Climate Act Scoping Plan – Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York

Climate Act Scoping Plan Toolkit

The Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) website was extensively revised at the start of 2023. It includes a link for the Scoping Plan Toolkit which is described as “resource to help community and partner organizations” with specific “resources to facilitate conversations about New York’s climate work.” As I was working on an article about the cap and invest program I noticed that there were two fact sheet pdf files for cap and invest: Cap-and-Invest One Pager [PDF] and Cap-and-Invest vs. Cap-and-Trade vs. Carbon Tax [PDF]. This is a short post about the new format of the website and the cap and invest “toolkits”.

The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Climate Act Website

The Climate Act website was revised at the start of 2023. Now it is a public relations site to sell the Climate Act. It has been revised so that it is more accessible to smart phones with large text fonts and splashy graphics. The main internal links cover “Our Impact”, “Get Involved”, News & Events”, “Resources” and “Partner Toolkit”. I list the links within each of these categories below:

“Our Impacts”

“Get Involved”

“News & Events”

“Resources”

“Partner Toolkit” Fact Sheets

There is blog post fodder in every one of these links. For example, the lead for the Addressing Energy Affordability Concerns link says “As energy prices rise, we must power our future focused on clean and renewable resources.” Not included in the platitudes and talking points within the link is a reference to the experience of any jurisdiction that has pushed the use of wind and solar resources over fossil fuel that has actually lowered consumer bills. It is all flash and style for pushing the narrative without substance.

Cap and Invest Toolkit Fact Sheets

This post is going to introduce issues associated with the cap and invest toolkits. There are two fact sheets for the cap and invest program: Cap-and-Invest One Pager [PDF] and Cap-and-Invest vs. Cap-and-Trade vs. Carbon Tax [PDF]. When I first started looking at these resources. I found that they both linked to the cap and invest program one pager. I alerted a contact I have known for years because there is no contact on the web pages. The next morning the link to the Cap-and-Invest vs. Cap-and-Trade vs. Carbon Tax was changed so someone else caught the problem. I also question the label of the one pager document. The author’s interpretation is that a one pager means two sides of one page. I think the generally accepted implication is to condense the summary to a single page.

I am going to do a more detailed post on the cap and invest plan toolkits but for now I just want to make one point. Both fact sheets extoll the virtues and success of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) cap and invest program. New York utilities have been covered by that program since 2009 and New York agencies never lose the opportunity to claim that it has been a success. I have been involved in the RGGI program process since its inception and have written many articles about the details of the RGGI program.

In early December I evaluated the 2020 RGGI Investment Proceeds report that describes the results of RGGI investments over the entire region. I found that since the beginning of the RGGI program CO2 emissions have been reduced more than 50% but that RGGI funded control programs have been responsible for only 5.6% of the observed reductions. The main reason for the reductions has been fuel switching to natural gas. When the sum of the RGGI investments is divided by the sum of the annual emission reductions the CO2 emission reduction efficiency is $818 per ton of CO2 reduced.

In late December I did a similar analysis of just the New York investment proceed results. I found that in New York since the beginning of the RGGI program CO2 emissions have been reduced 39% in 2021 but the reduction was 47% until the State shutdown the Indian Point nuclear station. The RGGI funded control programs have been responsible for only 16% of the observed reductions. The main reason for the reductions has been fuel switching to natural gas. When the sum of the RGGI investments is divided by the sum of the annual emission reductions the CO2 emission reduction efficiency is $565 per ton of CO2 reduced.

I conclude that RGGI is not an effective CO2 emission reduction program and that because the emission reduction efficiency of the RGGI investments is far greater than any social cost of carbon metric yet proposed that the investments are not cost-effective. RGGI success is the eye of the beholder.

Climate Act Scoping Plan Costs Shell Game

In the past twelve months I have spent an inordinate amount of time evaluating the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) and the Scoping Plan implementation plan framework to meet the ambitious net-zero goal by 2050. Climate Action Council Co-Chair Harris recently made the claim that delaying climate action will cost New Yorkers more than acting now. However, that statement is misleading and inaccurate. This post shows that the claim is no more than a shell game gimmick.

Everyone wants to do right by the environment to the extent that they can afford to and not be unduly burdened by the effects of environmental policies. I submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan and have written over 250 articles about New York’s net-zero transition because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good. The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Climate Act Background

The Climate Act establishes a “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that will outline how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the strategies. That material was used to write a Draft Scoping Plan that was released for public comment at the end of 2021. The final Scoping Plan was approved by the Climate Action Council on December 19, 2022 and the Integration Analysis documentation was recently updated.

Documentation Shell Games

The Scoping Plan has been described as “a true masterpiece in how to hide what is important under an avalanche of words designed to make people never want to read it”. The Implementation Analysis quantitative assessment goes further. It does not even pretend to clearly include what is important to evaluate the numbers that are used in the Scoping Plan. There is no concise documentation that includes the costs, expected emission reductions and assumptions used for the control strategies included in the Integration Analysis documentation. Instead, these is a massive spreadsheet with key drivers and input assumptions for all aspects of the transition. The public is left to try to decipher what is included in each control strategy, figure out how the information was used, and then calculate what the results are for all control strategies.

The first shell game gimmick picks and chooses what control strategies are included in the costs of de-carbonization. In order to evaluate the effects of different policy options, The Integration Analysis model projects future conditions for a baseline case. The evaluation analysis makes projections for different policy options, and then the results are compared relative to the baseline. Standard operating procedure for this kind of modeling is to use a business-as-usual or status quo case for the baseline. Appendix G Section 3.4: Benefits and Costs argues that the costs of the control strategies should be considered relative to status quo or business as usual costs:

When viewed from a systems expenditure perspective (Figure 48), the NPV of net direct costs for Scenarios 2, 3, and 4 are moderate, roughly 11% as a share of the NPV of reference case system expenditures ($2.7 trillion). Because significant infrastructure investment will be needed to maintain business as usual infrastructure within the state irrespective of further climate policy, redirecting investment away from status quo energy expenditures and toward decarbonization is key to realizing the aims of the Climate Act.

Figure 51 from Appendix G is the documentation for the claim that the cost of inaction exceeds the cost of action by more than $115 billion. In my Draft Scoping Plan comments I argued that the figure is mis-leading because it presents the numbers relative to a Reference Case rather than a business-as-usual or status quo case that represents a future without decarbonization programs. I maintain that the true cost of New York’s net-zero transition by 2050 should include all costs associated with all programs designed to reduce GHG emissions. The authors of the Integration Analysis and Scoping Plan excluded decarbonization costs that I believe should be included and provided insufficient documentation to enable anyone to determine what is in or out of the Reference Case.

In the Scoping Plan shell game, the first thing to watch is the claim that “significant infrastructure investment will be needed to maintain business as usual infrastructure within the state irrespective of further climate policy, redirecting investment away from status quo energy expenditures and toward decarbonization is key to realizing the aims of the Climate Act” but at the same time including decarbonization costs for “already implemented” programs in the Reference Case. If a reader loses track of this shell, it is easy to assume that the costs presented are relative to a business-as-usual or status quo modeling scenario per standard procedures. Instead, the State compares mitigation scenario costs to a Reference Case that includes “already implemented” decarbonization costs.

There is another shell to watch. In my review of the Draft Integration Analysis supplement, I ended up searching the document for the phrase “reference case” to try to determine what “already implemented” decarbonization programs were included in the Reference Case. The following figure reproduces the page with the documentation on page 12 in Appendix G Integration Analysis Technical Supplement Section I. The documentation is buried in the footnote for the circled reference for the blank caption to Figure 4.

Given its importance to the cost/benefit claim, my Draft Scoping Plan comment noted that this reference case caveat should be clearly described in the text rather than in a footnote. What I missed in the draft was a reference to explanatory text in section 5.3 of the document. However, that text was not included in the draft document! The appropriate text is in the recently released Appendix G section 5.3: Scenario Assumptions chapter and lists the “already implemented” programs. It states:

The integration analysis evaluated a business-as-usual future (Reference Case) a representation of recommendations from CAC Advisory Panels (Scenario 1), and three scenarios designed to meet or exceed GHG limits and carbon neutrality (Scenarios 2 through 4). Scenarios 2, 3, and 4 all carry forward foundational themes based on findings from Advisory Panels and supporting analysis but represent distinct worldviews. A detailed compilation of scenario assumptions can be found in Annex 2.

For the record Annex 2 refers to a massive spreadsheet that is certainly detailed but most certainly does not provide an easily accessible compilation of scenario assumptions. In particular, the documentation does not provide explicit information to determine what costs are specifically included in the Reference Case relative to the other scenarios.

The Reference Case described as “Business as usual plus implemented policies” includes the following:

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

Figure 47 shows the total net present value (NPV) of direct costs relative to the Reference Case over the period 2020-2050. However, these bar charts provide little information.

It is more useful to look at a table of the values to try to understand how the Reference Case costs differ from the mitigation scenarios. That information is available in the IA-Tech-Supplement-Annex-2-Key-Drivers-Outputs-2022 spreadsheet. One thing that jumps out is the $3.45 billion difference for the Transportation Investment between the Reference Cased and the Low-Carbon Fuels Scenario. There are only two decarbonization programs included in the Reference Case: Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards and Zero-emission vehicle mandate (8% LDV ZEV stock share by 2030). In my opinion that $3.45 billion difference either indicates that most of the EV electrification costs are improperly included in the Reference Case or that the cost estimates are suspect.

I found that both issues contribute to the small difference between the Reference Case and the Low-Carbon Fuels scenario. According to the Scoping Plan the costs to replace light-duty vehicles, trucks, and buses with electric alternatives, provide the charging infrastructure to support those vehicles, and upgrade public transit services is only $3.45 billion over 30 years. For the most part the only reason for those expenses is decarbonization and whether it is explicitly part of the Climate Act or not, those costs should be included in the costs of the Climate Act. They have to be hundreds of billions of dollars. I have no doubts that proper accounting would reduce or reverse the alleged favorable benefit-cost ratio if just this is correctly attributed.

I believe that the cost estimates are also suspect. My Draft Scoping Plan Comment on Electric Vehiclesanalyzed the Integration Analysis spreadsheet documentation. The Integration Analysis presumes that the device costs for zero-emissions charging technology and the vehicles themselves decrease significantly over time. Home EV chargers and battery electric vehicles both are claimed to go down 18% between 2020 and 2030 alone. The following graph of electric vehicle costs shows that the costs for battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles that are the proposed solution go down over time. The costs for gas, diesel, and Plug-in Hybrid Electric vehicles are all identical and stay pretty constant. Given that PHEV also use batteries, why wouldn’t that technology cost decrease similar to the full battery EV. The overall cost decreases in the preferred technologies are so large that the total costs for the zero-emissions vehicles adoption is cheaper than using existing technology. My comments noted that I cannot accept this optimistic assessment of future cost reductions without documentation that addresses at least the potential for battery supply chain issues. The Climate Action Council “acknowledged” my comment by providing a link but never addressed the issues that I raised.

Conclusion

A shell game is defined as “A fraud or deception perpetrated by shifting conspicuous things to hide something else.” In the Scoping Plan shell game, the authors argue that energy costs in New York are needed to maintain business as usual infrastructure even without decarbonization policies but then include decarbonization costs for “already implemented” programs in the Reference Case baseline contrary to standard operating procedure to use a status quo baseline for this kind of modeling. The documentation for Reference Case assumptions was missing in the draft documents. Shifting legitimate decarbonization costs to the Reference Case because they are already implemented and hiding the documentation fits the shifting condition of the shell game deception definition perfectly.

The deceptions of the Scoping Plan are furthered by ignoring stakeholder input that ran contrary to their narrative. Climate Action Council Co-Chair Harris recently claimed that the stakeholder “comments, letters, and engagement have absolutely impacted this process and the plan it has produced for the better.” I see no evidence that the Climate Action Council addressed my Integration Analysis comments on the benefits and costs evaluation or any other stakeholder comments associated with quantitative Integration Analysis issues.

New York Climate Act Scoping Plan Approved

First published at Watts Up With That

The New York Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) Scoping Plan framework for the net-zero by 2050 transition plan was approved by the Climate Action Council on December 19, 2022. This is follow to my earlier description of the process explains some of the rationale for that decision.

Background

The Climate Act establishes a “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that will outline how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible and power the electric grid with zero-emissions generating resources by 2040. The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies. That material was used by staff from various State agencies to write a Draft Scoping Plan that was released for public comment at the end of 2021. The Climate Action Council is finalized the Scoping Plan on schedule.

The December 19, 2022 meeting materials are available at the New York Climate meetings page including the meeting presentation and the meeting recording. In my previous article I noted that the it was unlikely that the Climate Action Council would not vote to approve the Scoping Plan because all but two of the 22 members were picked by the Democrats who passed the legislation I wondered if anyone would cast a symbolic “no” vote and was surprised that three members voted against approval. After the formal vote each member of the Council gave a statement supporting their decision. This post summarizes those statements in three categories: the Hochul Administration’s position, the at-large members who supported it and the three members who voted against approval. I am not going to provide any commentary on these summaries.

New York State Leadership Statement

Co-chair of the Climate Action Council and President & CEO of the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority Doreen M. Harris summed up the position of the Hochul Administration. Her statement said the plan “upholds three main principles of the work that we have advanced throughout this almost three-year process”:

Principle 1: Climate Action

This plan demonstrates that climate action is not only necessary, but that delay is to be avoided. Delaying climate action has been shown to cost New Yorkers more. Therefore, I am in favor of undertaking this action now so that we may begin delivering additional benefits to the New Yorkers we are acting on behalf of.

As we implement our climate actions, certainly we will consider the on-the-ground issues and immediate costs and concerns of citizens and businesses. This is how we implement policy in New York every day and will continue to do so.

But our eye is on the prize and we in New York are wise to take climate action and have it serve as a model to the rest of the country.

