Reasons to Pause Climate Act – Page 3 – Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York

New York Budget Articles

I have never closely followed New York State’s budgeting process before because I never felt connected to Albany politics, and it seemed so complicated. My obsession with the unfolding disaster of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero transition has prompted me to take an interest in the process. The latest New York Focus Newsletter describes budget articles that include an overview of the process and discussion of funding proposals with one article focused on funding for the ambitious climate goals. I recommend all the stories to New York readers.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Act net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks. I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 500 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Budget Overview

Sam Mellins answers questions about the state’s notoriously opaque budget process. His article addresses the following questions:

What is the state budget? It is likely to allocate over $250 billion with “biggest shares going to healthcare and education. He makes the critical point that the budgeting legislation is also used to “enact laws that don’t involve spending money.” Guess how the Climate Act was passed.
Where does the money come from? Most of the money allocated in the budget comes from the taxes that New Yorkers pay to the state government. But a sizable portion is cash that the federal government gives New York to provide services “ranging from highways and transit to health insurance for low-income residents.”
What are the major steps in the budget process? This description summarizes the process that is used to pass the budget.
Who are the key players? I was aware that the budget negotiations boiled down to a few individuals. Mellins explains that “Three key parties dominate the process: the governor, the Senate majority leader, and the Assembly speaker.”
How does our process compare to other states? This is a must-read section: “In a 2015 analysis by the Center for Public Integrity, New York ranked dead last among all states for accountability and transparency in its budget process.” Not surprisingly the politicians ignore State Constitution requirements and push things through at the last minute.
Is the entire budget up for negotiation? Mellins explains that most of the budget is more or less on autopilot so only “optional” items cause debate.
How does the public get involved? Mellins notes that the budget process is always accompanied by a flurry of lobbying, activism, and advocacy and that “Any New Yorker can submit written testimony during budget hearings.”

Funding the Green Transition

Colin Kinniburgh describes how the Senate, Assembly and Governor stand on funding Climate Act implementation. As this is my primary focus, I will quote his article in its entirety with my annotated comments. He introduces the article with this: ” If Albany is planning to rally against the Trump administration’s attack on its climate plans, it’s not showing in the budget.”

The New York Cap and Invest program is of special interest to me. Establishing any cost on carbon like this program is no more than a hidden and regressive tax. The slow pace of implementation may be the result of dawning realization that the costs involved may be politically inimical to its political supporters. Kinniburgh describes the status:

In New York, the governor sets the budget agenda. That’s particularly clear on climate this year. Breaking two years of promises, Governor Kathy Hochul in January dropped the climate funding program known as “cap and invest” from her 2025 agenda. Her agencies have been writing the rules to structure the carbon pricing program, but the legislature would likely have needed to approve spending the resulting revenue — about $3 billion a year and growing — setting up what could have been a major budget fight.

Hochul effectively brushed that plan off the table, and the legislature isn’t making any big moves to bring it back.

The reality is that this is a major undertaking but despite the challenge the Department of Environmental Conservation managed to get draft rules put together. The reason that they have not been released is solely due to politics and the inevitable need to show the costs. No amount of gilding the pig with slogans will be able to hide the costs. But funds are still needed if the Climate Act transition is to proceed.

In the place of the permanent program, Hochul offered a one-time, $1 billion budget line to fund a variety of climate initiatives over the next five years. The Senate and Assembly have both accepted that amount, though they want more guardrails on how it’s spent. Hochul’s proposal lists a few broad areas she wants to fund, like renewables and building retrofits, but gives little further detail.

The Senate wants to give legislative leaders a chance to review the governor’s spending plan. The Assembly has gone further, divvying the $1 billion between seven programs advancing building decarbonization and electric vehicles, particularly school buses and charging infrastructure.

“The governor and Senate have a slush fund, the Assembly makes clear allocations,” said Liz Moran, Northeast policy advocate at Earthjustice, in a text message.

