing retirement of aging fossil-fuel generators due to the CLCPA, and the uncertainty surrounding the development of resources necessary to meet the zero emissions target by 2040, presents a reliability concern.

This concern is exacerbated by the fact that it may take more than two times the amount of certain forms of renewable generation to make up for the loss of one megawatt of fossil-fuel generation, and by expected increases in electric demand driven by the combination of new large loads and electrification.

Pursuant to the PSL, the Commission is required to ensure the provision of “safe and adequate” electric service. Renewable energy development has not kept pace with generator retirements, which has resulted in declining reliability margins across New York, jeopardizing electric reliability and safe and adequate service. In recognition that the Renewable Energy Program might negatively impact electric reliability, the CLCPA includes a safeguard that allows the Commission to temporarily suspend or modify the obligations of the program, after a hearing, if it makes a finding that the program impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service. Given recent evidence regarding delayed renewable energy generation and risks to reliability, the Commission should hold a hearing pursuant to PSL § 66-p (4) to determine whether safe and adequate electric service in New York is impeded by the Renewable Energy Program and, if so, to appropriately modify or suspend the program’s obligations.

Discussion

Both filings argue that the PSC should convene a hearing to determine whether it is appropriate to temporarily suspend or modify the obligations of the Climate Act.  The Independent Intervenors argued that there was an explicit requirement for the hearing because the customers in arrears threshold has been exceeded.  The Coalition makes a persuasive argument that there are sufficient observed threats to reliability that a hearing is necessary to ensure safe and adequate service.

The other difference is that the Independent Intervenors represent the views of four individuals whose credibility lies in our technical expertise. The Coalition consists primarily of associations, chambers of commerce and other groups representing various businesses, industries, manufacturers and constituencies from across the state whose credibility is based on its political and economic clout. 

Hopefully, the Coalition filing for a hearing will engender a response from the PSC.  There has been no hint of a response to the Independent Intervenor filing.  Perhaps the Coalition represents too big a constituency to ignore.

Some may say that the Coalition position is economically self-interested and therefore should be discounted.  They could also argue that the Independent Intervenors are not qualified to speak.  I think I can speak for both parties when I say we believe our concerns have never been openly discussed and addressed by the Hochul Administration.  All we want is the chance to make our case for the need to define affordability and reliability metrics that ensure safe, affordable, and adequate service.

Conclusion

I am encouraged that there is another group making similar arguments that the time has come to convene a hearing.  All my attempts have failed but maybe the Coalition will succeed in getting the PSC to convene a hearing.

Shortcomings of RGGI Caps and GHG Emissions Reporting in the Electric Sector

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a market-based program to reduce CO2 emissions from electric generating units.  On July 3, 2025, RGGI announced that results of the Third Program Review.  On December 10, 2025 the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) announced amendments to their CO2 Budget Trading Program that would change the rules to be consistent with the RGGI Third Program Review.  This post describes two shortcomings of New York’s GHG emission reduction regulations for the electric sector. 

Dealing with the RGGI regulatory and political landscapes is challenging enough that affected entities seldom see value in speaking out about fundamental issues associated with the program.  I have been involved in the RGGI program process since its inception and have no such restrictions when writing about the details of the RGGI program.  I have worked on every cap-and-trade program affecting electric generating facilities in New York including RGGI, the Acid Rain Program, and several Nitrogen Oxide programs, since the inception of those programs. I also participated in RGGI Auction 41 successfully winning allowances and holding them for several years.   The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

6 NYCRR Part 242 – CO2 Budget Trading Program

The DEC Recently Proposed Regulations web page included the following description (accessed on 1/1/26) of the rulemaking:

The proposed amendments to 6 NYCRR Part 242 CO2 Budget Trading Program would reduce the annual budget of CO2 allowances through 2037, add a second tier of Cost Containment allowances, remove the emissions containment reserve, remove offset projects, remove eligible biomass provisions, increase the minimum reserve price, reduce the number of allowances set-aside for long term contracts and voluntary renewable energy purchases while still maintaining enough allowances to accommodate anticipated demand, and make other improvements and clarifications to the program. The Department is also proposing complementary amendments to listings of related reference material in 6 NYCRR Part 200 General Provisions. Additionally, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority is proposing to amend 21 NYCRR Part 507 CO2 Allowance Auction Program to align with the proposed amendments to 6 NYCRR Part 242. Comments on these proposed revisions must be received by February 17, 2026.

This web page also includes the following links to elements of the regulatory package:

I am only going to address emissions contradictions and the proposed reduction in the annual budget of CO2 allowances through 2037 in this post.  Eventually I will describe my comments on the proposed amendments.

NYS Electric Utility Emissions

In a recent post I described the emission reduction performance of RGGI.  In that post I compared New York’s electric generating unit emissions during RGGI to historical information using data from the Clean Air Markets Program Data (CAMPD) database.  For consistency across the entire period, I used the CO2 emissions from all programs in CAMPD.  Table 1 shows that there is an inconsequential difference between that total and emissions from just units affected by RGGI.  RGGI does not include some units that are report for NOx Budget programs and RGGI has a size limitation that excluded small units over much of the program.

Table 1: Comparison of New York State EPA CAMPD CO2 Emissions (Short Tons) for All Programs and RGGI Program

Climate Act Emissions

One point that I want to make in this post is that the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act or CLCPA) emissions accounting methodology complicates assessment of the RGGI emission cap and appears to be biased.  A recent post described the latest New York State (NYS) GHG emission inventory report based on Climate Act methodology.  The Climate Act authors mandated that emissions must use a Global Warming Potential (GWP) accounting over 20 years instead of the 100 year accounting used in RGGI.

Emission Inventory Table ES.2 in the Summary Report presents emissions for different sectors and different greenhouse gases.  There are four Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sectors and there are four  sectoral reports for energy, industrial processes and product use, agriculture, forestry and land use, and waste.  The table also includes United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) totals that use the “conventional accounting used by other governments, applies a 100-year GWP, omits biogenic CO2, and does not include emissions outside of New York State.” 