Principle 2: Climate Justice

We have a plan that demonstrates how success can only be claimed when we have been able to advance and implement our climate action in a manner that addresses the issues of past decisions.

Historically, underserved communities have not been included in the dialogue and that must change. Underserved communities have also not had sufficient access to clean energy in housing, education and career opportunities and that must also change.

This plan is demonstrating how all disciplines around this table – Energy, Environment, Education, Transportation, Labor, Health, Housing, Industry, Agriculture – have responsibilities to make sure that justice is an equal outcome to the changes in our day-in, day-out business operations.

To put it simply, business as usual is no longer an option.

Principle 3: Climate Economy

I do agree with comments made at previous meetings that the economic opportunities we are looking to create through our climate planning have often been an unspoken undercurrent in this process.

We simply do not succeed if our state economy is not better off for our activities in advancing this plan. I am beyond enthusiastic about the new industries and career opportunities that we are creating in New York. And, as a product of Upstate New York myself I have never seen the level of opportunity that is at our doorstep in all parts of the state.

But that is not to discount the attention that must be paid to New Yorkers – particularly my energy colleagues and workers – that will need to find their new opportunities in our decarbonizing economy. I pledge that I will do what I can to make sure we create all those opportunities and more so that you too can become part of the more than 200,000 jobs that we stand to gain.

At Large Member Supporters of the Scoping Plan

Four Council Members chosen for their ideology and not their energy system expertise all voted to approve the Scoping Plan. Their comments beg for responses but that will have to wait until another time.

The statement of Robert W. Howarth, Ph.D., the David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology & Environmental Biology at Cornell University was very illuminating relative to the motives of the supporters. It is also very difficult to quote this without responding. For starters, Dr. Howarth basically takes credit for the law:

Assembly Person Steven Englebright was hugely instrumental in the passage of the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act that established the Climate Action Council. I thank him for his leadership on this, and particularly for his support of the progressive approach on greenhouse gas emissions that is a central part of the CLCPA. I originally proposed this to Assembly Person Englebright in 2016, and he enthusiastically endorsed and supported it through multiple versions of the bill that finally led to passage of the CLCPA in 2019. In this accounting for greenhouse gases, a major government for the first time ever fully endorsed the science demonstrating that methane emissions are a major contributor to global climate change and disruption. Further, in passing the CLCPA New York recognized that consumption of fossil fuels (and not simply geographic boundaries) is what matters in addressing the climate crisis. New York wisely banned the use of high-volume hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) to develop shale gas in our State. But since the time of that ban, the use of fossil natural gas has risen faster in our State than any other in the Union. Methane emissions from this use of shale gas are high, but much of that occurs outside of our boundaries in the nearby states of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. Through the CLCPA, the citizens of New York are taking responsibility for these out-of-state emission caused by our use of fossil fuels, particularly for fossil natural gas. The way to reduce these emissions is to rapidly reduce our use of fracked shale gas.

He went to claim that the Scoping Plan development process ” brought in a large number of experts and key stakeholders who worked diligently to advise the Council on our Scoping Plan”. After extolling the success of the stakeholder process and the staff members who contributed he explained why everything will work out:

I further wish to acknowledge the incredible role that Prof. Mark Jacobson of Stanford has played in moving the entire world towards a carbon-free future, including New York State. A decade ago, Jacobson, I and others laid out a specific plan for New York (Jacobson et al. 2013). In that peer-reviewed analysis, we demonstrated that our State could rapidly move away from fossil fuels and instead be fueled completely by the power of the wind, the sun, and hydro. We further demonstrated that it could be done completely with technologies available at that time (a decade ago), that it could be cost effective, that it would be hugely beneficial for public health and energy security, and that it would stimulate a large increase in well-paying jobs. I have seen nothing in the past decade that would dissuade me from pushing for the same path forward. The economic arguments have only grown stronger, the climate crisis more severe. The fundamental arguments remain the same.

Our final Scoping Plan from the Climate Action implicitly endorses the vision of the Jacobson et al. paper and is quite clear: we can meet the goals of the CLCPA and we can and will do so in way that is affordable and that will benefit all New Yorkers. Our State will be stronger as this plan is implemented, the health and well being of our citizens improved. Economic uncertainties and vulnerabilities will be reduced. Energy security will be enhanced. Our plan is also clear that the #1 priorities are to continue to move towards wind, solar, and hydro as our source of electricity; to move rapidly towards beneficial electrification as a source of heating and cooling in our homes and commercial buildings; and to move rapidly towards beneficial electrification in our personal and commercial vehicles.

Peter Iwanowicz is Executive Director, Environmental Advocates of New York. His statement included the following comments:

When it was passed by the Legislature, The New York Times called the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) “One of the world’s most ambitious climate plans.” While a bold pronouncement and attention-grabbing headline, it was by any measure an accurate depiction of the legislation. For the CLCPA is legislation written by those on the frontlines of the climate crisis for the benefit of those on frontlines of the climate crisis. At the time a novel approach and a testament to how policy should work.

The CLCPA provided us the promise and—through multiple provisions in the law—the guidance to make the right decisions on the pace and scale of the change needed. At its core, the CLCPA is about establishing standards into law so that New York does its share to create a planet that is healthy enough for humans to inhabit. What we learned through our process is that zeroing out all greenhouse gas emissions through a massive transformation of our economy is the only viable and certain path.

What truly makes the CLCPA the most ambitious of plans is the legal assurance that those disproportionately impacted by climate change and poor air quality will have their needs, health, and communities prioritized. That, and we will not leave any worker behind as the transition unfolds.

What we have developed is a solid blueprint to guide the public and lawmakers on how to secure the promises of our climate law.

The plan shows the pathway forward to provide big benefits, including:

Reducing energy bills

Improving our health and lowering health care costs

Reversing decades of environmental injustice that has caused such harm to those who live, work, and play in our state’s disadvantaged communities.

The costs of acting are not trivial, but the analysis that the council has agreed to revealed that the cost of inaction is greater than the cost of acting. Our plan shows that the quicker the public, the Governor and Legislature move to electrify all sectors, the faster we’ll realize the benefits.

Raya Salter Esq., Principal, Imagine Power LLC is “an attorney, consultant, educator and clean energy law and policy expert with a focus on energy and climate justice.” Highlights from her statement reflected her background:

The true credit for this Plan belongs to the thousands of activists across New York who have rallied, marched, wrote letters and demanded that this be the people’s plan. In 2019 I stood with activists not far from where we sit now, who shut down then-Governor Cuomo’s office in an action to demand the passage of what ultimately became the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. It is that law that required this process and plan.

The release of this final Scoping Plan is a landmark moment for climate action in New York State. The Plan, if implemented, will guide New York towards a just energy transition and away from fossil fuels.

I was a member of the Council’s Gas Transition Subgroup and worked on the Scoping Plan’s vision to retire fossil fuel plants and decarbonize the buildings sector. It includes a blueprint for the retirement of New York City’s most-polluting fossil fuel plants and their sites by 2030 that will inform broader planning to retire fossil fuel plants throughout the State. This is a win for environmental justice.

The Plan is not perfect. Ideas for market-based “cap and invest,” and biofuels schemes should be rejected if they can’t overcome design flaws and stakeholder concerns. While the state’s climate law should ultimately prohibit the use of most “alternative fuels,” like “renewable natural gas” and hydrogen for use in pipelines on an emissions basis, the Plan is wrong to contemplate these false solutions. Likewise, looks into so-called “advanced-nuclear” are a dangerous distraction.

The Scoping Plan, however, provides a comprehensive approach to reaching the state’s nation-leading climate goals with a focus on justice and equity. The next step is to see it fully implemented.

Dr. Paul Shepson, Dean, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University only offered a short statement:

I will start by noting and asking us to remember that people around the world have not been paying the actual costs of burning fossil fuels to meet our energy needs; and so it is exciting and just and honorable that we are now embarking on a better way, with far fewer collateral costs to the environment, in support of ALL living things on the planet. And so, I enthusiastically endorse the December 19, 2022 final version of the New York State Climate Action Council Scoping Plan. While the Scoping Plan incorporates multiple compromises in wording and orientation, given the diverse and sometimes divergent interests of components of the CAC membership, it is nonetheless a great statement of New York State’s commitment to national and global leadership in the effort to achieve climate stabilization. The Scoping Plan, which supports the implementation of the CLCPA, is a document of which I am proud, and feel fortunate to have been able to contribute to its completion. I am impressed by and grateful for the hard work and dedication of the agency staff members who worked to bring this effort to completion, and the fantastic leadership of our co-chairs and of Sarah Osgood, and want to thank my fellow CAC members for helping to make this process enjoyable, and successful.

Council Members who Voted Against the Scoping Plan

I don’t think it is a coincidence that three members of the Climate Action Council with the most energy system practical experience voted against approval of the Scoping Plan.

Donna L. DeCarolis, President, National Fuel Gas Distribution Corporation explained that she supported many aspects of the Scoping Plan. However her statement described why she voted against it:

Throughout my tenure on the Council, and from my perspective as the President of a utility in western New York serving communities with more than 1.6 million people, I have continued to express concerns about the Scoping Plan’s consumer impacts – for residential homeowners, small businesses and industrial interests in the state – and to offer perspectives and alternatives that will allow us to meet the requirements of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) while preserving reliability (at both the wholesale power generation level and for homes and businesses), energy system resiliency and an affordable transition for consumers. I find the final Scoping Plan falls short in this regard, and there remain significant concerns that could jeopardize the reliable, resilient and affordable provision of energy for the state’s residents and businesses. Specifically, the Scoping Plan:

•             Fails to adequately ensure grid reliability for consumers;

•             Relies too heavily on a single energy source that is prone to weather-related disruption; and,

•             Does not include a full assessment of impacts on consumer energy affordability.

Gavin Donohue, President and CEO, Independent Power Producers of New York also voted against approving the Scoping Plan. His statement overview is a good summary of his position:

Two years ago, I was appointed to the State’s Climate Action Council. The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (“CLCPA”) requires an economy-wide approach to addressing climate change and decarbonization, coupled with mandates to deliver 70% of New York’s energy from renewable resources by 2030 and 100% emissions-free electricity supply by 2040 (“100 by 40 target”). The Scoping Plan (“Plan”) was intended to inform New York residents and businesses about measures necessary to meet the requirements of the CLCPA. While the Council is required to update the Plan at least once every five years, it is essential that the inaugural Plan is practical, comprehensive, and contains provisions that send investment signals necessary to achieve the CLCPA’s requirements in a reliable and cost-effective manner. There is no backup plan to this one, and the manner in which the document is structured does not achieve the expectations set two years ago.

I am voting against the final Plan since it remains significantly lacking in these core areas, with additional concerns as discussed below:

Reliability is inadequately addressed, putting New York at risk for economy crushing blackouts and potential public safety risks.

High energy costs for energy consumers and the impact on their cost of living and on the competitiveness of New York businesses.

Insufficient programs to keep benefits of existing renewable facilities in this state.

Leaping to moratoriums and bans instead of developing innovative technologies.

Undefined wording and the lack of a glossary of terms creates ambiguity in some of the Plan’s language.

To help raise awareness for these concerns and ensure that New York’s clean energy transition is done in a more responsible manner, IPPNY, along with the New York State AFL-CIO, the New York State Building & Construction Trades Council, and Business Council of New York State, formed a unique coalition to develop a set of seven principles¹ to advance New York’s clean energy goals and establish the criteria to be met by the Plan. This coalition put productive and positive ideas on the table to make the Plan better. Unfortunately, these principles were insufficiently addressed by the Council and the Plan.

Dennis Elsenbeck, Head of Energy and Sustainability, Phillips Lytle was the final Council member to vote against the Scoping Plan. He explained that he voted against the Plan because “we have fundamentally missed the mark on balancing environmental and economic sustainability, choosing one over the other, thereby limiting the potential to achieve either goal.” His statement included five key concerns that led to that decision. The first two concerns are:

Limiting our solutions by losing sight of our climate challenges

We must not lose sight of the challenges we are working to solve. The CLCPA set ambitious climate and clean energy goals to safeguard our state’s resources for future generations while reinvesting in disadvantaged communities. Much of our discussions appeared to be more about shutting down the natural gas transmission and distribution network than on achieving the 85% Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reduction by 2050. Although they may appear similar, shutting down the natural gas network and achieving the CLCPA’s GHG goals are separate objectives requiring different technical paths. Our focus should be meeting our GHG reduction goals. Any discussions surrounding the natural gas transition should explore, with equal weight, what we are transitioning from and what we may be transitioning to. In my experience, limiting options also decreases the probability of meeting aggressive goals, such as our GHG objective.

Readiness of our Electric System

Much of the CLCPA outlines a transition from a fossil fuel to an all-electric economy. In my opinion, New York’s current electric distribution infrastructure cannot handle the projected 50% increase in demand. I have been adamant throughout Council discussions that without action, such as a PSC Order requiring utilities to respond, the electric distribution system is not equipped to accommodate such a transition without major investment-the cost, timing and implementability of which is yet to be determined. The Scoping Document begins to frame this challenge but falls short on how to resolve the matter_ As with most states and countries, climate initiatives begin on the supply side of the electric system. Large scale renewable energy projects appear to be focused on land (and water) availability and not as much on proximity to load centers resulting ina need for additional transmission investment; we must anticipate the impact of electrification on the distribution system to fully explore non-traditional utility investment by engaging market participants. Subject matter experts such as regulatory agencies, the NYISO, NERC and the electric utilities must be given the opportunity to respond to the Scoping Document before it reaches the Governor’s desk. We should have a more balanced and mandated planning strategy that aligns supply, demand and delivery and advances the CLCPA’s goals and our state’s economic development aspirations for business expansion, attraction and site readiness. We need to resolve the issue of dispatchable supply through continued exploration of the role of long duration storage, nuclear, hydrogen, renewable natural gas and other non-fossil-based approaches to ensure that we have a stable electric system in concert with how we progress with any gas transition strategy.