In this political process the missing piece by the Governor and the legislators is the reality that they don’t have the expertise to set energy policy funding priorities. Selective listening to supposed authoritative sources all the while ignoring the experts who have the responsibility to keep the lights on, choosing winners and losers based on lobbyist effectiveness, and setting priorities based on the whims of favored constituencies is sure to result in poor policy.

The Senate also includes a nod to cap and invest in its budget resolution, urging the governor to “immediately issue all draft regulations necessary” to implement the program. (Hochul has said her agencies need more time to complete the rules, but internal emails reported by Politico show that they were ready to go before she abruptly hit the brakes in January.) There’s little chance that the message will revive cap and invest in this year’s budget, but it adds to a growing chorus. (Green groups’ call to release the regulations may soon be backed up by a lawsuit, according to Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.)

This paragraph scares me. The only thing that could foul up the proposed cap-and-invest program more than the provisions inserted in the draft regulations to comport with the Climate Act would be for politicians to get involved with implementation details. Well maybe it would be worse if some judge decides how to do the implementation. Kinniburgh goes on to describe other “big-ticket climate items.”

The NY HEAT Act, a top priority for green groups, once again faces an uphill battle. For the third year running, the Senate has included the bill — which would allow the state to gradually transition homes off fossil fuels — in its budget proposal. But the chamber is alone in doing so. Last year, Hochul included a version of the bill in her budget, but the Assembly blocked it in final negotiations.

There’s no sign in its budget proposal that the Assembly is warming to the HEAT Act this year. Two assembly members told New York Focus that its omission reflected the chamber’s longstanding — and inconsistently held — position that policy does not belong in the budget, but they expected it to be on the table in final talks.

I could not agree more with the admonition that policy does not belong in the budget. What is absolutely necessary for the climate budgeting strategy is a clear, transparent, and well documented description of the costs, emission reductions, realistic implementation schedules, and expected revenue streams for the strategies proposed to meet the Climate Act mandates. The time for only providing the slogan that the cost of inaction is more than the cost of action has long since passed. New Yorkers deserve the details. The total costs to implement the NY Heat Act is a prime example of this need.

There is one new climate item that the legislature has aligned on: solar tax credits. The current $5,000 credit for homeowners who install solar power took effect in 2006 and has not been updated since. The Assembly and Senate want to increase the maximum credit to $10,000 and make it easier for co-op and low-income residents to receive it.

The tweak would give a further boost to small-scale solar, the only area where New York has outpaced its climate targets. The state closed out last year with 6.6 gigawatts of rooftop and community solar, beating its 2025 goal. But research has found that the subsidies fueling that growth go disproportionately to high-income homeowners. This year’s budget legislation, with newfound support from the Assembly, aims to shift the balance.

This is a perfect example of political ambition outrunning reality. It is accepted by all credible sources that to support a reliable New York State electric grid that depends primarily upon wind, solar, and short-term storage resources that a new dispatchable and emissions-free resource (DEFR) must be deployed. In my opinion, the most promising DEFR technology is nuclear generation because it is the only candidate resource that is technologically ready, can be expanded as needed, and does not suffer from limitations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. If the only viable DEFR solution is nuclear, then renewables cannot be implemented without it. But nuclear power runs best as baseload generation so it can replace renewables, eliminating the need for a massive DEFR backup resource. Therefore, it would be prudent to pause all actions that encourage further renewable development until DEFR feasibility is proven because nuclear generation may be the only viable path to zero emissions.

Kinniburgh concludes:

Solar boost aside, the Senate and Assembly’s proposals leave climate issues largely where Hochul did: in the margins of budget talks. Almost six years after New York passed a climate law promising to shift its economy away from fossil fuels, the state has committed no consistent funding to do so, and it looks like this year’s budget will not change that.

I would only add that six years after the law passed the Hochul Administration has still not opened the books on the expected costs. In these budget debates those costs are absolutely necessary.