For this analysis, Table 2 extracts relevant information for the IPCC Electric Energy Sector from Table ES.2.  The table compares the CLCPA emissions that use GWP-20, includes other GHG gases, and adds non-RGGI stack emissions as well as three additional sources: imported electricity, transmission & distribution, and upstream fuel extraction.  There are two columns added that compare UNFCCC and CLCPA emission.  In 2023, the UNFCC emissions were 26.1 million metric tons (MMT) and the CLCPA emissions were 49.02 MMT.  The table clearly shows that increased emissions were the result of adding CH4 and N2O (0.18 MMT), Electricity T&D (0.12 MMT) and Imported Electricity (9.54 MMT).  The table does not explicitly address upstream fuel extraction emissions, but I estimated that they were 13.09 MMT.  That is approximately half the direct emissions total.

Table 2: ES.2: 2023 New York State GHG Energy Sector Emissions (mmtCO2e GWP20), by IPCC Sector with Comparison of CLCPA and UNFCCC Electric Power Emissions

In my opinion, the claim that fuel extraction emissions are around 50% of the direct stack emissions is extraordinary.  Table ES.2 does not explicitly list the fuel extraction component of electric power emissions.  I assumed that it would be equal to the percentage of electric power emissions to the total fuel combustion emissions.   That seems like a reasonable assumption, but the result is unrealistic. 

Projected Emissions and the RGGI Proposed Cap

The New York State Energy Plan provides the “official” emissions projections for the electric sector.  I have provided background information on my Energy Plan page.  For our purposes the thing to remember is that the Plan projects emissions for five different scenarios.  Table 3 lists projections starting in 2027 that range from 49.3 to 40.3 MMT.  The 2023 observed emissions from RGGI sources was 28.7 MMT.  Table 3 lists the proposed RGGI cap or limit on tons of CO2 permitted.  There is a big difference between the Pathways Analysis projection and the RGGI numbers.  I believe that those differences are explained by the factors affecting emissions in Table 2.

Table 3: Comparison of RGGI Proposed Part 242 Cap and State Energy Plan Pathways Analysis Electric Power Scenario Projections

In my review of the RGGI Third Program Review I explained that the RGGI states determined the proposed cap levels based on state laws like the Climate Act that mandate zero emissions by 2040.  The observed reduction trajectory simply is an extrapolation to zero.  On the other hand, the State Energy Plan modeling represents a fundamental change in official New York projection methodology.  Previously, projections assumed that emissions would get to zero no matter what.  The State Energy Plan is consistent with the estimates of the New York independent System Operator (NYISO) that do not assume zero emissions by 2040.  These estimates clearly show that the RGGI emission caps are unrealistic.

Discussion

This post describes two shortcomings of this component of New York’s GHG emission reduction regulations for the electric sector.  The emissions estimates using the Climate Act accounting fails a common-sense plausibility check.  There is simply no way that New York electric generating units affected by RGGI will be able to achieve the proposed revisions to Part 242.

I do not think that the emissions estimates for the electric sector are credible. These are indirect estimates of emissions using emission factors that project emissions based on fuel use and activity factors.  Emission factor estimates are fundamentally mass balance calculations.  I do not think it is reasonable to assume that extracting natural gas and oil would produce emissions equal to half the direct emissions.  Note that CH4 is the largest component pollutant and, given New York’s irrational obsession with it, that makes me suspect the emission factors used for methane are biased high. 

The 2025 GHG Energy Sectoral Report notes that “DEC has conducted a recalculation of upstream, out-of-state emissions from natural gas imports using a recently released updated methodology” which suggests that they recognize that there is an issue.  The report also states that “DEC continues to welcome feedback on this and any part of the current analysis.”   Given that they blew off my comments about the methane methodology that I submitted in October 2020, I believe that it this is only a gesture and while comments are welcomed making changes based on comments is not on the table.

The second issue discussed is the gap between the RGGI allowance cap trajectory and the State Energy Plan.  It is just not reasonable to think that electric generating unit emissions will be able to achieve those caps in that timeframe.  The RGGI cap on emissions essentially rations energy use because if there are insufficient permits to emit (aka allowances) affected generating units have no other options to reduce emissions so they can only shutdown to comply with the law.  If replacement zero emissions generating resources are unavailable, then the electric grid would be placed in an artificial energy shortage that would lead to blackouts.  This point will be emphasized  when I comment on the DEC Part 242 amendments.

Conclusion

This is my first post of 2026.  Sadly, there is nothing new here.  New York State agencies generate analyses and propose regulations that comply with the Climate Act narrative without considering the real world.  Reality bats last.  Is 2026 the last inning?

RGGI Cap-and-Invest Emission Reduction Performance in New York

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a market-based program to reduce emissions from electric generating units.  On December 18, 2025, New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) hosted a meeting (agenda, recording) to present proposed changes to the RGGI Operating Plan Amendment (“Amendment”) for 2026.  This post describes the trend of New York’s RGGI emissions that I will use as part of my comments on the draft Amendment.

I have been involved in the RGGI program process since it was first proposed prior to 2008.  I blog about the details of the RGGI program because very few provide any criticisms of the program.   There is no upside for companies affected by RGGI to disparage the program because it has become a sacred cow initiative that is treated as beyond criticism by agencies and activists. I have extensive experience with market-based programs because I have worked on analysis, implementation, and evaluation of every  program affecting electric generating facilities in New York including RGGI and several Nitrogen Oxide programs.  The opinions expressed in these comments do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Background

RGGI is a market-based program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) (Factsheet). It has been a cooperative effort among the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont to cap and reduce CO2 emissions from the power sector since 2008.  New Jersey was in at the beginning, dropped out for years, and re-joined in 2020. Virginia joined in 2021 but has since withdrawn and Pennsylvania recently withdrew completely.

According to a RGGI website:

The RGGI states issue CO2 allowances that are distributed almost entirely through regional auctions, resulting in proceeds for reinvestment in strategic energy and consumer programs.

Proceeds were invested in programs including energy efficiency, clean and renewable energy, beneficial electrification, greenhouse gas abatement and climate change adaptation, and direct bill assistance. Energy efficiency continued to receive the largest share of investments.