Conclusion

These statements give a good overview of the positions and motivations of Council membership. Needless to say, I strongly endorse the statements of the three members who voted against the Scoping Plan. When I find time I intend to address some of the more egregious claims of the proponents.

The Plan is just a framework that does not include a feasibility analysis to ensure the strategies proposed will maintain current standards of electric system reliability or the reliability of any other energy system components for that matter. Readers of this blog are well aware of the affordability crises that similar programs at other jurisdictions that are further along are experiencing this winter. The statements presented include a couple of references to a claim that the costs of inaction are greater than the cost of action. Earlier this year I posted an article describing the machinations used to make that misleading and inaccurate claim. I made those arguments to the Council in my verbal comments and followed up with detailed written comments but there was no acknowledgement of them by the Council. This whole process has been rigged from the start to get the pre-ordained answer.

The proponents of the Climate Act Scoping Plan are bound and determined to dive into this net-zero transition plan. Unfortunately, they don’t want to check to see if there is any water in the pool.

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Roger Caiazza blogs on New York energy and environmental issues at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York. More details on the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act are available here and an inventory of over 250 articles about the Climate Act is also available. This represents his opinion and not the opinion of any of his previous employers or any other company with which he has been associated.

Climate Action Council Response to Comments Is Worse Than I Thought

The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) has a legal mandate for New York State greenhouse gas emissions to meet the ambitious net-zero goal by 2050. I have not posted recently on the Climate Action Council response to Draft Scoping Plan comments because I have been on vacation and have not bothered to follow the most recent meetings. Based on what I observed at the September 29 meeting (presentation and recording), there appears to be no consideration of any comments that are inconsistent with the Hochul administration transition narrative.

Everyone wants to do right by the environment to the extent that they can afford to and not be unduly burdened by the effects of environmental policies. I submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan and have written extensively on New York’s net-zero transition because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that this supposed cure will be worse than the disease. The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Climate Act Background

The Climate Act establishes a “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that will “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda”. They were assisted by Advisory Panels who developed and presented strategies to the meet the goals to the Council. Those strategies were used to develop the integration analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants that tried to quantify the impact of the strategies. That material was used to write a Draft Scoping Plan that was released for public comment at the end of 2021. The Climate Action Council states that it will revise the Draft Scoping Plan based on comments and other expert input in 2022 with the goal to finalize the Scoping Plan by the end of the year.

Last May I posted an article describing the composition, responsibilities and consideration requirement mandates in the Climate Act related to the Climate Action Council. Based on the activities of the Council from the start of 2022 I believe that the Climate Action Council is going through the motions of addressing public comments. If the public comments were truly going to be considered then I think it would have been appropriate to make comment distillation an on-going process from the get go. At the time I also said I didn’t see why the comments had not been posted to the website. It would be relatively easy to just provide a list of comments as they were received and there is no reason why they couldn’t also list the comments in some broad categories. As I write this on October 9, 2022 three months after the close of the comment period the comments have not been posted to https://climate.ny.gov/ as promised last May. This post highlights further indications of the gameplan from the September 29, 2022 Climate Action Council meeting.

Reliability

I have spent enough time educating myself about the operations of the electric grid over the last 40 years that I am well aware of reliability challenges for the New York electric system. More importantly, I know people who are subject matter experts and they all share my concerns that the Integration Analysis and the Draft Scoping Plan have not adequately addressed the feasibility of the transition in the mitigation scenarios. On the other hand, some of the more vocal members of the Council have downplayed reliability as a concern and have gone so far to claim that those concerns are misinformation.

I have previously written that the Climate Action Council has not confronted reliability issues raised by New York agencies responsible for keeping the lights on. The first post (New York Climate Act: Is Anyone Listening to the Experts?) described the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) 2021-2030 Comprehensive Reliability Plan (CRP) report (appendices) released late last year and the difficulties raised in the report are large. The second post (New York Climate Act: What the Experts are Saying Now) highlighted results shown in a draft presentation for the 2021-2040 System & Resource Outlook that all but admitted meeting the net-zero goals of the Climate Act are impossible on the mandated schedule. Recently I wrote about the “For discussion purposes only” draft of the 2021-2040 System & Resource Outlook report described in the previous article and the concerns raised. Most recently, I detailed the differences between the Resource Outlook and the Draft Scoping Plan Integration Analysis and recommended that those differences be reconciled in a public forum.

At the September 29 Climate Action Council meeting Gavin Donohue asked about dispatchable emissions-free resources (DEFR) at 1:05:25 of the meeting recording. DEFR refers to a generating resource that can provide power as needed to keep the lights on. It is a critical component but there is no commercially available resource that meets the specifications. The main point of my articles described in the previous paragraph is that the organizations responsible for electric system reliability have raised questions that have not been addressed including DEFR viability. Donohue apparently agrees with me and asked about the risks of not specifying exactly how DEFR will be used in the transition and how that could affect costs. The response by the lead modeler, Carl Mas, was that they did look at it at the end of last year and found that the costs would change. He acknowledged that it has not been resolved whether the hydrogen would be used in combustion turbines or in fuel cells and that should be resolved. Donohue pressed him that it needs to be resolved as part of the process. Mas said that it was a previous sensitivity from last year and it is “good to bring it back up”.

Later in the same meeting Dennis Elsenbeck pointed out (2:58:40 of the meeting recording) that the NYISO Resource Outlook raised issues that haven’t been addressed in the Draft Scoping Plan. He asked how do we reconcile what the subject matter experts are saying versus what’s in the scoping document. He also asked if that is a conversation that we need to have during this process or are we beyond that? The Climate Action Council Executive Director, Sarah Osgood, said “it would be interesting to hear from other council members and said she didn’t know if the modeling analyses were comparable. She said that “at this late stage” it might be difficult to compare the analyses and wasn’t sure whether it would be worthwhile.

Carl Mas said they could determine whether there is enough time to do at least a little side by side analysis of some of the key issues. At this point he said there is uncertainty as to, for example, imports vary between the analyses. He noted that the NYISO did adopt one of the Integration Analysis load scenarios in their analysis. He said the Integration Analysis team worked very hard to ensure that there was “at least some commonality between the scenarios”. He did admit that not all aspects were similar but suggested that they might be able to find some time to evaluate differences between scenarios and the projections.

Elsenbeck pointed out that stakeholders outside of the Hochul Administration see the NYISO reports and “the first thing that comes to mind is my resiliency is going to go to hell”. He said the Council could just not look the other way. Mas responded that there is agreement that by 2040 there is a need for firm dispatchable resources but ignored the implications of the state’s reliability depending on an unproven resource. Then he went on to claim that it is critical to work with the NYISO. Elsenbeck then pointed out that the Council is going to be voting on a Final Scoping Plan that has not been fully vetted with the NYISO.

In my opinion, these conversations are very troubling. At no time during his presentation or his questions did the Integration Analysis lead modeler mention any issues raised in the stakeholder comments. Were it not for the fact that my comments and the comments submitted by the NYISO and New York State Reliability Council did raise substantive issues I would have to believe that all the stakeholder comments agree that the unelected bureaucrats who have no reliability responsibilities have produced a perfect transition plan that can guide the future New York energy system.

Sarah Osgood’s response to the Elsenbeck question is especially troubling. The Executive Director of the Climate Action Council didn’t know if the generation resource modeling analyses critical to the success of the transition plan were comparable to the analyses by the NYISO. She said that “at this late stage” it might be difficult to compare the analyses and wasn’t sure whether it would be worthwhile. This demonstrates an astounding lack of awareness by the Climate Action Council leadership that has frittered away months without addressing this issue. Now they claim they cannot reconcile the results because it is too late. You can bet the ranch that when this implodes that the NYISO will be blamed for not speaking up.

Integration Analysis

Carl Mas gave an update on the Integration Analysis at 24:25 of the meeting recording. Ostensibly the updates address the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as well as analyses that look at a high fuel price sensitivity and a high technology cost sensitivity. In order to prove the benefits are greater than the costs the focus is on the net benefits metric especially as it relates to their societal cost benefit test.

The following slide summarizes the IRA integration analysis update. The modeling addresses two key aspects: what IRA funds may be available that could come to New York to offset costs and to translate that into how it “layers into our net benefit or overall analysis”. I interpret that to mean that because of the emphasis on net benefits that means that the analysis assumes that IRA funds directly offset New York costs so the net benefits increase.

The modeling updates purportedly will also consider the ramifications of IRA funding on adoption technologies. For example, the IRA might fund more electric vehicle subsidies so that the adoption rate will increase. One of my criticisms of the Draft Scoping Plan is that there are enormous presumptions that the public will acquiesce to, for example, purchase more expensive and less suitable electric vehicles simply because the Climate Act says they have to. Any increase in adoption levels because there is more money available increase this type of speculation level further.

While I have not listened to every minute of every meeting, I am pretty sure that Carl Mas has not suggested that there were any relevant stakeholder comments on the Integration Analysis that need to be addressed. I provided extensive comments on the Integration Analysis cost–benefit analysis and recommended that the Integration Analysis provide the costs, benefits, and expected emission reductions for every control measure proposed. There are three possibilities why those comments have not been raised: the comment reviewers never provided any relevant comments to the modelers, the comments were received and have been ignored, or that they won’t be mentioned until the end so the response will be there is insufficient time to address them. All three excuses are unacceptable given the responsibilities of the Climate Action Council that are mandated in the Climate Act.

Implementation

Based on comments from the leadership of the Climate Action Council their perception of the Scoping Plan is that it is just an outline of how the future energy system will transition to meet the net-zero targets. I have heard repeated suggestions that particular implementation issues didn’t need to be addressed as part of this process because there will be an opportunity for stakeholder input when regulations are proposed that implement the changes needed. The announcement that New York is going to implement a 100% zero-emission vehicle mandate by 2035 raises the question whether that is an appropriate approach.

At 12:29 of the meeting recording Jared Snyder announced that on the morning of this meeting that Governor Hochul announced that the Department of Environmental Conservation “will adopt the Advanced Clean Car rule by the end of the year. That rule will require all sales of light-duty cars and trucks to be zero emissions by 2035 which means that all vehicles have to be either battery electric of fuel cell powered. He said “that rule implements legislation that Governor Hochul signed a year ago in September 2021 that required 100% sales of electric vehicles by 2035”. He also said that “it implements a recommendation of the Draft Scoping Plan to adopt the advanced clear cars rulemaking”.

This portends what I predict will be the future for the regulatory process. In this instance there is a law in place that mandates going forward whatever the cost, whatever the impacts, and whatever the feasibility. What I think will happen is that when other regulations are proposed the rationale will be “it was a recommendation in the Scoping Plan so it has to be done” whatever the cost, impacts, or feasibility. The fact that the Scoping Plan did not address the cost, impacts, or feasibility is immaterial to this line of reasoning and will be conveniently forgotten in the response to comments.

Response to Questions

The focus of the Hochul Administration response to comments has been on the concerns of the Climate Justice Working Group (CJWG) and particular members of the Climate Action Council. For example, at 22:28 of the meeting recording Peter Iwanowicz asked about the New York State Thruway Service Area Redesign and Redevelopment Project that is presently underway. He asked if anyone in the administration could give the Council an idea what’s going on with respect to fast charging at the Thruway rest stops stating: “I was personally blown away at driving into one of the newly reopened ones to see no electric vehicle charging there”. He went on to say that “it’s pretty shocking to me, one as a member of the Council but two as an EV driver not to see chargers in the newly reopened station charging”.

On the list of issues confronting the state’s energy transition this is pretty low on the priority list. We have already seen the leadership of the Council claim that there is too little time to reconcile the electric grid projections made by the NYISO with the Integration Analysis. Nevertheless, a Council member thinks that it is appropriate to cut into the precious little time available for the Council to consider the entirety of the energy transition with his personally biased question. More importantly this is just an example of a recurring theme throughout the Scoping Plan process. Any question from the CJWG and certain members of the Council gets a response no matter how removed from the issue at hand.

In this case the response was “Let us get back to you”. Left unsaid is we don’t have that information at our finger tips because we are trying to consider the entirety of the energy system. The ultimate response may suggest that this is indicative of a bigger problem but I bet that the Administration answer will not raise that type of issue. I will address this in more detail in a future post but a quick read of the summary of the New York State Thruway Service Area Redesign and Redevelopment Project shows that the Frequently Asked Questions explains that they are working on it:

Additionally, under direct guidance and consultation with the New York Power Authority (NYPA), Empire plans to implement a passenger vehicle electric charging program at all Service Areas to further New York’s goals of reducing emissions and expanding electric vehicle infrastructure across the State.

Conclusion

From what I have seen at the recent Climate Action Council meetings the promise to consider public stakeholder comments on the Draft Scoping Plan is being ignored. There is no indication that the Hochul Administration intends to reconcile the differences in the generating resource projections in the Integration Analysis and any of the NYISO reports or the risks involved in depending upon a resource that is not currently available. It is scary that the leadership of the Climate Action Council does not even appear to comprehend that addressing those issues would be appropriate and even if they can be convinced now, they will plead that there is insufficient time. Furthermore, it is not clear to me that the Administration even intends to tell Council members that there any comments that question any of the fundamental assertions in the Draft Scoping Plan.

It is clear that the Hochul Administration’s primary goal in the Integration Analysis is political posturing – in particular to “prove’ that the benefits are greater than the costs. It is also clear that the leadership of the Council is catering to particular members of the Climate Action Council that represent the interests of political supporters. Given that Council legal mandate is to prepare a plan “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda” the focus should be on that instead.

The legal mandate for the Scoping Plan is that it “shall inform the state energy planning board’s adoption of a state energy plan”. The Climate Action Council membership is generally lacking the background, experience, and education to inform technical matters such as the fuel mix of the future generating system. Thomas Sowell said “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong”. To ignore the analyses of the subject matter experts who are responsible for reliability is insane.