Other Articles

The newsletter included links to other articles about the budget. There is one about budget showdown hot topics including millionaire tax hikes and inflation rebate checks. Another article dives into the proposal for a “middle-class” tax cut. The legislature has proposed more money for child care than proposed by the Governor. Another item raised by the legislature are changes to the school funding formula. The legislature has proposed a boost to nonprofits and safety net programs serving New York’s neediest. After the recent prison strikes actions on prisons and public safety policies will be debated.

Conclusion

As a New Yorker I am not sure what is the biggest embarrassment. Is it a plan to completely transform the economy to eliminate fossil fuels without doing a feasibility analysis before implementing it? Or is it the annual budget process back-room shenanigans described in these New York Focus articles. The only thing I am sure of is that the impacts of both are not in the best interests of New York.

Ellenbogen: Another Reason to Pause the Climate Act – Electric Trucks

Manhattan Contrarian Francis Menton’s recent article on electric truck deployment prompted Rich Ellenbogen to write an email to his distribution list that deserves a wider distribution. I have collaborated with both gentlemen because we all agree that the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero transition mandates are bound to fail simply because the ambition is too great. Nowhere is this more evident than the magical thinking associated with heavy-duty trucks.

Ellenbogen is the President [BIO] Allied Converters and frequently copies me on emails that address various issues associated with the Climate Act. I have published other articles by Ellenbogen including a description of his keynote address to the Business Council of New York 2023 Renewable Energy Conference Energy titled: “Energy on Demand as the Life Blood of Business and Entrepreneurship in the State -video here: Why NY State Must Rethink Its Energy Plan and Ten Suggestions to Help Fix the Problems” and another video presentation he developed describing problems with Climate Act implementation. He comes to the table as an engineer who truly cares about the environment but has practical experience that forces him to conclude that New York’s plans simply will not work.

Menton on Electric Trucks

Menton’s article makes the point that so far the impossible mandates of the Climate Act have all been so far in the future that reality has not been evident. He points out that:

In 2021 Governor Hochul sought to do the Climate Act one better by adopting a regulation called the Advanced Clean Truck Rule. This Rule requires a certain percentage of heavy duty trucks sold in New York to be “zero emissions,” i.e., all-electric. It so happens that New York copied this Rule and its percentages from California. For the 2025 model year, now under way, the relevant percentage is 7%.

He continues:

All-electric heavy duty trucks? Did anyone think this one through? Clearly not. The New York Post today reports that two upstate legislators of the Democratic Party have now introduced legislation to postpone the electric heavy-duty truck mandate until 2027. The legislators are Jeremy Coney Cooney of Rochester and Donna Lupardo of Binghamton. The two call the mandate “nearly impossible for the trucking industry to comply with.” Here is one among several noted problems: “The legislators noted that an average diesel truck can be refilled in about 10 minutes and can drive for about 2,000 miles. By comparison, an electric, zero-emission heavy-duty truck takes approximately 10 hours to charge and can run for about 500 miles. . . . “Battery charging times are . . . a challenge and will remain so until new technology emerges and is commercialized,” [Lupardo] said.

Menton argues that there is no way that these issues can be resolved in a couple of years. There is no way the battery challenges s are going to be resolved that soon. Throw in lack of charging infrastructure and costs (a fully-electric heavy-duty truck can be as much as triple that of a diesel competitor with comparable load capacity) and this is clearly unworkable. He also describes the difficulties trying to enforce a mandate on electric vehicle sales quotas. Despite the wails and gnashing of the teeth of the environmental advocates, Menton concludes that reality will win and this mandate will have to eventually be rescinded. I recommend the entire article for additional facts and context.

Ellenbogen Trucking Challenges

The following is Ellenbogen’s lightly edited email.

The electric truck situation is even more complex than Francis mentions and more unworkable. It’s more than the fact that the truck would cost three times as much as the Post clip said. Physics and energy math are getting in their way again. The truck would be so heavy that it couldn’t carry nearly the same amount of freight. It is apparent that whoever wrote the truck rules knew nothing about EV’s, long haul trucking, or Federal highway rules. They just didn’t like diesel fuel so they said, “Let’s make them electric” without thinking about what that would entail. Also, the following statement about comparable load capacity defies physics: “On the cost front, it the Post reports that the price of a fully-electric heavy-duty truck can be as much as triple that of a diesel competitor with comparable load capacity.”