Proponents of RGGI claim the program has “successfully lowered CO2 emissions intensity and absolute emissions”.  This post will show that this conclusion is not reflected in the New York emissions trends.  In a subsequent post I will explain that ignoring the lessons of the observed reductions is leading to investment strategy decisions in the NY RGGI Operating Plan that will eventually cause serious problems.  Proposed investment descriptions include beneficial electrification, climate change adaptation, and direct bill assistance that do not reduce electric sector emissions.

New York RGGI Emissions

This analysis of annual New York CO2 emissions from electric generating units uses data from the EPA Clean Air Markets Program Data (CAMPD) database.  I downloaded unit-level data for all pollution control programs so that I can compare emissions from the start of RGGI in 2009 to a baseline before the program started.  The data include a record describing the primary fuel type These records are not standardized and include more categories than I need so I consolidated the labels as shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Consolidated Primary Fuel Type Labels

Table 2 lists the annual emissions since 2000 through 2024.  Claims that the program has “successfully lowered CO2 emissions intensity and absolute emissions” are debunked in the following table and figure.   This table lists mass CO2 emissions by fuel type along with the emission rate or intensity.  Both absolute and emissions intensity do go down.

Table 2: New York Clean Air Markets Program Data Emissions Data for All Regulatory Programs

Figure 1 clearly shows the role of fuel switching away from coal and oil and the increasing use of natural gas.  I believe that the fuel price differential for natural gas use was much greater than the added cost of RGGI allowances and thus the main driver of the observed reductions is economic fuel switching.   This figure labels the 2006 to 2008 period that I use as the baseline for “before RGGI”, the start of RGGI, and when the possibility of additional fuel switching became impossible.  If RGGI were the primary driver of emission reductions, then emission reductions would have continued to decrease after the lowest emissions in 2019, and they certainly would not have been increasing since then.  The other big takeaway from this is that 2019 was the year that the inane premature retirement of the Indian Point nuclear station began.  New York has not managed to replace generation from this zero emissions resource as emissions continue to rise.

Figure 1: New York Clean Air Markets Program Data Emissions Trend by Fuel Type

Table 3 lists the emissions reductions since the start of the RGGI program.  I included this because it shows that in 2024 CO2 emissions since the start of RGGI are 33% lower.  Also note that in 2019 emissions were 47% lower.  I included the gross load to show that gross load also decreased.  In theory this could represent displacement of fossil fired units because of RGGI investments. In my next post I will update last year’s analysis of the effect of RGGI investments that shows that is not the reason.  NYSERDA program funding status reports estimate the emission savings from their program investments.  Last year I showed that the total cumulative annual emission savings due to NYSERDA program investments through the end of 2023 that directly or indirectly affect electric generating source emissions  is 1,405,513 tons.  That means that emissions from RGGI sources in New York would have been only 3% higher if the NYSERDA program investments did not occur.  I do not expect that this will change using the 2024 data.

Table 3: New York RGGI Emissions and Gross Load Reductions Since Start of RGGI

Discussion

I have two overarching concerns about the implications of RGGI emission reduction performance.  Firstly, the RGGI cap on emissions essentially rations energy use because if there are insufficient permits to emit (aka allowances) affected generating units have no other options to reduce emissions so they can only shutdown to comply with the law.  If replacement zero emissions generating resources are unavailable, then the electric grid would be placed in an artificial energy shortage that would lead to blackouts.  Therefore, in my comments on the NYSERDA operating plan I will argue that programs that lead to emission reductions should be prioritized to prevent energy rationing.

My second concern is that idolatry of the RGGI as a program that should be replicated because of its success was a primary driver of the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act’s Scoping Plan recommendation for an economy wide cap-and-invest program.  In my last update on the New York Cap-and-Invest (NYCI) program I explained that there is potential for a judge to order that NYCI be implemented.  These data show that this magical solution will not work as advertised.

Finally, I want to put the historical and projected generating load in perspective relative to RGGI and NYCI.  The New York Independent System Operator(NYISO) annual load and capacity data report universally known as the “Gold Book” provides input for a couple of relevant graphs in NYISO 2025 Gold Book Forecast Graphs.

Figure 2 lists historical and weather normalized annual loads from 2015 to 2024.  These observed loads closely track the RGGI electric generating unit loads.  The scary issue is that NYISO is projecting significant increases in load going forward without the addition of large load facilities.  The load increases are associated with electrification strategies associated with the Climate Act.

Figure 2: NYISO Historical New York Control Area (NYCA) Annual Energy and 10-Year Forecasts (GWh)

Figure 3 also lists historical and weather normalized annual loads from 2015 to 2024 but includes “additional load growth from large loads”.  This increases the 2035 baseline around 17,000 GWh or another 10%.  This would make it all the more difficult to provide sufficient zero-emission generating resources to comply with the Climate Act mandate to have a 100% zero-emission electric grid by 2040.

Figure 3: NYISO Historical New York Control Area (NYCA) Annual Energy and 10-Year Forecasts (GWh)

Conclusion

This analysis clearly shows that the primary driver of observed emission reductions from RGGI electric generating units was fuel switching.  These results are consistent with similar analyses that I have prepared regarding RGGI emission reductions.  I will incorporate these findings in my comments on the 2026 RGGI Operating Plan Amendment stating that this observations should be reflected in the Operating Plan just like I have for the last several years.  I fully expect that NYSERDA will ignore my comments again and will continue to make investments to appease political constituencies.  Political interference in energy policy will eventually fail, it is only a matter of time.

Climate Change Perceptions

I have been meaning to write this post for a long time because I think there is an important distinction about climate change that could potentially be affected by reducing GHG emissions that is not generally recognized.  I have postponed this article because I did not want to try to explain the driving factor for my concern – ocean and atmospheric oscillations.  Andy May is a petrophysicist who has a climate blog that recently published 14 articles about atmospheric oscillations that I have used in this post.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks.  Moreover, I take the heretical position that our understanding of the causes of climate change are not understood well enough to support the idea that reducing GHG emissions represents sound policy.  I have been a practicing meteorologist for nearly 50 years, was a Certified Consulting Meteorologist, and have B.S. and M.S. degrees in meteorology.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Background

Weather and climate are often confused.  According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Ocean Service “Weather reflects short-term conditions of the atmosphere while climate is the average daily weather for an extended period of time at a certain location.”  They go on to say: “Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.” 