As noted in this article I have written multiple articles about the differences in generating resource projections and dependency upon the magical dispatchable emissions-free resource. When I submitted my draft scoping plan comments that explained why I believe the differences between the Draft Scoping Plan and the NYISO analyses have to be addressed in a public forum I thought it inconceivable that the response to comments would ignore the state’s experts. At no time did I believe that the response to comments would meaningfully address my personal comments but ignoring the state’s experts is why I believe the response to comments is going to be worse than I thought possible.

Comparison of NYISO Resource Outlook and Draft Scoping Plan Generating Resource Projections

The final version of the important New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) 2021-2040 System & Resource Outlook that addresses New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) was released on September 22, 2022. This post compares the projections for resources needed to meet the Climate Act targets in this report and the Draft Scoping Plan.

Everyone wants to do right by the environment to the extent that they can afford to and not be unduly burdened by the effects of environmental policies. I submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan and have written extensively on New York’s net-zero transition because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that this supposed cure will do more harm than good. The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Background

The implementation for the New York’s Climate Act “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 is underway. The Climate Action Council has been working to develop plans to implement the Climate Act. Over the summer of 2021 the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultant Energy + Environmental Economics (E3) prepared an Integration Analysis to “estimate the economy-wide benefits, costs, and GHG emissions reductions associated with pathways that achieve the Climate Act GHG emission limits and carbon neutrality goal”. Integration Analysis implementation strategies were incorporated into the Draft Scoping Plan when it was released at the end of 2021. Since the end of the public comment period in early July 2022 the Climate Action Council has been addressing the comments received as part of the development of the Final Scoping Plan that is supposed to provide a guide for the net-zero transition.

I have previously written that the Climate Action Council has not confronted reliability issues raised by New York agencies responsible for keeping the lights on. The first post (New York Climate Act: Is Anyone Listening to the Experts?) described the NYISO 2021-2030 Comprehensive Reliability Plan (CRP) report (appendices) released late last year and the difficulties raised in the report are large. The second post (New York Climate Act: What the Experts are Saying Now) highlighted results shown in a draft presentation for the 2021-2040 System & Resource Outlook that all but admitted meeting the net-zero goals of the Climate Act are impossible on the mandated schedule. Recently I wrote about the “For discussion purposes only” draft of the 2021-2040 System & Resource Outlook report described in the previous article and the concerns raised. It is amazing to me that these issues continue to be ignored.

Description of Resource Outlook and Draft Scoping Plan Mitigation Scenarios

This section compares two alternate approaches to meeting the Climate Act net-zero transition requirements.

The NYISO Resource Outlook report includes two scenarios that “reflect full achievement of the Climate Act targets”.

Outlook Scenario 1 – Utilizes industry data and NYISO load forecasts, representing a future with high demand (57,144 MW winter peak and 208,679 GWh energy demand in 2040) and assumes less restrictions in renewable generation buildout options.

Outlook Scenario 2 – Utilizes various assumptions consistent with the Climate Action Council Integration Analysis and represents a future with a moderate peak but a higher overall energy demand (42,301 MW winter peak and 235,731 GWh energy demand in 2040).

The Resource Outlook describes the scenarios:

In both Policy Case scenarios, a significant amount of land-based wind capacity was built by 2040. The model selected land-based wind due to its assumed capital cost, energy output, and capacity ratings. In both scenarios, land-based wind capacity builds to the assumed capacity build limits imposed (~16 GW).

In both scenarios, a significant amount of capacity from renewable generation and dispatchable emission free resources (DEFRs) is projected by 2040, with the most installation forecasted in the last five years, to help offset the projected fossil-fueled generation retirements. Dispatchable emission free resources are a proxy generator type assumed for generation expansion in the Policy Case to represent a yet unavailable future technology that would be dispatchable and produces emissions-free energy (e.g., hydrogen, RNG, nuclear, other long-term season storage, etc.). As noted above, all existing fossil-fueled generation (~26 GW) was modeled as retired by 2040 due to the CLCPA requirement of a zero emissions grid by 2040. In addition, in Scenario 2 the age-based retirement assumption captured the retirement of 12 GW, nearly half the fossil fleet. The models expanded to approximately 111 GW of total capacity for Scenario 1 and 124 GW of total capacity for Scenario 2, inclusive of NYCA generators, BTM-PV, and qualifying imports from Hydro Québec. This level of total installed capacity would be needed in 2040 to satisfy the state policy, energy, and resource adequacy constraints for Scenario 1 and Scenario 2, respectively. Of this total, approximately 85 GW to 100 GW represent generation expansion for Scenario 1 and Scenario 2, respectively, beyond the 9.5 GW planned through state contracts.25 For comparison, the Contract Case has approximately 51 GW of total installed capacity by 2040.

In general, resources take years from development to deployment. By year 2030, roughly seven years from the publication of this report, an estimated 20 GW of additional renewable generation needs to be in-service to support the energy policy target of 100% zero-emission generation by 2040. For reference, 12.9 GW of new generation has been developed since wholesale electricity markets began more than 20 years ago in 1999. Over the past five years, 2.6 GW of renewable and fossil-fueled generators came on-line while 4.8 GW of generation deactivated26. This Outlook demonstrates the need for an unprecedented pace of project deployment, which will require significant labor and materials available for New York over a long period of time.

Offshore wind capacity buildout remains near the 9 GW policy objective through 2040 for both scenarios. This outcome results primarily from the assumed high capital cost of offshore wind technology in the model, which was the highest cost renewable technology available. Additionally, considering the declining marginal capacity reliability value curves assumed, offshore wind at the levels modeled is an inefficient resource to meet peak capacity needs and Locational Capacity Requirements because the capacity contribution of intermittent renewable resources declines as more are added to the system.

Overall, results for Scenario 2 showed a higher level of renewable buildout than Scenario 1, most notably in utility-scale solar capacity, and had a different projection of the capacity expansion throughout the study period as compared to Scenario 1 for all generator types. The main factors for these differences are the assumptions for load forecasts and differences in generator types eligible for capacity expansion as well as the maximum allowable capacity builds by technology type modeled between the two scenarios. One major difference in Scenario 2 is that a reduced land-based wind capacity limit was used, which changed the projection of capacity builds for all types. Notably, the projections for offshore wind were higher earlier in the model horizon (e.g., 2030) in Scenario 2 as compared to Scenario 1 to help achieve the 70 x 30 target.

Two primary drivers are attributable to increased renewable resources in capacity expansion: (1) high operating cost of dispatchable generators, and (2) low capital costs for renewable generators. High fuel (e.g., natural gas prices, clean DEFR fuel prices) and/or high CO2 emissions prices result in significant decrease in fossil generation and subsequent increase in renewable generation earlier than otherwise projected. Low capital costs for renewable generators result in capacity builds much earlier than otherwise projected, and often an increase in the total amount of capacity built.

In terms of the zonal location for capacity buildouts determined by the capacity expansion model, limitations were imposed on the zonal level as to which generator type(s) could build in each zone. For instance, land-based wind was eligible for expansion in upstate regions (Zones A-G), utility-scale solar was eligible for expansion in upstate regions and Long Island (Zones A-G and Zone K), and offshore wind was eligible for expansion in New York City and Long Island (Zones J and K). Dispatchable emission free resource (DEFR) technologies and battery storage were included as generation resource options in all NYCA zones.

The Draft Scoping Plan includes a reference case and four mitigation scenarios. The first mitigation scenario only includes the initial recommendations of the Climate Act Advisory Panels but it did not meet the targets. The three remaining mitigation scenarios meet or exceed GHG emission limits and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. They all include:

Zero emission power sector by 2040
Enhancement and expansion of transit & vehicle miles traveled (VMT) reduction
More rapid and widespread end-use electrification & efficiency
Higher methane mitigation in agriculture and waste
End-use electric load flexibility reflective of high customer engagement and advanced technologies

The three mitigation scenarios that meet the Climate Act targets address concerns raised by the Climate Action Council membership:

Draft Scoping Plan Scenario 2: Strategic Use of Low-Carbon Fuels: Includes the use of bioenergy derived from biogenic waste, agriculture & forest residues, and limited purpose grown biomass, as well as green hydrogen, for difficult to electrify applications

Draft Scoping Plan Scenario 3: Accelerated Transition Away from Combustion: Includes Low-to-no bioenergy and hydrogen combustion and accelerated electrification of buildings and transportation

Draft Scoping Plan Scenario 4: Beyond 85% Reduction: Accelerated electrification + limited low-carbon fuels: This scenario adds additional VMT reductions; additional innovation in methane abatement; and avoids direct air capture of CO2

I prepared Draft Scoping Plan comments on these mitigation scenarios that includes descriptions and a comparison of the differences between them based on Appendix G of the Draft Scoping Plan. Unfortunately, the documentation is so poor that it does not explain the rationale for the generation sector differences described in the next section.

Comparison of Scenarios

The following table provides an overview of the capacity (MW) and energy generated (GWhr) generating resources in the five scenarios described above. Because it is difficult to read the table I have also provided a spreadsheet with the table and the input data extracted from the NYISO and Integration Analysis spreadsheets. I will compare each of the resource categories in the following from 2019 up to 2040 when the state’s electric grid is supposed to be zero-emissions.

The first resource category is nuclear. There is no significant difference in the capacity and power generated between the scenarios. They all reflect the irrational shutdown of over 2,000 MW at the Indian Point Nuclear Station and continued operation of the remaining nuclear facilities to 2040. Despite the fact that nuclear is the only dispatchable emissions-free generating resource that can be scaled up neither analysis believes that additional nuclear power generation could be part of New York’s future.

There are interesting differences between the scenarios in the fossil generation resource category. Resource Outlook Scenario 1 reduces fossil capacity 19% from 2019 to 2030, keeps it the same in 2035, and then goes to zero in 2040. Resource Outlook Scenario 2 reduces fossil capacity 33% from 2019 to 2030, reduces it another 9% by 2035, and then goes to zero in 2040. Note that the energy produced is the same for both scenarios in 2030 but in 2025 Scenario 1 is reduced 8% more. So even though there is more fossil capacity in 2035 in Scenario 1 it is used less. This is problematic for me because it means that the production resource model is treating the fossil resources differently between the scenarios. It is not clear what would cause this difference.

The Integration Analysis scenario fossil projections raise similar concerns. Scenario 2, Accelerated Transition from Combustion, capacity and generation is higher in 2030 compared to the other two scenarios but then does show a marked decrease in 2035. If it is accelerated, why is it higher in 2030? Integration Analysis Scenarios 2 and 4 are comparable to Resource Outlook Scenario 1 and Integration Analysis Scenario 3 is comparable to Resource Outlook Scenario 2. I assume that this reflects similar assumptions by the analysts at NYISO and NYSERDA.

All the Hydro category scenarios show an increase in capacity between 2019 and 2030. I assume that a large part of that is due to the Clean Path New York (CPNY) and Champlain Hudson Power Express projects.

The remaining categories are the key parts of the transition.

The land-based wind (LBW) resource category is the first where there are significant differences between the Resource Outlook and the Integration Analysis scenarios. Resource Outlook Scenario 1 increases LBW capacity 3.1 times whereas Scenario 2 only doubles the amount in 2030. Integration Analysis Scenario 2 also doubles capacity by 2030, Scenario 3 goes up 2.7 times, and Scenario 4 goes up 2.4 times. The differences between scenarios disappear by 2035 but the Resource Outlook projects land-based wind capacity will be 53% higher than the mitigation scenarios in the Integration analysis with 42% more generation.

The NYISO production resource model apparently does not think that offshore wind is a cost-effective option because both scenarios do not increase the projected capacity significantly beyond the Climate Act mandate of 9,000 MW. On the other hand, the Integration Analysis scenarios nearly double the amount of offshore wind resources projected. Overall, the Resource Outlook offshore wind capacity is 40% lower than the average of the Integration Analysis scenarios and generation is 43% lower.

For the solar resource there is a significant difference between Resource Outlook Scenario 1 and all the other scenarios. The capacity is 63% lower and the generation is 71% lower than the averages of the other scenarios. In 2040 the capacity factor for the projected resource capacity and expected generation is a reasonable 15% for Resource Outlook Scenario 1 whereas Resource Outlook Scenario 2 is 17% but 21% for the Integration Analysis scenarios. In my opinion I question why there is a difference for the Resource outlook scenarios. I don’t think that the Integration Analysis expectation that the solar capacity factor can bas high as 21% in 2040 is reasonable for New York’s latitude and snowfalls.

The energy storage resource category capacity values are pretty much the same all the scenarios. However, the generation projections are presented differently so that it is not possible to compare them.

As noted in the Resource Outlook, the Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource (DEFR) category is a proxy generator type that represents a yet unavailable future technology that would be dispatchable and produces emissions-free energy (e.g., hydrogen, RNG, nuclear, other long-term season storage, etc.). The DEFR capacity and generation is substantially higher in Resource Outlook Scenario 1 and all the other scenarios. Even Resource Outlook Scenario 2 is higher than the Integration Analysis scenarios. In addition, Resource Outlook Scenario 1 capacity factor is 9% whereas the others are all around 2%.

Getting to 100%: Six strategies for the challenging last 10%

My most recent post described a recent paper, Getting to 100%: Six strategies for the challenging last 10%, that provides a concise evaluation of six zero-emissions technologies. It is instructive to consider these strategies in the context of these projections. The authors from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory provided the following summary of the challenge:

Meeting the last increment of demand always poses challenges, irrespective of whether the resources used to meet it are carbon free. The challenges primarily stem from the infrequent utilization of assets deployed to meet high demand periods, which require very high revenue during those periods to recover capital costs. Achieving 100% carbon-free electricity obviates the use of traditional fossil-fuel-based generation technologies, by themselves, to serve the last increment of demand—which we refer to as the ‘‘last 10%.’’