We load large trucks several times per week at my factory and we must be very conscious of Gross Vehicle Weight. In the US, for an 18-wheeler with 5 axles, that is 80,000 pounds max or about 16,000 pounds per axle. Of those 80,000 pounds, about 35,000 pounds is the tractor and trailer including about 4000 pounds of fuel when fully loaded. We can safely load a truck with about 43,500 pounds of freight and stay below the weight limit without worrying about the fuel weight. We also must be careful to balance the load so that the weight is evenly distributed. If a trucker hits a weigh scale and there is too much weight on one axle or if the truck is overweight, they will be subject to fines in the thousands of dollars.

My Tesla X weighs 5400 pounds and can travel about 300 miles with a 100 KWh battery. A 100 KWh battery can weigh about 675 Kg or about 1500 pounds. If 1500 pounds of Lithium batteries can store enough energy to move 5400 pounds for 300 miles and energy used is proportional to distance and mass, then assuming the same velocity it would take almost fifteen times as much storage to move 80,000 pounds 300 miles, or about 22,500 pounds of batteries, 18,500 pounds more than the weight of the diesel fuel.

If we subtract 18,500 pounds from the 43,500 pounds of freight to meet Federal Highway Laws, no truck could carry more than 25,000 pounds of freight for 300 miles at a time so it would need almost two EV truck trips for one diesel truck trip. As diesel engines are about 43% energy efficient and EV’s are about 75% energy efficient, it would take 15% more energy to move the same amount of freight using an EV than with a diesel truck. It would also take two times as much labor to just move the freight within a very small radius. We ship truckloads across the country, and they will get there in three or four days. Hours of Service regulations require them to drive no more than 11 hours within a 14-hour window. They must take a mandatory 30-minute break after eight hours of driving. The EV truck couldn’t even make a round trip to Syracuse from my factory just north of New York City without stopping for charging. Diesel truck operations are limited by Federal regulations whereas electric trucks can only drive 4 – 5 hours before charging. As a result, about 4 hours of the 14 hours would be lost charging and the truck would lose at least 60 miles of range per day, or about 10% best case. Also, to charge a 1500 KWh battery pack in four hours would require the capacity of four to five Tesla chargers.

An enormous amount of the energy would be expended just moving the batteries, not the freight. It will use about 15% more energy per pound of freight, which is absolutely not “green” and it will use at least six times the amount of labor if you figure in charging stops. If you figure in generation losses if the energy is fossil fuel based, then you can at least double the energy use of the electric truck and the 15% becomes 100% more energy per pound of freight.

UPS has ordered several electric trucks but they aren’t doing long hauling with those and their freight is less dense so they might be able to stay below the 25,000 pound limit so it may work for them. For large, long-haul trucks, it will be logistically impossible. Sea containers can weigh 44,000 pounds. There isn’t a physical way to build an electric truck that could legally haul them to or from a pier.

We’re shipping 80,000 pounds of freight to Philadelphia next Tuesday on two trucks. The total fright cost is about $1800 or about 2.25 cents per pound. With electric trucks, the freight costs would be substantially higher. Just the fact that it would take twice the number of loads to move the same amount of freight would double the price but then you must figure in that the truck owner is amortizing three times the cost of the equipment and lost labor during charging, so the cost would likely triple or more.

Almost everything moves by a long-haul truck. If you want to see inflation, add that to the cost of every delivery if you could even find enough truck drivers to logistically drive all the extra loads that would be required. The entire idea is unworkable. It sounds like another not well thought out “only a matter of political will plan” from New York State and California.

Caiazza Conclusion

Menton and Ellenbogen describe insurmountable issues with the heavy-duty truck mandates. There is no way that the Climate Act heavy duty truck mandates can be achieved on schedule and probably not ever. This is another reason to pause the Climate Act implementation and rethink the ambition and schedule of all the mandates. Until the feasibility of each requirement has been proven it is utter folly to throw more money at these magical dreams.