The standard climatological average is 30 years.  It is important to understand that programs like the Climate Act’s GHG emission reduction targets are intended to reduce global warming over longer time scales than 30 years.  Statements suggesting that even if aggressive mitigation reduces greenhouse gases  that temperature will still increase for 20-30 years due to inertia in the climate system are based on the premise that CO2 is the control knob for the climate.

I often hear and have noticed myself that “winters aren’t what they used to be” and that leaves are turning color later than the past.  The goal of this article is to show that there are climatic oscillations with time periods greater than 30 years that are likely causing these perceived examples of climate change.  However, I will show there is no connection between those observations and the value of the Climate Act as a potential reason to reduce GHG emissions in hopes of changing those observations.

Climate Oscillation Analysis

Earlier this year Andy May published 14 articles about climate oscillations in the oceans and atmosphere. I think his analysis is notable because it is data driven.  The basis of his analysis is articles describing observed oceanic and atmospheric changes, not modeled simulations.  Given the complexity of the interactions between oceans and the atmosphere and the poor understanding of their relationships, assuming that modeled simulations are credible is not reasonable. 

His articles provide compelling evidence that each of the 14 oscillations is natural.  I believe his work provides sufficient evidence proving that “each oscillation is natural and has been around since the pre-industrial period, or even earlier, and thus is natural and not random variability.”  This is important relative to claims that reducing the GHG emissions will affect global temperatures. 

May’s work consists of a statistical regression analysis of observed features in the oceans and atmospheres that have occurred over many years.  He uses the HadCRUT5  global average temperature data set used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to track global warming in his analyses.  May offers the following caveat about his work.

Finally, this is a regression analysis to predict HadCRUT5 with climate oscillations to try and detect the climate oscillations that best correlate to “global warming.” This is not a climate model, it is not an attempt to make a climate model, it is only a statistical exercise. Statistics and statistical analysis are not proof of anything, it isn’t even scientific analysis, they are just useful tools to sort through datasets. Just as AI is not intelligent, statistics is not science, both are useful tools.

Climate Oscillations

May’s work consisted of the following posts:

In Climate Oscillations 1: The Regression May provides the following table that lists the oceanic and atmospheric oscillations considered in his series of articles.  For each of these oscillations he did a statistical regression analysis.  The first seven of the oscillations correlated with the GMST measured using HadCRUT5.  May points out that “HadCRUT5 is not representative of global climate, it is just an average temperature”.  Nonetheless, it is the primary climate change parameter.  The rationale for the Climate Act uses climate change and global warming interchangeably.

May Table 1. A list of the climate oscillations discussed and analyzed in this series. The first eight oscillations are listed in order of importance in modeling HadCRUT5, the remaining six did not add to the model. The links in this table will not work, to see the list in a spreadsheet with working links, download it here.

I am not going to review each post in this article but will describe several of the oscillations. If you want to review the articles and are content with a summary using Perplexity AI I did get a review of his work.    It notes:

The series begins with a foundational regression analysis that ranks fourteen major climate oscillations by their statistical correlation with HadCRUT5 global surface temperature. May’s analysis reveals that the top three oscillations—the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), Western Hemisphere Warm Pool (WHWP) area, and Southern Annular Mode (SAM)—together explain 77% of HadCRUT5 variability since 1950. This finding directly contradicts the IPCC’s characterization of these oscillations as unpredictable “internal variability” with minimal influence beyond a few years.

The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) has the most significant relationship with global mean surface temperature (GMST).  There are several definitions based on different measurements.  For example, Gray, et al. use detrended raw tree-ring measurements to demonstrate “a strong and regular 60-100 year variability in basin-wide (0-70°N) North Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs) that has been persistent for the past five centuries.”

The general approach used by May is simple.  Figure 4 plots GMST using the HadCRUT 5 data and the AMO parameter using the HadSST 4.1 data.  It is obvious that the two parameters track well.  May used regression analysis to show the strength of the relationship. Note the variation in global temperature since 1850 shown in this graph.  The first challenge for proponents of the idea that CO2 is the driver of climate change is that it is acknowledged that it is only since 1950 that CO2 has affected global warming.  So, what happened in the past to cause the observed variations?   I do not think it is reasonable to claim that all the natural drivers that caused variations before 1950 stopped and global warming became entirely dependent upon CO2 since, but that is the argument used by Climate Act proponents.

May Figure 4. HadSST and HadCRUT detrended temperature anomalies plotted together. Both anomalies are from 1961-1990 originally but are from their respective linear least squares trends. This is updated from figure 2 in (May & Crok, 2024).

May points out:

The reason for the AMO SST 60-70-year pattern is unknown, but according to Gray et al. it extends back to 1567AD, so it is a natural oscillation of some kind. Some have speculated that it is a result of the thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic or a “combination of natural and anthropogenic forcing during the historical era.” (Mann, Steinman, & Miller, 2020). But while interesting these ideas are speculative. Further if the oscillation has existed since 1567, it seems unlikely that it is caused by human CO2 and aerosol emissions.

The AMO has the best correlation with GMST in all the statistical analyses.  Combined with two other oscillations –  Western Hemisphere Warm Pool (WHWP) area, and Southern Annular Mode (SAM) these three  explain 77% of HadCRUT5 variability since 1950.

The Western Hemisphere Warm Pool Area (WHWP) is an area of abnormally warm ocean that extends from the eastern North Pacific (west of Mexico, Central America, and Columbia) to the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and well into the Atlantic during the WHWP peak in August and September.  Because this area is important to hurricane formation, the strength and extent of the warm pool is important.  May points out that the WHWP  combined with the Antarctic Oscillation or Southern Annular Mode and the AMO predict GMST well.  He concludes that “This suggests that The North Atlantic and the Southern Hemisphere circulation patterns correlate very well with global climate trends, CO2 may fit in there somewhere, but it must share the spotlight with these natural oscillations.”