The Getting to 100% paper describes six strategies that are summarized in the following table. Note that the strategies are compared to an ideal solution. Ideally, the solution for peak loads would have low capital expenses and low operating expense, low resource constraints, be technologically mature, have low environmental impacts, and work well with other resources. Needless to say, no technology comes close to meeting those ideal conditions. The authors note that: “Although existing studies generally highlight the same fundamental causes associated with the last 10% problem, there is a lack of consensus on the preferred strategies for meeting this challenge. This is not surprising, given the diversity of possible solutions and the speculative nature of their costs, given their early stage of development.”

The Getting to 100% paper described strategies for the last 10% challenge which for this resource refers to increasing the use of wind, solar, and storage to cover what I call the ultimate problem. Both the Resource Outlook and the Integration Analysis models predict that the primary resource for this challenge will be seasonal storage using DEFR. Although there are mentions of the other strategies the emphasis is on the dispatchable emissions-free resource. The proxy technology in the Integration Analysis is hydrogen although the production and use options are not specified.

There are other options for seasonal storage. The report notes:

This group of technologies is not well defined, but it could include batteries with very low-cost electrolytes capable of longer-than-diurnal durations. Because of the requirement for very low-cost energy storage, most seasonal storage pathways focus on hydrogen, ammonia, and other hydrogen-derived fuels stored in geologic formations.

Ultimately the Getting to 100% paper evaluates hydrogen used either in a combustion turbine or a fuel cell for electricity production. In the New York implementation plan the dispatchable emissions-free resource (DEFR) place holder is hydrogen produced using wind and solar. There are members of the Climate Action Council that insist that the hydrogen has to be used in a fuel cell rather than a combustion turbine because combustion causes emissions.

The Draft Scoping Plan calls for the use of so-called “green hydrogen” whereby hydrogen is produced by a carbon-free process of electrolysis from water. The Draft does not include a feasibility analysis of the production and use of hydrogen in some form as the placeholder technology for DEFR. The Resource Outlook does not specify a specific technology but emphasizes the risks of depending upon an unproven technology: “Both scenarios include significant DEFR capacity by 2035, but it is important to note that the lead time necessary for commercialization, development, permitting, and construction of DEFR power plants will require action much sooner if this timeline is to be achieved.”

I submitted a Draft Scoping Plan comment specifically addressing this presumption. I do not believe that the Integration Analysis correctly accounted for the energy needed to produce the hydrogen needed for the DEFR requirement. I think that there will be siting issues for all the fuel cells, electrolyzers, pipelines, and hydrogen storage facilities. . In the exisitng system the generating sources assigned for peaking power for this reliability requirement used the cheapest technology available (simple-cycle gas turbines). Meeting this requirement in the future using the hydrogen DEFR resource will be using the most expensive generating technology available. The capacity factors for this resource in the Draft Scoping Plan are 2% for all mitigation scenarios so it will be difficult to cover these costs for the short periods needed. I guarantee the usual suspects will complain about profiteering when the costs spike during these periods.

In addition, the Getting to 100%: Six strategies for the challenging last 10% report notes that “current high-cost electrolyzers need to operate almost continuously to recover their capital expense”. The Draft Scoping Plan plans to use intermittent wind and solar that preclude any continuous processes. That issue has been completely ignored in the Draft Scoping Plan.

Recall that there are members of the Climate Action Council that insist that hydrogen used for electric generation has to be used in fuel cells. The Getting to 100% paper addresses fuel cells:

Fuel cells have diverse applications, but their use for bulk power generation is currently limited. Given the range and scale of applications especially for transportation, substantial capital cost reductions for fuel cells are possible. With low capital costs for combustion turbines and future potential cost reductions for fuel cells, the economic case for hydrogen mainly hinges on lowering the cost of electrolytic hydrogen.

According to Table 1 in the Getting to 100% paper, it really is a stretch to say that there are any positive aspects for using hydrogen. For hydrogen used in combustion turbines the report claims low capital expenses (apparently referring only to the combustion turbine but not including the generation of the hydrogen itself), medium operating expenses and resource constraints, and concerns about hydrogen storage and transport as well as competition for using hydrogen in other sectors. For hydrogen used in fuel cells there is a potential for low capital expenses, high operating expenses, low resource constraints (apparently referring only to the fuel cell and not assuming that the hydrogen is generated with wind and solar resources), low technological maturity, and the same other considerations as hydrogen used in combustion turbines.

Discussion

This analysis found significant differences between the projections for land-based wind, offshore wind, energy storage and dispatchable emissions-free resources in the Resource Outlook and the Integration Analysis. I think that those differences should be discussed in an open forum. Most importantly to New York citizens the costs associated with the different options have to be made available from the NYISO and Climate Action Council. I am pretty sure costs account for the differences in the NYISO scenarios but without that information we cannot be sure. Most importantly, the feasibility of a dispatchable emissions-free resource has to be addressed and the projected DEFR utilization difference between Resource Outlook Scenario 1 and all the other scenarios reconciled. I also believe that both organizations have to address the economic viability challenge of DEFR stemming from the infrequent utilization of those assets deployed to meet high demand periods, which require very high revenue during those periods to recover capital costs.

Moreover, the forum should also address implementation concerns raised by the New York State Reliability Council in their Draft Scoping Plan comments. They made the point that the new resources required are enormous and also raised other concerns:

Practical considerations affecting the availability, schedule and operability for new interconnections include: interconnection standards; site availability; permitting; resource equipment availability; regulatory approval; large volume of projects in NYISO queue and study process; scalability of long-term battery storage and other technologies; operational control; impact of extreme weather; consideration of a must- run reliability need for legacy resources. In addition, the pace of transportation and building electrification, the timing of any natural gas phase-out and their impact on the electric T&D system must also be carefully studied from technical, economic and environmental perspectives. Together, these practical considerations require the development of reliable zero emission resources to be conscientiously sequenced and timed in the near term (through 2030) to ensure broader GHG reductions in all sectors beyond 2030.

One final point about the modeling analyses. The programs are proprietary and the documentation is sparse so it is not possible to fully understand the results. For example, the Integration Analysis Accelerated Transition Away from Combustion scenario has higher fossil generation projections in intermediate years than the other scenarios. Untangling the reason for that would be a challenge. I believe that the models can create projection differences as much by input tweaks as by the projection algorithms. Because the models are so complicated and include so many input parameters the modelers have to be careful to limit changes between scenarios that could affect the outcomes.

Conclusion

I have repeatedly made the point that the differences between the NYISO projected resources and the Integration Analysis projections need to be reconciled. This post attempted to explicitly list those differences. Unfortunately, this concern does not seem to be shared by the Climate Action Council and the Hochul Administration. It is only a matter of time until the ramifications of this abrogation of responsibility affects reliability and affordability of the state’s electric grid.

The other unresolved issue is the feasibility of any dispatchable emissions-free resource. It is staggering that the State is pushing ahead without an independent analysis of the options available for this critical resource. As it stands it will not end well.

Draft Scoping Plan Electric System Comments

The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) has a legal mandate for New York State greenhouse gas emissions to meet the ambitious net-zero goal by 2050. In response to the request for comments on the Draft Scoping Plan I submitted 26 comments on specific issues primarily related to subjects raised at this blog before the end of the comment period on July 1. This article sums up the comments I submitted related to the electric system.

Everyone wants to do right by the environment to the extent that they can afford to and not be unduly burdened by the effects of environmental policies. I have written extensively on implementation of New York’s response to that risk because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that it will adversely affect reliability, impact affordability, risk safety, affect lifestyles, and will have worse impacts on the environment than the purported effects of climate change in New York. New York’s Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions are less than one half one percent of global emissions and since 1990 global GHG emissions have increased by more than one half a percent per year. Moreover, the reductions cannot measurably affect global warming when implemented. This page documents all the comments that I submitted as part of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act implementation process. The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Climate Act Background

The Climate Act establishes a “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that will “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda”. They were assisted by Advisory Panels who developed and presented strategies to the meet the goals to the Council. Those strategies were used to develop the integration analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants that quantified the impact of the strategies. That material was used to write Draft Scoping Plan that was released for public comment at the end of 2021. The Climate Action Council will revise the Draft Scoping Plan based on comments and other expert input in 2022 with the goal to finalize the Scoping Plan by the end of the year.

My electric system comments addressed a few Draft Scoping Plan electric system issues. This is one of the topics that I did not address all the things that I thought needed to be raised. I just ran out of time.

I believe that the ultimate problem is that the Climate Act presumed that converting the electric grid from its current reliance on fossil fuels to provide reliable electricity when needed most was just a matter of political will. However, the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) Power Trends 2022 report notes: “Long-duration, dispatchable, and emission-free resources will be necessary to maintain reliability and meet the objectives of the CLCPA. Resources with this combination of attributes are not commercially available at this time but will be critical to future grid reliability.” The Draft Scoping Plan projects that the long-duration, dispatchable, and emission-free resource capacity requirement is about the same as the current fossil-fired generating capacity. This is an enormous challenge and the cavalier way it is addressed in the Draft does not inspire confidence that the Integration Analysis electric system projections are viable.

Capacity Costs

I estimated the costs for the projected generating capacity described in the Draft Scoping Plan Integration Analysis. I used the following sources of data to calculate the capital costs for the generating capacity (MW) additions projected in the Draft Scoping Plan. The Integration Analysis lists projected installed capacity values for 2020 and for the Reference Case and Scenarios 1-4 for 2040 in the IA-Tech-Supplement-Annex-2-Key-Drivers-Outputs spreadsheet. My primary source for cost information was U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Cost and Performance Characteristics of New Generating Technologies, Annual Energy Outlook 2022. EIA does not provide costs for hydrogen electrolyzers so I used data in the “Hydrogen” tab in the IA-Tech-Supplement-Annex-1-Input-Assumptions spreadsheet for electrolyzers, infrastructure, and transportation. The input data, calculations and results are included in the attached Caiazza Electric System Comment Spreadsheet

Although my estimate of the overnight cost to develop the resources needed to transition to a zero-emissions electric system in 2040 are generally consistent with the Appendix G Figure 48 net present value of system expenditures, there are differences. I estimate that the Reference Case capital costs are only $82.5 billion and that the mitigation scenarios range from $220 billion to $400 billion. That difference is undoubtedly due to what resources are in the Draft Scoping Plan Reference Case that I excluded because they are not business-as-usual.

I compared the capital costs (2020 $/kW) in the IA-Tech-Supplement-Annex-1-Input-Assumptions spreadsheet Resource Costs tabs against the EIA Table 1: Cost of new central station electricity generating technologies. Table A-3 in Addendum 1 shows that with the exception of the capital costs for large hydro and a gas-fired combined cycle unit in Upstate New York all the other technology costs are lower and, in some cases, much lower in the Integration Analysis. Table 1 lists the percentage difference between Integration Analysis (IA) and comparable Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates for New York City and Long Island (NYCW) and Upstate New York (NYUP). If my comparison interpretation is correct then these differences are outrageous. The capital costs for offshore wind are half of the EIA costs. While there may be some interpretation of the battery energy storage cost that can explain why EIA costs are five times higher, I don’t think there is any interpretation issue with the hydrogen fuel cell technology that is five times higher in New York City and four times higher Upstate. The Climate Action Council must explain why the Draft Scoping Plan numbers are so high for these technologies.

Table 1: Percentage Difference Between Integrated Analysis Base Capital Costs and EIA Cost and Performance Characteristics of New Generating Technologies, Annual Energy Outlook 2022 Costs

The Draft Scoping Plan does not provide sufficient documentation to reconcile all the differences. My estimates only include the capital costs for the projected generating resources and do not include transmission ancillary services that must be included for a true estimate of the total costs to go to zero-emissions generation. In order to fully predict the costs of the Scoping Plan, the Climate Action Council should insist that the authors of the Integration Analysis provide more detailed explanations.

Reference Case Misdirection

The Integration Analysis that provides the numbers used in the Draft Scoping Plan misleads readers with its definition of the Reference Case. Policy modeling like this compares projections for future mitigation scenarios against a business-as-usual case future projection. The definition used in the Integration Analysis “includes a business-as-usual forecast plus implemented policies”. The Climate Act mandates “9 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind electric generation by 2035”. I believe it is unacceptable to include those resources in the Reference Case. In my benefits are greater than costs comment I showed that the after correcting for other improperly categorized sectors from this mis-leading approach projects net-zero transition costs are between $295 billion and $316 greater than the benefits but the cost numbers in these comments show that the costs are increased to between $363 and $372 greater than the benefits. The Climate Action Council should insist that the Final Scoping Plan describe all the control measures, provide the assumptions used for the strategies, the expected costs and expected emission reduction for each measure for the Reference Case, the Advisory Panel scenario and the three mitigation scenarios. Then the public would be able to decide for themselves which costs associated with “already implemented” programs are appropriate.

Retirement Sleight of Hand

In a different comment I showed that the Integration Analysis incorrectly assumed that no wind, solar, and energy storage projects would reach their end of useful life and thus not have to be replaced between before 2050. In this comment I quantified costs associated with that approach. I showed that in 2040 incorporating retirements would increase costs by at least 6%. However, costs jump considerably when costs to 2050 are considered. For example, my projected cost for Scenario 4 in 2040 is $399,530 million but the cost to replace all the equipment that ages out between 2020 and 2050 is $304,428 million. I also showed that the biomass and wind capacity factors are biased high. The observed statewide average wind capacity is trending down since 2015 and that effect is not addressed in the Draft Scoping Plan. The Climate Action Council should ensure that the Final Scoping Plan addresses these issues

Conclusion

The ultimate goal of the Scoping Plan is to inform the Energy Plan that is supposed to outline how New York state policy will guide future energy use. Unfortunately, the Scoping Plan is just a list of policies that are projected to reduce emissions consistent with the Climate Act mandates. There is no proof-of-concept feasibility analysis that shows how those policies will work together to provide reliable electricity to power the energy needs of the state. The costs are hidden in a black box that only provides limited information.

It will be fascinating to see how the Council responds to the requests for more information. I hope that the Council will insist that the final iteration of the Integration Analysis will be compatible with the projections and analysis performed by the NYISO and others. Failure to do so will not end well.

Overview of My Comments on the Draft Scoping Plan Comment

Climate Act Background

The Climate Act establishes a “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that will “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda”. They were assisted by Advisory Panels who developed and presented strategies to the meet the goals to the Council. Those strategies were used to develop the integration analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants that quantified the impact of the strategies. That material was used to write Draft Scoping Plan that was released for public comment at the end of 2021. The Climate Action Council will revise the Draft Scoping Plan based on comments and other expert input in 2022 with the goal to finalize the Scoping Plan by the end of the year.

I have been following the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) process since it started. I used information published on my blog to submit 26 comments on various aspects of the Draft Scoping Plan since the comment period opened. This post summarizes the executive summary comment I submitted that highlights the most important points that I think the members of the Climate Action Council should know about the Draft Plan. Given the breadth and scope of the Climate Act transition and the Draft Scoping Plan it is unreasonable to expect that any Council member could devote enough time to evaluating it to understand the substantive nuances that have not been forthcoming from the authors of the Integration Analysis or the leadership of the Climate Action Council.

Summary of Key Recommendations

I believe that the Climate Action Council has lost sight of its primary objective to inform the next Energy Plan in the context of its Climate Act mandates as specified in § 75-0103. Instead of focusing on specific technical issues, the Council should be considering how to address those mandates in their review of the Draft Scoping Plan that will inform the state energy plan.

The Council should be defining criteria for safe and adequate electric service, impairing existing obligations, and increase in arrears or service disconnections for Climate Act implementation. I recommend that those conditions be established up front, implementation plans should be evaluated against those criteria, implementation only proceed if the conditions are met, and then tracked during implementation to see if they are being maintained. I think the safe and adequate electric service requirement means that the most important thing that has to be done before the Scoping Plan is finalized is to reconcile the NYISO projections for future resource capacity with the Integration Analysis projections.

The final Climate Action Council mandate that needs to be considered is section 16 of § 75-0103 where there is a requirement to consider efforts at other jurisdictions. Every jurisdiction that has attempted to transition their energy system away from fossil fuels to wind and solar has seen significant price increases that significantly affected affordability. As a first step, I recommended that the Climate Action Council establish criteria for affordability. My comments point out that there have been recent issues at other jurisdictions that affect both reliability and affordability that should be considered by the Council.

The Climate Act specifies that the costs and benefit have to be publicly available. There is no breakdown of costs within sectors that is needed to evaluate the validity of Integration Analysis cost estimates. I recommended that the Council address this mandate by defining what will meet this requirement. I think that the Final Scoping Plan must describe all control measures, assumptions used, the expected costs for those measures and the expected emission reductions for the Reference Case, the Advisory Panel scenario and the three mitigation scenarios.

I believe that the Climate Action Council should develop criteria for schedule implementation. The Scoping Plan should establish the milestones and conditions that have to be met before any existing technology is dismantled. The Integration Analysis and the Draft Scoping Plan zero-emissions electric grid transition plan depend on a long-duration, dispatchable, and emission-free resource that does not exist. Another comment explains why there are reasons to believe that a commercially viable and affordable resource like this may never be developed. I conclude that the Final Scoping Plan must include a conditional implementation schedule based on the availability of this resource.

In order to plan adequately for the amount of backup resources needed the worst-case intensity, duration, and frequency of occurrence for winter-time wind lulls has to be determined. I believe that the best way to do that is to use the longest period of historical data as possible and it has not been used as far as I can tell. My comment made specific recommendations for this analysis.

The reality is that the benefits are imaginary but the costs are real and the Integration Analysis that provides the basis of the Draft Scoping Plan consistently over-states benefits and under-estimates the costs such that the claim that the benefits are greater than the costs is incorrect.

The Climate Action Council should address the feasibility of the Integration Analysis control measures as part of the Final Scoping Plan. Nuclear power is the only scalable dispatchable emissions-free generating resource that has been proven to work so the Final Scoping Plan should include a Scenario that takes advantage of those capabilities.

Carbon pricing is a great theory but in practice there are practical considerations that make it a poor choice for funding decarbonization efforts. I explained why I believe carbon pricing will always be a regressive tax and list a number of practical reasons that carbon pricing will not work as theorized. I recommend that this proposal be dropped.

Based on my evaluation of electric vehicles and other strategies, the final Scoping Plan has to a feasibility analysis for all the control measures showing how this could possibly work. It is not enough to simply say they will work.

One of my biggest concerns about the massive transition to diffuse wind and solar generating resources is the cumulative effect on agriculture and the environment. The Final Scoping Plan must include proposed thresholds for unacceptable cumulative environmental impacts based on an analysis of all the impacts of the resources projected in the Draft Scoping Plan.

The following sections provide link to each comment submitted with a brief description.

Goal of Scoping Plan and Council Mandates

I believe that the Climate Action Council has lost sight of its primary objective to inform the next Energy Plan in the context of its Climate Act mandates. In § 75-0103. New York State Climate Action Council (11) the goal of the scoping plan is spelled out:

The council shall on or before two years of the effective date of this article, prepare and approve a scoping plan outlining the recommendations for attaining the statewide greenhouse gas emissions limits in accordance with the schedule established in section 75-0107 of this article, and for the reduction of emissions beyond eighty-five percent, net zero emissions in all sectors of the economy, which shall inform the state energy planning board’s adoption of a state energy plan in accordance with section 6-104 of the energy law. The first state energy plan issued subsequent to completion of the scoping plan required by this section shall incorporate the recommendations of the council.

I submitted comments that explained that there are specific Climate Act mandates are related to expertise, an implementation safety valve, costs and benefits documentation, and consideration of the experiences of other jurisdictions. Instead of focusing on specific technical issues, the Council should be considering how to address those mandates in their review of the Draft Scoping Plan that will inform the state energy plan.

My primary concern is reliability. In that context expertise is an issue. Section 2 of § 75-0103 notes that “at large members shall include at all times individuals with expertise in issues relating to climate change mitigation and/or adaptation, such as environmental justice, labor, public health and regulated industries.” It is extremely telling that energy sector expertise is not mentioned as a specific criterion, unless you assume that regulated industries refer to the energy utilities. At the May 26, 2022 Climate Action Council meeting some members of the Council stated that concerns about reliability with a 100% renewable grid were mis-information. This directly contradicts the experts who authored the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) Power Trends 2022 report that notes: “Long-duration, dispatchable, and emission-free resources will be necessary to maintain reliability and meet the objectives of the CLCPA. Resources with this combination of attributes are not commercially available at this time but will be critical to future grid reliability.”

There are members of the Climate Action Council who believe that the energy transition must proceed no matter what because the law says so. However, New York Public Service Law § 66-p. “Establishment of a renewable energy program” includes a safety valve condition: “(4) The commission may temporarily suspend or modify the obligations under such program provided that the commission, after conducting a hearing as provided in section twenty of this chapter, makes a finding that the program impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service; the program is likely to impair existing obligations and agreements; and/or that there is a significant increase in arrears or service disconnections that the commission determines is related to the program”. I believe that instead of getting bogged down in details of specific technologies, the Council should be defining criteria for safe and adequate electric service, impairing existing obligations, and increase in arrears or service disconnections for Climate Act implementation. I recommend that those conditions be established up front, implementation plans should be evaluated against those criteria, implementation only proceed if the conditions are met, and then tracked during implementation to see if they are being maintained.

I think New York Public Service Law § 66-p. is a clear mandate to address reliability. Therefore, the most important thing that has to be done before the Scoping Plan is finalized is to reconcile the NYISO projections for future resource capacity with the Integration Analysis projections. It is also critical that the Final Scoping Plan include reliability provisions acceptable to the NYISO and New York State Reliability Council are established that meet the safety valve provisions in § 66-p.

My background as a meteorologist led me to comment on the analyses done to date for the worst-case renewable resource availability because I believe address this is a critical reliability issue. No electric grid proposal that relies primarily on wind and solar resources can plan adequately for the amount of backup resources unless the worst-case intensity, duration, and frequency of occurrence for winter-time wind lulls is known. I believe that the best way to do that is to use the longest period of historical data as possible and it has not been used as far as I can tell. My comment made specific recommendations for this analysis.

I am also very concerned about affordability. Every jurisdiction that has attempted to transition their energy system away from fossil fuels to wind and solar has seen significant price increases that significantly impact those who can afford them the least. As a first step, I recommend that the Climate Action Council establish criteria for affordability.

There is a related affordability Council mandate. In section 14,b of § 75-0103 the Climate Act specifically states that the costs and benefits analysis must:

“Evaluate, using the best available economic models, emission estimation techniques and other scientific methods, the total potential costs and potential economic and non-economic benefits of the plan for reducing greenhouse gases, and make such evaluation publicly available.”

This information is not currently available. There is no breakdown of costs within sectors that is needed to evaluate the validity of Integration Analysis cost estimates. I recommend that the Council address this mandate by defining what will meet this requirement. In my opinion in order to fulfill this obligation, the Final Scoping Plan must describe all control measures, assumptions used, the expected costs for those measures and the expected emission reductions for the Reference Case, the Advisory Panel scenario and the three mitigation scenarios.

Additional information was made available in May describing the cost methodologies. I found this additional documentation describes the calculation methodology but little else. I note that electrification of home heating is dependent upon building shell improvements. This recently provided documentation does not provide sufficient information to understand how typical homeowners will be affected by that control measure. Providing net system costs relative to the Reference Case is not sufficient because stakeholders don’t know the total costs.

The final Climate Action Council mandate is section 16 of § 75-0103 where there is a requirement to consider efforts at other jurisdictions: “The council shall identify existing climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts at the federal, state, and local levels and may make recommendations regarding how such policies may improve the state’s efforts.” There has been very little discussion of efforts at other jurisdictions. My comments point out that there have been recent issues at other jurisdictions that affect both reliability and affordability that should be considered by the Council.

I believe that the Climate Action Council should develop criteria for schedule implementation. A collective crossing of fingers that a new technology will maintain existing standards of reliability and affordability is inappropriate. I submitted a comment that explained that the Department of Environmental Conservation’s decision to disapprove two proven interim solutions eliminates reliability options when there is no other commercially proven option available. The Scoping Plan should establish the milestones and conditions that have to be met before any existing technology is dismantled. The Integration Analysis and the Draft Scoping Plan zero-emissions electric grid transition plan depend on a long-duration, dispatchable, and emission-free resource that does not exist. Another comment explains why there are reasons to believe that a commercially viable and affordable resource like this may never be developed. I conclude that the Final Scoping Plan must include a conditional implementation schedule based on the availability of this resource.

Costs and Benefits

Climate Action Council members and the public should be aware of the games played to be able to conclude that “The cost of inaction exceeds the cost of action by more than $90 billion”. The reality is that the benefits are imaginary but the costs are real and the Integration Analysis that provides the basis of the Draft Scoping Plan consistently over-states benefits and under-estimates the costs (here, here, and here) .

I did an extensive analysis of the claimed benefits. The plan claims $235 billion societal benefits for avoided greenhouse gas emissions. I estimate those benefits should be no more than $60 billion. The Scoping Plan gets the higher benefit by counting benefits multiple times. If I lost 10 pounds five years ago, I cannot say I lost 50 pounds but that is what the Draft Scoping Plan says. Correcting that mis-characterization reduces the benefits below the costs.

There are issues with the other benefit claims. The Scoping Plan claims air quality improvement benefits range between $100 billion and $172 billion. These benefits are due to an air quality improvement for PM_2.5 of 0.35 µg/m³ that is supposed to “avoid tens of thousands of premature deaths, thousands of non-fatal heart attacks, thousands of other hospitalizations, thousands of asthma-related emergency room visits, and hundreds of thousands of lost workdays”. However, the modeled impacts rely on a linear no-threshold model. The observed PM_2.5 reduction in New York City since 2005-2007 is 5.6 µg/m³ and that is 16 times higher than the projected decrease due to the Climate Act. Using the linear no-threshold model that means that we should be able to observe sixteen times tens of thousands of premature deaths, sixteen times thousands of non-fatal heart attacks, sixteen times thousands of other hospitalizations, sixteen times thousands of asthma-related emergency room visits, and sixteen times hundreds of thousands of lost workdays. When the Climate Action Council and Final Scoping Plan verifies that these reductions have been observed I will accept these benefits. Benefits are also claimed for active transportation but the Final Scoping Plan benefits should be revised to take into account the number of places where this might work. The majority of the health benefits from energy efficiency interventions in Low and Middle Income (LMI) homes are the result of “non-energy interventions” and should not be included in the Final Scoping Plan that covers energy interventions

The key point regarding the Draft Scoping Plan benefit/cost claim is that there is a caveat that the comparison is relative to the Reference Case. It is very rarely mentioned but it makes all the difference. Instead of using a business-as-usual case for comparing impacts, the Integration Analysis defines the Reference Case to include already “implemented” strategies. That approach excludes legitimate Climate Act costs by mis-categorizing initiatives such as the 2035 zero-emission vehicle legislation and the 9 GW of off-shore wind mandate in the Climate Act as part of the business-as-usual Reference case. This raises the Reference Case costs relative to the mitigation scenarios so that the final costs are under-estimated. If the costs to convert to zero-emissions vehicles and the off-shore wind are properly accounted for, the costs exceed the benefits by at least an order of magnitude.

Time limitations and lack of documentation prevented me from providing many specific comments on plans for the electric system. I evaluated the capital costs for generating resources in the different scenarios and concluded that in order to fully verify the costs of the Scoping Plan, the Climate Action Council should insist that the authors of the Integration Analysis provide more detailed analyses.

I commented that the retirement assumptions for wind, solar, and energy storage need to be changed to reflect expected lifetimes of those technologies. This mis-characterization reduces costs on the order of 40%. A key technology for reliability is the dispatchable, emissions-free resource. The place-holder for this resource is hydrogen in one form or other. My concern is that the Plan does not provide enough reliable documentation to support the speculated use of hydrogen as the technology for this critical resource. My comments describe specific issues that need to be explicitly addressed in the Final Scoping Plan if the Climate Action Council is to make a compelling argument that hydrogen technology will keep the lights and heat on when needed most.