The Southern Annular Mode/Antarctic Oscillation (AAO) is defined as the difference between the zonal (meaning east-west or circumpolar) sea level air pressure between 40°S and 65°S.  This parameter has a powerful influence on global climate and can affect weather in the Northern Hemisphere (Lin, Yu, & Hall, 2025), in particular the Warm Arctic-Cold Eurasian weather pattern that causes a lot of extreme winter weather. The AAO also affects the Indian summer monsoon and other eastern Asia weather phenomena.

Synthesis

The final article in the series, Climate Oscillations 12: The Causes & Significance, addressed the claim by proponents of the Climate Act that “ocean and atmospheric oscillations are random internal variability, except for volcanic eruptions and human emissions, at climatic time scales.”  May explains:

This is a claim made by the IPCC when they renamed the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) to the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability (AMV) and the PDO to PDV, and so on. AR6 (IPCC, 2021) explicitly states that the AMO (or AMV) and PDO (or PDV) are “unpredictable on time scales longer than a few years” (IPCC, 2021, p. 197). Their main reason for stating this and concluding that these oscillations are not influenced by external “forcings,” other than a small influence from humans and volcanic eruptions, is that they cannot model these oscillations, with the possible exceptions of the NAM and SAM (IPCC, 2021, pp. 113-115). This is, of course, a circular argument since the IPCC models have never been validated by predicting future climate accurately, and they also make some fundamental assumptions that simply aren’t true.

This is a good point to remind readers that little fluctuations in incoming radiation have big impacts on the climate.  The Milankovitch theory is the most widely accepted cause of glaciation.  It states  that variations in earth’s orbit and tilt cause changes in the amount of sunlight that cause climate fluctuations strong enough to trigger continental glaciers. 

May’s analysis finds relationships between similarly small external variations that correlate with global surface temperatures.  Note however that proponents of CO2 as the control knob disregard all climate drivers but the greenhouse effect.    May explains:

Finally, oscillations are inconsistent with anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions as a dominant forcing of climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions do not oscillate; recently they have only increased with time. So, we will examine the relationship between solar and orbital cycles and the climate oscillations. As Scafetta and Bianchini (2022) have noted, there are some very interesting correlations between solar activity and planetary orbits, and climate changes on Earth.

May’s final article describes multiple observed oscillations including a period of about ~64 years, ±5 years (Wyatt, et al., 2012), Nathan Mantua and colleagues (Mantua, et al., 1997) identified 20th century “climate shifts” which results in a major multidecadal climate oscillation of 22 to 30 years and there are shorter 2-, 5-, 5-, and 9-year observed oscillations.  Note that there also are other cycles that are longer than these.

The ~64 year oscillation is of particular interest.  Marcia Wyatt’s “stadium wave” hypothesis shows that a suite of global and regional climate indicators vary over roughly the same 64-year period.  Wyatt explains:

“Stadium wave” is an allusive term for a hypothesis of multidecadal climate variability. Sequential propagation of an “audience wave” from one section of sports fans to another in a sports arena – i.e. a “stadium wave” – is analogous to the premise of the climate stadium-wave hypothesis. It, too, involves sequential propagation of a signal. In the case of the climate stadium wave, propagation proceeds sequentially through ocean, ice, and atmospheric systems. Key to signal propagation is network, or collective behavior – a feature ubiquitous throughout natural and man-made systems, a product of time and self-organization.

I think of climate as a product primarily of the climate stadium wave cycle plus contributions from other oscillations.  May explains:

If we define “global climate change” as the observed changes in HadCRUT5 or BEST global mean surface temperature (GMST) as the IPCC does, then the oscillations that correlate best are the AMO and the global mean sea surface temperature (SST) as shown in figure 2. None of the other oscillations correlate well with GMST.

In figure 2, the gray curve is a 64-year cosine function. It fits the 20th century data but departs significantly around 2005 and before 1878. The early departure could be due to poor data, the 19th century temperature data is very bad, see figure 11 in (Kennedy, et al., 2011b & 2011). Data quality problems still exist today, but are much less of a factor and the departure after 2005 is likely real and could be caused by any combination of the of the two following factors:

  1. Human-emitted greenhouse gases.
  2. The full AMO/world SST/GMST period is longer and/or more complex than we can see with only 170 years of data.

It is probably a combination of the two. As discussed by Scafetta and Stefani, climate, orbital, and solar cycles are known to exist that are longer than 170 years. The fact that I had to detrend all the records shown in figure 2 testifies to that. It is also noteworthy that the ENSO ONI trend since 2005 is trending down; as shown in the last post. So is the current PDO trend. All the notable oscillations are not synchronized, teleconnections or not, climate change is not simple. The trends in figure 2 result from complex combinations of gravitational forces and teleconnections (Scafetta, 2010), (Ghil, et al., 2002), and (Stefani, et al., 2021).

Discussion

May gives a concise summary of the potential human influence that has never been considered by the State of New York:

Whether global warming is a problem or not is in dispute, but it is a fact that the world is warming, and some are concerned about it. What is the cause of the warming? Is it natural warming after the cold winters of the Little Ice Age? Is it caused by human emissions of CO2? Most of the natural ocean and atmospheric circulation oscillations examined in this post are not modeled properly (some say not modeled at all) in current global climate models (Eade, et al., 2022). The IPCC AR6 report admits that the AMO (they call it the “AMV”) signal in the CMIP6 climate models is very weak, specifically on page 506:

“However, there is low confidence in the estimated magnitude of the human influence. The limited level of confidence is primarily explained by difficulties in accurately evaluating model performance in simulating AMV.” (IPCC, 2021, p. 504)

In other words, the models that predict gloom and doom that are used as the rationale that we must reduce New York GHG emissions don’t accurately predict the oscillation that correlates best with global temperatures.  If you cannot model this relationship, then the likelihood that future temperature projections are accurate is zero.

In addition, NYSERDA presentations at meetings consistently attribute the latest extreme weather events to climate change.  Maybe someday I will explain why I think that is completely divorced from reality and only serves to support the narrative that there is an existential threat.  In the meantime Roger Pielke, Jr. recently eviscerated this line of reasoning and those that continually use it.  He points out that this approach is “counter to the terminology, frameworks, and assessments of the IPCC and the broad base of research on which the work of the IPCC is based upon.”  I strongly recommend his article as definitive proof that the Hochul Administration picks and chooses the “science” to fit their narrative.

Conclusion

The intent of this article was to explain why anecdotal “evidence” of climate change is no more than recognition that there are weather pattern cycles that currently show warming.  It does not mean that there is conclusive evidence that continued GHG emissions will inevitably increase global temperatures.  There is overwhelming evidence that the current warming cycle will eventually reverse.  This does not mean that GHG emissions are not a factor but does mean they are a tweak not the primary driver.  This combined with the fact that New York GHG emissions are so small relative to global emissions that we cannot meaningfully affect global emissions means that GHG emission reductions for the sake of the climate is a useless endeavor.

Failure of the Energy Plan Stakeholder Process

On December 16, 2025 the Energy Planning Board  approved the State Energy Plan. Despite all the talk about public participation the fact is that the stakeholder process was a failure.  It has no credibility because it did not publicly address all stakeholder comments.  At the start of the Draft Energy Plan comment period I published an article expressing my fear that this process would replicate the perfunctory treatment of stakeholder comments in the development of the Scoping Plan.  All my fears came true. 

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act or CLCPA) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks.  I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 600 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Energy Plan

The New York State Energy Plan is billed as a “comprehensive roadmap to build a clean, resilient, and affordable energy system for all New Yorkers”. According to the Energy Plan Process webpage:

In September 2009, a law was passed that statutorily establishes the State Energy Planning Board and calls on that Board to launch an energy planning process and to complete a State Energy Plan (opens in new window). The goal of the planning 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. To support the development of the State Energy Plan, numerous white papers, forecasts, and policy documents are developed based on input from energy experts and concerned citizens. 

I have provided background information and a list of relevant articles including summaries of recent meetings on my Energy Plan page. 

State Energy Plan Stakeholder Process

This description of the process is based on the Summary for Policy Makers Public Input, Section 1.2.  In July 2025, the Energy Planning Board approved the release of the Draft Plan for public comment.  The public comment period ran from July 23, 2025, to October 6, 2025.   Nearly 15,000 written comments on the Draft Plan were submitted, with over 250 from organizations and the balance from individuals (80% of which were through 13 comment campaigns).  A “thematic summary of public comments” was discussed at the November 2025 meeting of the Energy Planning Board.  On December 16, 2025, the Board summarily approved the State Energy Plan.

The process is playacting.  The outcome was never in doubt.  Despite claims about the value of public engagement and input to inform the development of the State Energy Plan there is no record showing that all the input was considered.  On October 7th the Energy Plan comment website promised that “All comments will be posted on the State Energy Plan website as soon as practicable” but they were only posted immediately after the 16 December Planning Board meeting where the Plan was approved.  During the State Energy Planning Board meeting presentation on November 13 Karl Maas stated: “This presentation and its appendix, which includes comments on each plan chapter, will be posted after this meeting.”  I used Perplexity AI to search for the appendix and confirmed that my search of the Energy Plan website had not missed that this was posted.  Perplexity concluded: “The State Energy Planning Board failed to follow through on its commitment to publicly release the detailed comments appendix, despite the explicit promise made during the meeting. This lack of transparency undermines the credibility of the public comment process for the Draft State Energy Plan.”  The only record of the comments received was a list of comments searchable by “comment text, commenter name, group name, etc.”

The bottom line is that the Energy Planning Board members were never given a comprehensive summary of all the comments.  I believe that they were never told anything that negatively reflected on the Administration’s narrative that the Energy Plan represented a comprehensive roadmap to “build a clean, resilient, and affordable energy system for all New Yorkers”.

My Stakeholder Process Concerns

In early August I published an article stating that I was worried that the Hochul Administration would just go through the motions of using stakeholder input.  My primary concern was the need for a transparent and comprehensive stakeholder process.  I included two examples of issues that I had highlighted as problems in the Scoping Plan that were also present in the Energy Plan. 

I argued that a credible stakeholder process needs two components. The first is interactive meetings.  In this process NYSERDA read their findings from scripts and gave the Energy Planning Board the opportunity to ask questions but never took questions from the public.  During the public comment meetings, people were given two minutes to speak, no opportunity to ask questions, and NYSERDA staff at the meeting never asked questions.   If the State was serious about considering public input for the energy plan, then they would hold a series of meetings to cover specific technical topics that includes interactive sessions.

The second component of a credible process is a public response to all the substantive comments submitted.  Documentation describing specific comments, responses to the issues raised by comments and the recommendation for resolution in the final Energy Plan should be provided to the Energy Planning Board, the Public Service Commission and the public.  If the State is to have any credibility regarding their Energy plan stakeholder process, then they must provide documentation showing that all the comments were considered and addressed.  To be trustworthy the authors of the documents at the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority should explain why issues raised in comments don’t need to be addressed.  Importantly,  this information was especially necessary for the Energy Planning Board to consider when they voted on accepting the Energy Plan.

Reaction to Stakeholder Process

I searched through the transcript of the statements made at the Energy Planning Board meeting to see how Board members referenced the stakeholder process.  Eight members mentioned the stakeholder process.  Consdider two examples.  Chair Harris claimed, “In the last four months alone, our draft, we have delivered significant ground in terms of updating our draft plan to incorporate thousands of public comments”.  NYSERDA’s Karl Maas said the Energy Plan “represents the work conducted by dozens of State Energy staff and technical experts informed by stakeholders and public commenters and ultimately shaped by members of this Board.”

In reality, the incorporation of comments by stakeholders and public commenters was incomplete. I will show examples where my comments were not acknowledged but had bearing on material presented in the Final Energy Plan and presumably could have influenced votes to approve the Plan.

One of the emphasized points in descriptions of the Plan was that “Implementing New York’s State Energy Plan is projected to improve air quality, resulting in public health benefits for all communities throughout the State, with the greatest benefits realized in disadvantaged communities.”  This point warranted its own Public Health Impacts Fact Sheet.  However, I submitted comments explaining that there were issues with the numbers in the following table from the Fact Sheet.