I compared the capital costs (2020 $/kW) in the IA-Tech-Supplement-Annex-1-Input-Assumptions spreadsheet Resource Costs tabs against the EIA Table 1: Cost of new central station electricity generating technologies. I show that with the exception of the capital costs for large hydro and a gas-fired combined cycle unit in Upstate New York all the other technology costs are lower and, in some cases, much lower in the Integration Analysis. If my comparison interpretation is correct then these numbers are outrageous. The capital costs for offshore wind are half of the EIA costs. While there may be some interpretation of the battery energy storage cost that can explain why EIA costs are five times higher, I don’t think there is any interpretation issue with the hydrogen fuel cell technology that is five times higher in New York City and four times higher Upstate. The Climate Action Council must explain why the Draft Scoping Plan numbers are so high for these technologies.

Scenario Comments

There was a specific request for comments on the three mitigation scenarios. There are significant technical issues that have to be addressed to maintain current standards of reliability and affordability. There are technologies in all the sectors that are included in all the mitigation scenarios of the Draft Scoping Plan that are not commercially available at this time but will critical to the transition requirements. As a result of these technical constraints, I believe that mitigation scenario 2, Strategic Use of Low-Carbon Fuels should be the recommended path forward for the Final Scoping Plan simply because it relies on fewer untested technologies.

My comments on the scenarios showed that the Integration Analysis documentation for the control strategies in the three mitigation scenarios is inadequate. There isn’t sufficient information about each control measure to be able to compare emission reductions, costs, and viability to be able to meaningfully comment on the components of the mitigation scenarios. More importantly, the Draft Scoping Plan does not include a feasibility analysis that explains how the control measures will work in the Climate Act transition plan. The strategies are simply listed and the citizens of New York are expected to believe that the projected emissions reductions will occur. The Climate Action Council should address the feasibility of the Integration Analysis control measures as part of the Final Scoping Plan.

Additional time for comments would have been needed for me to provide extensive scenario specifics for key sectors. I did manage to spend a lot of time trying to figure out how electrification of residential heating was supposed to work and how the mitigation scenarios were different. The primary difference for new heat pump sales for the scenarios is the ramp rate. Scenarios 3 and 4 accelerate the deployment of heat pumps in 2030 by mandating early retirement of existing furnaces instead of waiting until their end of useful life. It is easy to include this in a framework but there are at least a couple of implementation issues. What criteria would be used to determine who would get stuck with the added expense for premature retirements? Shouldn’t the affected owners get an additional subsidy to cover their costs? Do those issues make this infeasible? Without a feasibility analysis the Final Scoping Plan will be incomplete. The Climate Action Council needs to address these questions because this sector is a primary concern for homeowners.

My comments on the mitigation scenarios noted that Mark Mills made the point that “based on today’s physics and technology, the only path to an energy system with a material intensity lower than hydrocarbons would be one focused on nuclear fission.” Given that nuclear power is also the only scalable dispatchable emissions-free generating resource that has been proven to work, the Final Scoping Plan should include a Scenario that takes advantage of those capabilities. The Climate Action Council needs to address why this approach has not been considered.

Carbon Pricing

I also submitted a comment on the proposal for carbon pricing. It is a great theory but in practice there are practical considerations that make it a poor choice for funding decarbonization efforts. I explained why I believe carbon pricing will always be a regressive tax and list a number of practical reasons that carbon pricing will not work as theorized. My comment also referenced an analysis in Canada that concluded: “There may be many reasons to recommend carbon pricing as climate policy, but if it is implemented without diligently abiding by the principles that make it work, it will not work as planned, and the harm to the Canadian economy could well outweigh the benefits created by reducing our country’s already negligible level of global CO2 emissions.” Substitute New York for Canada and I believe this describes this policy option. I recommend that this economy-wide proposal be abandoned.

Transportation

I submitted a couple of comments on electric vehicles. The emphasis in the first comment was my finding that the Integration Analysis is simply making assumptions about future zero-emissions transportation implementation strategies without providing adequate referenced documentation. I provided numerous recommendations for additional documentation in these comments so that New Yorkers can understand what will be expected and how much it will cost.

As far as I can tell, the electric vehicle costs are based entirely on new vehicle sales. There is no acknowledgement that the used car market will likely change because of the cost of battery replacement. Sellers will likely get less relative to new cars in the battery electric vehicle market. Buyers may get a relative deal but will lose in the end when the batteries have to be replaced. This is a particular concern for low and middle-income citizens who cannot afford new vehicles.

There is no bigger disconnect between the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) proposed strategy and reality than the ZEV charging infrastructure requirements. The biggest problem is that millions of cars will have to rely on chargers that cannot be dedicated for the owner’s personal use because the owners park on the street or in a parking lot. In order to provide a credible ZEV strategy, the final Scoping Plan has to describe a plan how this could possibly work. It is not enough to simply say it will work.

I also submitted a comment addressing electric vehicle costs. the Integration Analysis vehicle cost projections rely on a single vehicle type for light-duty vehicles. As a result the projections are not particularly useful for many vehicle owners. The Climate Action Council should consider updating the Integration Analysis to better represent the types of vehicles used.

Impacts

One of my biggest concerns about the massive transition to diffuse wind and solar generating resources is the cumulative effect on agriculture and the environment. I recommended that the Climate Action Council place a moratorium on the development of utility-scale solar projects until permitting requirements have been established for responsible solar siting and protection of prime farmlands. The problem with cumulative environmental impacts. The most recent environmental impact analysis only addressed a fraction of the total number of wind turbines and area covered by solar PV installations. In addition, the environmental impacts of battery energy storage were not addressed. It is impossible to project the impacts of the environmental impacts of the dispatchable emissions-free resource that it included in the capacity projections because a specific technology has not been specified. My comments quantify the renewable energy resource difference between the most recent environment analysis and the Integration Analysis projections.

I recommended that the Department of Environmental Conservation propose thresholds for unacceptable environmental impacts. I believe that without addressing this problem that it is likely that the environmental impacts from the massive wind and solar resource developments will have far worse impacts than those that can be ascribed to climate change. For example, I project that at least 216 Bald Eagles could be killed every year when there are 9,445 MW of on-shore wind. There were 426 occupied bald eagle nest sites in New York in 2017. I am not a wildlife biologist but those numbers indicate to me that there will be major threats to the survivability of Bald Eagles in New York. The Final Scoping Plan must include proposed thresholds for unacceptable environmental impacts like this.

I submitted comments that refuted many of the claims made in Section 2.1, Scientific Evidence of a Changing Climate, of the Draft Scoping Plan. I argued that if documentation is not included that explicitly supports the claims made and contradicts my comments and the attachment, then I think those claims should be removed from the final Draft Scoping Plan.

I recommend that the Final Scoping Plan include a conditional schedule that considers the availability of necessary technology and potential impacts to reliability and affordability before implementing certain control measures. I expect the response will be that because there is an “existential” threat due to climate change and we are seeing the effects of climate change now that we cannot wait to act. I submitted comments that provide references by noted experts that explain why there isn’t a climate crisis and why the Draft Scoping Plan’s reliance on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change summaries for policy makers is mis-placed. I also explain that it is inappropriate to claim that every observed extreme weather event is evidence of climate change. The risks of an unreliable and unaffordable electric system are far greater than the over-hyped risks of climate change in New York.

My final point for the Climate Action Council is that the Draft Scoping Plan does not quantify how New York’s net-zero transition will affect global warming. My calculation shows that the expected impact on global warming would be an immeasurable 0.01°C by the year 2100. If you cannot measure the change in temperature there is no way you can detect a change in the purported effects of that temperature change. In addition, New York’s emissions are less than one half of one percent of global emissions and global emissions have been increasing by more than one half of one percent on average since 1990. Consequently, New York emission reductions will not have an appreciable effect on global warming.

Conclusion

I recommended that the Final Scoping Plan include an implementation schedule that is based on technological availability that maintains current standards of reliability affordability, and environmental protections. I expect the emotional response will be that we cannot wait. However, I submitted comments that explained that the claims of an imminent, inevitable climate catastrophe are ill-considered and it is inappropriate to claim that every observed extreme weather event is evidence of climate change. The risks of an unreliable and unaffordable electric system are far greater than the over-hyped risks of climate change in New York. Furthermore, because New York’s total emissions are less than one half of one percent of global emissions and total emissions have been increasing on average by more than one half of one percent per year anything New York does will get lost in the noise of global emissions changes. A conditional schedule is the rational approach to address the many unresolved technological issues.

Climate Act Mandates that must be Considered in the Scoping Plan

The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) has a legal mandate for New York State greenhouse gas emissions to meet the ambitious net-zero goal by 2050. To this point the Climate Action Council has failed to incorporate explicit Climate Act mandates related to expertise, an implementation safety valve, costs and benefits documentation, and consideration of the experiences of other jurisdictions. This article describes my comment on the mandates.

Climate Act Background

The Climate Act establishes a “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that will “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda”. They were assisted by Advisory Panels who developed and presented strategies to the meet the goals to the Council. Those strategies were used to develop the integration analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants that quantified the impact of the strategies. That material was used to write Draft Scoping Plan that was released for public comment at the end of 2021. The Climate Action Council will revise the Draft Scoping Plan based on comments and other expert input in 2022 with the goal to finalize the Scoping Plan by the end of the year.

Comments

My comment addressed four specific mandates in the Climate Act related to the Climate Action Council. I have seen no sign that the Draft Scoping Plan will be evaluated with consideration of those mandates. The Climate Act defines the composition and responsibilities of the Climate Action Council in § 75-0103 and I addressed the expertise, safety valve, costs and benefits, and consideration of other jurisdiction mandates.

Expertise

Section 2 of § 75-0103 notes that “at large members shall include at all times individuals with expertise in issues relating to climate change mitigation and/or adaptation, such as environmental justice, labor, public health and regulated industries.” It is unreasonable to expect that all the members of the Climate Action Council will have the background, education, and experience to understand all the aspects of the net-zero energy transition but the ultimate product of the Scoping Plan is a set of recommendations that will inform the next Energy Plan so that expertise is needed. Unfortunately of the 23 members of the Council only eight come from energy sector organizations or have some background in the energy sector.

It is worrisome that some members who don’t have all that much background and experience still make flat statements that reliability is not a problem with a 100% renewable system. The New York Independent System Operator’s 2022 Power Trends Report paints a different picture of the net-zero electric system stating flatly: “The New York grid faces unprecedented reliability challenges as the clean-energy transition gains momentum.”

Obviously, the experts responsible for maintaining current standards of reliability have to have the final say whether the recommendations for the New York Energy Plan are acceptable. I strongly recommend that the Climate Action Council lay out a plan to work with the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) and New York State Reliability Council experts to resolve differences between the electric generating projections in the Draft Scoping Plan and those made by the NYISO.

Safety Valve

The members of the Climate Action Council who think that there are not issues associated with reliability associated with a 100% renewable grid also believe that the energy transition must proceed no matter what because the law says so. However, New York Public Service Law § 66-p. “Establishment of a renewable energy program” includes a safety valve condition: “(4) The commission may temporarily suspend or modify the obligations under such program provided that the commission, after conducting a hearing as provided in section twenty of this chapter, makes a finding that the program impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service; the program is likely to impair existing obligations and agreements; and/or that there is a significant increase in arrears or service disconnections that the commission determines is related to the program”.

I recommend that the Council define the safety valve provisions for safe and adequate electric service, impairing existing obligations, and increase in arrears or service disconnections. I recommend that those conditions be established up front and then be used to guide future development. Implementation plans should be evaluated against those criteria, proceed only if the conditions are met, and then tracked during implementation to see if they are being maintained. How else is it possible to meet those criteria?

Costs and Benefits

In section 14,b of § 75-0103 the Climate Act specifically states that the costs and benefits analysis must: “Evaluate, using the best available economic models, emission estimation techniques and other scientific methods, the total potential costs and potential economic and non-economic benefits of the plan for reducing greenhouse gases, and make such evaluation publicly available.”

This information is not currently available. The only costs and benefits data support the claim in the Draft Scoping Plan that “The cost of inaction exceeds the cost of action by more than $90 billion”. Initially, the only information provided in the supporting documentation was a series of figures as I documented in an article on my blog. No numbers for the figures were provided. It was not until May 29 that some of the numbers that were used in the Benefits and Costs chapter of Appendix G of the Draft Scoping Plan were made available.

However, the additional information provided does not meet the mandate to make the total potential costs and benefits publicly available. There is no breakdown of costs within sectors that is needed to evaluate the validity of the estimates. I recommend that the Council address this mandate by defining what will meet this requirement. I believe that the Final Scoping Plan documentation should provide sufficient information so that anyone can readily determine the costs and emission reductions for their particular concerns. In my opinion in order to fulfill this obligation, the Final Scoping Plan must describe all control measures, assumptions used, the expected costs for those measures and the expected emission reductions for the Reference Case, the Advisory Panel scenario and the three mitigation scenarios.

Other Jurisdictions

In section 16 of § 75-0103 there is a mandate to consider efforts at other jurisdictions: “The council shall identify existing climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts at the federal, state, and local levels and may make recommendations regarding how such policies may improve the state’s efforts.” There has been very little discussion of efforts at other jurisdictions. The few times other jurisdictions were discussed it was mostly related to calls for greater aspirational goals. I think that the emphasis should be on lessons learned so we can avoid the problems observed at other jurisdictions and that the scope should be expanded to include international jurisdictions that are trying to enact similar net-zero programs.

At the top of the list of problems at other jurisdictions that should be considered is the February 2021 Texas energy debacle. For whatever reason the Texas electric system did not have enough generating resources available to meet the peak load requirements when Texans needed it most. If New York’s implementation plan for net-zero leads to a similar situation where there isn’t enough energy available, then the result will be the same: massive costs and deaths due to a lack of heat. The Climate Action Council must make sure that the Final Scoping Plan prevents this from happening.