All these health benefits are based on air quality impacts estimated using a methodology that is based on the premise that air quality improvements associated with reductions in GHG emissions are the driver for these health effects.  My comments raised issue with that presumption. 

NYSERDA tried to determine community-scale impacts with the resolution required to predict impacts to disadvantaged communities.  This is an enormous challenge given the number of emission sources and receptor locations, the characteristics of the pollutants considered, and difficulty projecting future emissions for all of society.  As a result, a “newly developed air quality and health impacts modeling framework—the NY Community-Scale Health and Air Pollution Policy Analysis (NY-CHAPPA) model —rather than using the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) CO-Benefits Risk Assessment Health Impacts Screening and Mapping Tool (COBRA)” was used.  My comments showed that this new model over-simplified the relationship between sources and receptors.  The most important factor affecting pollution impacts is wind direction.  NYSERDA modeling only used four wind directions whereas COBRA uses 16.  They also only used one year of observed data instead of the five typically used.  Using one year of data weakens the estimates but using only four wind directions invalidates the projected estimates.  NYSERDA evaluated model performance to justify using their new model by comparing observed historical concentrations against future predicted concentrations.  That approach is  laughably inappropriate.  I do not deny that reductions in most of the pollutants will improve air quality but assigning quantitative values to the improvements is inappropriate because the modeled numbers are so imprecise.

I also demonstrated that the asthma exacerbation metric was invalid.  This metric claims a reduction in emergency room visits due to asthma is related to reductions in inhalable particulate concentrations.  I demonstrated the the approach used is wrong. I showed that there are environmental, socio-economic, healthcare access, clinical, comorbidity, behavioral, clinical management and psychosocial confounder factors affecting asthma.  Claiming that any one of the factors affecting emergency room visits is the unique cause of observed changes in asthma rates is not likely to represent what is happening.  My comments also documented that the claim that there would 1300 avoided emergency room visits due to reductions in inhalable particulate concentrations were invalid.  I compared the observed inhalable particulate concentrations with the observed emergency room visits and found no correlation.  Correlation does not prove causation, but no correlation means that there cannot be causation.

Discussion

Everyone associated with the Energy Plan process brags about how there is a “robust” stakeholder process that “informed” the process.  This article debunks those claims. 

This article gives two examples of impactful issues that I identified in my comments that were not acknowledged, much less addressed.  With all due respect, no one at NYSERDA has the air pollution meteorology experience that I do.  The failure to act on expert input that impacts the analysis and results means that New York’s energy plan is not as good as it could be. 

NYSERDA notes that “Nearly 15,000 written comments on the Draft Plan were submitted, with over 250 from organizations and the balance from individuals (80% of which were through 13 comment campaigns).”  I acknowledge that sifting through the volume of comments is a challenge.  However, most of the comments from organizations and campaigns are similar so the number of unique comments is much less.  Moreover, comments like that are typically thinly veiled lobbying submittals supporting their vested, and probably, financial interests, instead of comments addressing particular technical issues..  Those comments can be addressed simply an would reduce the total response to muc less than the number of comments submitted. 

I believe that NYSERDA must develop a stakeholder comment process that raises substantive issues to another level of consideration.  For example, there could be technical issue workshops where a dialogue between NYSERDA and stakeholders is encouraged and a resolution to the problem developed.  For example, such a workshop would recommend that in the next edition of Energy Plan that the NY-CHAPPA model be modified to use more wind directions.

The stakeholder process associated with regulations proposed by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) require the agency to respond to all comments.  That addresses one of my recommendations, but DEC also cannot interact with anyone once the regulation has been formally proposed.  That means that my second recommendation that interactive meetings are necessary is not possible.  NYSERDA has no such restriction but refuses to respond to comments in any way.

Finally, there are two other ramifications. First, I gave two examples of many that I found in my evaluation but could have provided many more.  There is no doubt that others raised many other technical issues associated with the Draft Energy Plan that were similarly impactful and not addressed.  The second issue is that this information is especially necessary for the Energy Planning Board to consider when they voted on accepting the Energy Plan.  That they voted with incomplete information is another example of why the New York stakeholder process is simply political theater.

Conclusion

The State Energy Plan is too important for it to be a politicized process.  The flaws in the stakeholder process of the recently approved Energy Plan prove that the process is undeniably politicized.  Selective treatment of stakeholder input does not further the goals of the Hochul Administration to provide a “comprehensive roadmap to build a clean, resilient, and affordable energy system for all New Yorkers”.

December Reasons to Pause the CLCPA

I am very frustrated with the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net zero transition because the reality is that there are so many issues coming up with the schedule and ambition of the Climate Act that it is obvious that we need to pause implementation and figure out how best to amend the law  I believe that there are three general reasons to amend the Climate Act: affordability, reliability, and environmental impacts.  This post highlights recent articles in each category that provide additional reasons to pause.

I am convinced that implementation of the Climate Act net-zero mandates will do more harm than good because the energy density of wind and solar energy is too low and the resource intermittency too variable to ever support a reliable electric system relying on those resources. I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 600 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Affordability

Governor Hochul’s letter announcing the approval of the State Energy Plan states: “If any state can show the nation that a clean energy transition can be reliable, affordable, and achievable, it’s New York.”  Gaslighting involves repeatedly denying, distorting, or contradicting what the target knows or observes so that they begin to question their reality and judgment.  The Hochul Administration is gaslighting us to cover up the fact that the recently approved State Energy Plan analysis shows the clean energy transition costs are anything but affordable.  The analysis of energy affordability with a sensitivity for equipment costs analysis  shows that when the levelized costs of the appliances and vehicles necessary to meet the Climate Act household zero-emissions goals are included energy costs increase $593 month for a moderate Upstate household that uses natural gas and has two gasoline vehicles.  Insufficient information to calculate similar costs for other household profiles was provided.

This is a common feature of all states that have similar ambitions.  Energy Bad Boys Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling released a report this week entitled Blue States, High Rates that Always On Energy Research coauthored with the Institute for Energy Research. You can access the entire report here.