I also recommend that the Council expand the scope. There were recent reliability problems in Australia have to be considered so that similar problems do not occur in New York. The United Kingdom and German affordability problems are also a concern that should be addressed by the Council. If we do not learn from the experience of others than we are certainly doomed to make the same mistakes.

Conclusion

I am very disappointed that the leadership of the Climate Action Council has not addressed Council meetings on the safety valve provisions. The existence of those conditions has not even been mentioned and it should have been when the suggestion was made that even there are no checks and balances on implementation programs. As a result, the Final Scoping Plan may not be viable against reliability and affordability criteria.

This year subgroups have been established to address the natural gas transition, advanced fuels, and an economy-wide approach to fund the transition. All these are important topics but the underlying and unaddressed issue is how to evaluate those strategies. I believe that the evaluation criteria should be based on New York Public Service Law § 66-p. “Establishment of a renewable energy program” safety valve conditions. Unfortunately, the Council has not established any evaluation criteria.

Ultimately, the lack of focus suggests to me that the State is just going through the motions of the public stakeholder process and even the Climate Action Council deliberations. The answer is in the back of the book and it would take a miracle to make meaningful changes to the Scoping Plan that detract from the narrative that meeting net-zero is only a matter of political will.

Climate Act Draft Scoping Plan Hydrogen Comment

The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) has a legal mandate for New York State greenhouse gas emissions to meet the ambitious net-zero goal by 2050. Long-duration, dispatchable, and emission-free resources will be necessary to maintain reliability and meet the objectives of the Climate Act. This article describes my comments on the plans to use hydrogen to fulfill this requirement in the Draft Scoping Plan.

Climate Act Background

The Climate Act establishes a “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that will “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda”. They were assisted by Advisory Panels who developed and presented strategies to the meet the goals to the Council. Those strategies were used to develop the integration analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants that quantified the impact of the strategies. That material was used to write Draft Scoping Plan that was released for public comment at the end of 2021. The Climate Action Council will revise the Draft Scoping Plan based on comments and other expert input in 2022 with the goal to finalize the Scoping Plan by the end of the year.

Comments

My comment addresses the use of hydrogen in some form or other as the Draft Scoping Plan placeholder technology for the Zero-Carbon Firm Resource or Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource (DEFR) generally accepted as a complementary requirement when intermittent resources like wind and solar make up a significant portion of the electric grid resource mix. Energy storage is required for intermittent resources but the cost for exclusive reliance on batteries is unacceptably high. These resources are included to maintain reliability when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine for long periods. I concluded that the Final Scoping Plan has to do a much better job documenting the use of hydrogen for this resource to be considered credible.

My comments summarize background information in the Draft Scoping Plan and from the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO). I describe the Integration Analysis description of the Carbon-Free Electric Supply and the hydrogen costs provided in an Integration Analysis spreadsheet. I also describe the on-going NYISO update to their System and Resource Outlook that addresses DEFR. I used Francis Menton’s article, Hydrogen Is Unlikely Ever To Be A Viable Solution To The Energy Storage Conundrum, as the outline for the comments. Mr. Menton graciously gave me permission to use his material freely, aka plagiarize his language.

The NYISO Power Trends 2022 report sums up the challenge: “Long-duration, dispatchable, and emission-free resources will be necessary to maintain reliability and meet the objectives of the CLCPA. Resources with this combination of attributes are not commercially available at this time but will be critical to future grid reliability.” The Draft Scoping plan speculates without sufficient justification that the “zero-carbon firm resource” projections for the future can be met using hydrogen in one form or another. My concern is that the Plan does not provide enough reliable documentation to support the speculated use of hydrogen as the technology for this critical resource. The comments describe specific issues that need to be explicitly addressed in the Final Scoping Plan if the Climate Action Council is to make a compelling argument that this technology will keep the lights and heat on when needed most.

The Draft Scoping Plan calls for the use of so-called “green hydrogen” whereby hydrogen is produced by a carbon-free process of electrolysis from water. The first probem is that the costs for hydrogen produced using this technology are entirely speculative and by any reasonable basis of estimation will be extraordinaly high. Compared to the cost of production using natural gas natural gas to produce hydrogen, “green” hydrogen will be more than five times more expensive.

I used a Seeking Alpha analysis to estimate the hydrogen needed if it was combusted to make electricity or used to power fuel cells. For the NYISO and Integration Analysis scenarios I found that between 73 and 155 turbines sized at 288 MW would have to be dedicated for this resource application. At this time the world’s largest hydrogen fuel cell is only 79 MW so between 266 and 566 fuels cells of that size would be required.

My analysis calculated the generation energy needed for electrolysis to support DEFR projections. Scoping Plan Scenaro 2 requires 3,342 GWh of energy for DEFR and 12,812 GWh for electrolysis to produce the hydrogen to cover that requirementwhich is about half the projected imported wind total in 2040. The Draft Scoping Plan emphasizes the use of solar over wind and it appears that the electrolysis requirements are covered by the solar generation projections. Importantly, the NYISO draft Outlook Study projected DEFR requirements are an order of magnitude higher than the mitigation scenarios. As a result, the energy needed for the hydrogen to cover that need (130,353 GWh) is more than the projected total solar, land-based wind, and wind import energy (121,875 GWh) in 2040. The Climate Action Council must reconcile the differences between these two estimates because of the ramifications on the energy needed for DEFR using green hydrogen.

The difference in projections also exacerbates the problem associated with the critical winter-time wind lull DEFR condition problem. The mitigation scenarios call for much more solar capacity (43,432 MW) than the combined land-based wind, imported wind, and offshore wind (26,606 MW) capacity. The Final Scoping Plan must ensure that an adequate amount of hydrogen is stored before the winter because the solar resource is so poor in the winter that it is unlikely that much, if any, replenishment during the winter can be expected. It is also critically important that the worst-case wind lull is defined correctly because it if is not then there will not be sufficient hydrogen available to cover the DEFR resources and blackouts will occur. The Climate Action Council must ensure the Final Scoping Plan addresses both of these issues to ensure a reliable electric system when it is needed the most.

There is a clear need for a feasibility analysis for the use of hydrogen as the DEFR. For example, where will all the combustion turbines, electrolyzers, and fuel cells be located? I suspect that there will be significant permitting issues with all the resources needed. The capacity factors for this resource in the Draft Scoping Plan are 2% for all mitigation scenarios so there will be implentation issues. In the exisitng system the generating sources designed for peaking power for this reliability requirement used the cheapest technology available (simple-cycle gas turbines) and a significant portion of the backup capacity is met by residual oil burning power plants. Meeting this requirement in the future using the hydrogen DEFR resource will be using the most expensive generating technology available.

There are numerous technical concerns that were not addressed in the Draft Scoping Plan. It is not clear whether the Draft Scoping Plan addressed the complex and energy intesive process of compressing and liquifying hydrogen for storage and transport. That will require large amounts of additional energy which may be additional cost not yet figured into the calculations. I could not determine if the Draft Scoping Plan proposed to use the existing natural gas network in all or part. Metal embrittlement caused by exposure to hydrogen will no doubt require major modifications and replacements for the existing infrastructure. These costs must be clearly identified and included in the Draft Scoping Plan.

Conclusion

There are members of the Climate Action Council that believe “the word reliability is very intentionally presented as a way of expressing the improper idea that renewable energy will not be reliable.” The worst-case renewable availability period is expected to occur in the winter because solar resource availability is low because of the season, Great Lakes induced cloudiness, and the potential for snow on solar panels when there is a wind lull reducing that resource availability. This is the particular period when the zero-carbon firm resource will be needed most. The problem is exacerbated because those conditions are typically associated with the coldest weather of the year. When the state’s heating and transportation systems convert to electricity the expectation is that maximum loads will occur during those periods. These comments describe many implementation issues associated with using hydrogen for the zero-carbon firm resource not the least of which is using mostly solar PV as a dedicated source of the electrolyzer power. I conclude that a feasibility analysis that address the questions raised is necessary. Even better would be a demonstration project at large scale to show how a hydrogen-based power system would work and how much it would cost after including all of the extras and current unknowns not just for producing it but also for transporting it and handling it safely.

I don’t know how much extra our energy would cost if we forcibly got rid of all hydrocarbons and shifted to wind and solar backed up by “green” hydrogen — and neither does anybody else. An educated guess would be that the all-in cost of energy would get multiplied by something in the range of five to ten. Yes, that would probably be a big improvement over trying to accomplish the same thing with batteries. But it would still be an enormous impoverishment of the New Yorkers in the pointless quest to possibly shave a few hundredths of a degree off world average temperatures a hundred years from now.

Not so long ago the idea that natural gas could be used a bridge fuel until these aspirational dispatchable emission-free resources could be tested at the scale needed, perform like a natural gas fired generating unit, and provide power at a similar cost, was generally accepted as a rational approach. The analogy for skipping the need for a bridge fuel is that the Climate Action Council wants to jump out of a perfectly good airplane without a parachute because they assume that the concept of a parachute will be developed, proven technically and economically feasible, and then delivered in time to provide a soft landing. That cannot end well and this won’t either.

Climate Act Draft Scoping Plan Comments by a Business Owner

This post describes the comments submitted on the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) Draft Scoping Plan by the owner of PKG Equipment, Inc. outside of Rochester in Chili, NY. His concerns highlighted one of the transition issues that is not being considered by the Climate Action Council.

PKG Equipment is a second-generation, family-owned company. It is a manufacturer and service provider of equipment typically used in the finishing, chemical manufacturing, steel manufacturing and glass manufacturing industries. PKG Equipment was founded in 1969 by Sam Pontarelli, the current management team’s father, and two partners who sold their shares to him in the1970s. During the 1970s, the company began fabricating plating equipment using thermoplastics, and it purchased European plastic welding and forming machines in the early 1980s. PKG Equipment began manufacturing turnkey plating systems and also became a distributor for related equipment.

Comments

Stephen Pontarelli is the CEO and with a little bit of help from me prepared the following comments.

I live in the Rochester area and own PKG Equipment, Inc. that employs 25 people. Energy costs are a major consideration for my family and our business. I am submitting these comments because the Climate Action Council has not done a satisfactory job explaining what the Climate Act transition will cost, how it might threaten energy reliability, or how it will affect my business.

I have been unable to find any detailed cost information. What is the expected cost of electricity? I have seen articles that noted that energy costs in Germany have increased markedly as they implement a similar transition. What is New York going to do differently than those other jurisdictions that have seen cost increases?

I understand that the transition plan boils down to electrifying everything. I am particularly concerned about heating our manufacturing facility. It sounds like the preferred electrification approach is to use heat pumps. My understanding is that they only work well during the coldest periods of the winter if the structure is very well insulated, has improved window treatments, and reduces air infiltration. There are a number of considerations that make those improvements problematic. Will there be support available to upgrade our building’s insulation and windows? How am I supposed to minimize air infiltration at the loading dock? Also, our manufacturing process uses natural gas for our curing ovens and heat treating. Replacing that equipment alone would approach $1,000,000. That doesn’t include getting the appropriate amount of electricity to the building. We would need a ridiculous amount of electricity to run this equipment. Our small business can’t afford this transition.

I understand that the future electric grid is supposed to rely on intermittent wind and solar generating resources. I figured out that your scenarios for future implementation call for about 150% of the total existing generating capacity of the state, that land-based wind is supposed to increase by nearly an order of magnitude, and that battery energy storage capacity will be close to today’s fossil generating resources. Surely developing all those resources is going to be incredibly expensive so it seems certain that energy costs for my business and home will increase markedly. I think it is necessary to include a clear explanation of all the control measures proposed, the assumptions used to project the costs, and a description of the emissions reductions expected for the Draft Scoping Plan strategies.

There is another worrisome aspect of future energy resources. The Draft Scoping Plan mentions a zero-carbon firm resource as a necessary component. I think it is incredibly risky to rely on an unproven resource. Finally, I was asked to consider bidding on a component system for an offshore wind turbine project. I cannot imagine, based on my background and expertise, that all the components necessary for those systems will be available to be installed per the proposed schedule. At the same time, I have heard that there is considerable pressure to stop all investments in existing fossil fuel infrastructure. I am concerned that shutting down systems based on an unrealistic implementation schedule for a technology like offshore wind that has not developed the infrastructure to transport and install the turbines is a serious risk to reliability. Therefore, I recommend that implementation is conditional based on determining upfront standards of affordability and reliability once costs for the unproven zero-carbon firm resource are determined and the development issues associated with offshore wind are known so that a realistic schedule can be developed.

I am not willing to accept higher costs, lower standards of energy reliability, or limitations to my business operations unless there is a clear tangible benefit. I have read compelling arguments that the Draft Scoping Plan benefits are over-stated and that in fact the actual costs of the program far exceed the benefits. In that regard, I don’t understand what is meant when the costs and benefits are presented “relative to the Reference Case”. Given the fact that total New York State greenhouse gas emissions are less than the annual increase in global greenhouse gas emissions, the obvious conclusion is that upfront standards of affordability and reliability must be set such that the Climate Act transition does not do more harm than good to New York State.

Conclusion

Frankly when I have thought about the industrial transition from natural gas to electricity that will be mandated by the Climate Act, I thought mostly about big manufacturing companies. I have seen no sign that the Climate Action Council hasn’t been thinking the same thing. The fact is that PKG Equipment represents the smaller companies that do not use natural gas for most of their processes but only for a couple of pieces of equipment. Replacing that equipment will be a major burden for small companies. In addition, those processes will require a lot of power that will very likely require service upgrades for their building and depending on the location distribution system upgrades.

I know the Pontarelli family. They all are from New York, want to stay in New York, and, through their hard work, provide jobs for 25 people. They are representative of many other small companies throughout the state. I despair that the financial impositions of the Climate Act will force them and the other similar companies to leave New York in order to remain competitive with businesses outside of New York.