The report includes the following section describing New York:

Federal data show New York’s electricity prices were 58% higher than the national average and 62% higher than Florida’s, based on the average all-sectors rate from January 2025 to August 2025.

Furthermore, a study from the left-leaning Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) found New York has experienced some of the fastest increases in electricity prices in the country. Retail electricity prices for residential customers increased by 36% between 2019 and 2024, nearly three times faster than the national average and the second-fastest increase in the country during this period, after California.

PPI determined that electricity is expensive in New York due to a wide range of factors, but the report clearly explains: “The convergence of shrinking supply and rising demand inevitably leads to upward price pressures for consumers. These costs are compounded by the immense capital investment required to transform the grid and specific policy choices that increase the cost of energy production [emphasis added].”

For example, New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) constitutes a massive renewable energy mandate, requiring the state to produce 70%of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and 100% by 2040, which will require substantial capital investments financed by ratepayers.

At the same time, the state’s firm capacity is being diminished by the premature closure of the Indian Point nuclear power plant, the state’s decision to deny the expansion of needed natural gas pipelines, and the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s decision to block a number of necessary upgrades for natural gas power plants, which the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) warns could cause an increased risk of power shortages over the next five years.

Prices are also rising in response to state policies mandating the electrification of buildings and transportation, which are straining New York’s already overburdened grid and necessitating additional infrastructure buildouts. The state also suffers from natural gas supply issues due to its decision to ban hydraulic fracturing. In addition, ratepayers effectively pay a tax on carbon dioxide emissions as part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

The expenses associated with these policies are projected to be so large that New York Governor Kathy Hochul delayed implementing the state’s cap-and-tax mandates under the 2019 climate law. The state claimed the regulations would be “infeasible” because they would impose “extraordinary and damaging costs upon New Yorkers.” The Governor has approved two natural gas pipelines as part of a rumored deal with the Trump Administration to approve offshore wind facilities.

New York’s attempts to show the nation that a clean energy transition can be reliable, affordable, and achievable will never succeed.

Reliability

Rafe Champion recently described the work of Anton Lang, widely known in the Australian energy discourse by his pseudonym “TonyfromOz.  ”  For over five years he has updated his weekly series of posts that documents data collection and recording for wind power generation in Australia. 

His work  highlights a reliability issue that in my opinion, has not been adequately addressed In New York despite my attempts to get the issue considered since September 2020.  Responsible New York agencies all agree that new Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource (DEFR) technologies are needed to make a solar and wind-reliant electric energy system viable during extended periods of low wind and solar resource availability.  Case 15-E-0302 – Proceeding on Motion of the Commission to Implement a Large-Scale Renewable Program and Clean Energy Standard addresses the fact that there is no commercially available technology for this resource.

Lang’s analysis addressed my ultimate reliability concern.  How much DEFR will be required to keep the lights on when needed most?  Lang documents “wind droughts”.  Champion notes:

Through his analysis of Australian Energy Market Operator records, Lang has identified numerous instances where wind generation across the entire National Electric Market (spanning Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania) has fallen to less than 5% of its installed capacity. He points out that these droughts often coincide with high-pressure systems during winter or summer peaks when demand is at its highest. Lang’s work poses a fundamental challenge to the “the wind is always blowing somewhere” mantra, showing that when a large high-pressure cell sits over the Great Australian Bight, the entire fleet of thousands of turbines can fall silent simultaneously.

These droughts are a global phenomenon and occur in New York.  In my opinion, New York should evaluate data going back to 1950 to determine the worst-case drought.  If those results were available, we could discuss what to do about the likely result.  I suspect that deploying DEFR capacity sufficient to prevent the worst-case blackout will be extremely expensive and will need to use resources with expected lifetimes less than the return period of the worst case.  I believe this is a strong reliability case against relying on weather-dependent resources to the point that DEFR is required.  New York has not determined this renewable capacity decision point.

Environmental Impacts

In my Draft Scoping Plan comments I noted that on September 17, 2020 the Final Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) for the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act was released.  It covered the “environmental impacts of the offshore wind and distributed solar procurement goals, and the estimate of utility-scale solar capacity required to meet the meet the 70 by 30 goal” based on the resources estimated necessary at that time.  Since then, considerably more resources have been projected, but the cumulative assessment has not been updated.

Syracuse.Com recently published an opinion piece submitted by residents living near the planned Liberty Renewables wind farm in the town of Fenner, Madison County.   These people live near 20 250-foot wind turbines that came online in December 2001.  This is the kind of wind resource modeled in the 2020 cumulative analysis and the opinion piece describes the cooperative process that characterized siting those turbines.  That has changed:

Liberty Renewables, representing an international energy company, came to Fenner, Nelson, Smithfield and Eaton; secured leases from some small, and often struggling farms and residents; and developed a large-scale project of 24 700-feet-tall wind turbines. Twelve of these would be sited in Fenner and in the middle of our thriving neighborhood of 230 homes and farms. Liberty Renewable’s tactics in securing leases and in dealing with our objections have been questionable.

They go on to point out that the cooperative siting process is broken:

At one time, state laws gave municipalities a say if New York state had approved hydrofracking. Now these state laws have been set aside, undermining our local town councils. Our town supervisors have been diligent in investigating, attending public hearings and keeping the citizens informed, but have not had a seat at the table and the town’s investigations have been ignored. This is immoral, unethical and cruel. Our state should be protecting its citizens and supporting its local democracies, not punishing us in our very own neighborhoods. We are furious and broken-hearted that, in the name of saving our climate, we would be treated with such disrespect and forced to live with such a massive industrial project.

I conclude that in addition to their concerns, the cumulative impacts of these monstrous wind turbines have not been considered.  To meet the generating capacity needed to fulfill the projections in the State Energy Plan, I expect that all land-based wind facilities will use these turbines that are twice the size of the current 20 turbines and twice the height of the State Tower Building in downtown Syracuse.

Conclusion

We cannot afford the Climate Act, the proposed reliance on weather-dependent resources is dangerous, and the environmental impacts being shoved down rural areas is unconscionable.  Please contact your legislators and demand accountability.