Peer Review and Costs of Building Electrification for Commercial Users

This is an article primarily by Richard Ellenbogen that estimates projected annual operating costs and emission reductions for New York commercial facilities when the new building codes are implemented. It is also an example of how peer review should be done.

Ellenbogen is the President [BIO] of Allied Converters and frequently copies me on emails that address various issues associated with the New York Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act). I have published other articles by Ellenbogen including a description of his keynote address to the Business Council of New York 2023 Renewable Energy Conference Energy titled: “Energy on Demand as the Life Blood of Business and Entrepreneurship in the State -video here: Why NY State Must Rethink Its Energy Plan and Ten Suggestions to Help Fix the Problems”. He comes to the table as an engineer who truly cares about the environment and as an early adopter of renewable technologies at both his home and business two decades ago.

Heat Pump Hype

I am a long-time critic of the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority’s (NYDSERDA) biased promotion of all green energy technologies. Their description of cold climate heat pumps is a good example: “Today’s cold-climate heat pumps are a smarter, more efficient option to keep your home comfortable all year long. These all-in-one heating and air conditioning systems are environmentally friendly, extremely efficient, and affordable to operate.” In another example, they breathlessly exclaim that heat pumps outsell gas furnaces for the second straight year. This claim uses national figures and could be solely the result of new building sales that are much stronger in southern states where heat pumps are a cost-effective choice. Ellenbogen addresses the affordability claims below.

Ellenbogen Heat Pump Experience

Ellenbogen installed geothermal heat pumps when his house was completed in 2004. He has 21 years of experience with them and has maintained a database of the performance and costs. His monitoring system includes temperature sensors on the inputs and the outputs of the wells and water flow. Because he uses a geothermal system, he can rely on it even during the coldest periods when air source heat pumps cannot extract enough energy from the air to keep the house warm. Furthermore, his system uses deeper wells than are currently allowed by law that were legal when the system was developed. They are also open loop which greatly increases their efficiency but that is also no longer allowed. In his configuration, his heat pumps can pull 7 tons of heat transfer per well where current geothermal wells are limited to about 2.5 tons per well. As a result, his system can achieve a Coefficient of Performance (COP) of about 5.5 whereas current Geo-thermal systems can achieve a COP of about 3.5 with the restrictions on well depth and having to be closed loop. During long periods of cold temperatures that force the heat pumps to run for extended periods, the well temperatures can drop and the efficiency of the system decreases so it will use more energy.

One of the things I admire as a techno-weenie is Ellenbogen’s quantitative nature. He built his house “as a science project to satisfy his intellectual curiosity” and it has yielded an enormous amount of data. When the Indian Point nuclear station was operating, he ran a calculation and found his geo-thermal system was about 7% more carbon free than his 95% efficient modulating gas boilers that were originally installed as a backup in case of a power failure. After New York politicians shut down Indian Point the carbon emissions of local electricity increased and the GHG emissions advantage vanished. Given his concerns about GHG emissions he decided to figure out a cost and energy comparison. He turned the heat pumps off this winter and used the duplicate gas system to compare with multiple years of data with the heat pumps operating.

The results are notable. His gas bill went up less than the electric bill went down and this is for an electric system with an efficiency 57% higher than what can be built now during a colder winter. The electric bill was about $8600 lower than it would have been with the heat pumps operating. The gas bill only went up by $6057 for a net savings of $2543 using the natural gas heating and the current winter has been 120 degree days colder than last year. That figure has been adjusted for the higher electricity prices this year. Note that the heating system is well designed with 14,500 square feet of high mass radiant floors that use 100-degree water in the system and 18 separate zones which makes it even more efficient. The large scale of the system removes measurement aberrations that might occur with a smaller system.

To compare the costs of heating with electricity and natural gas it is appropriate to compare the cost to generate the same amount of heat. Table 1 lists the cost for the delivery of one therm (heat energy equal to 100,000 British thermal units) between a 95% efficient boiler and electric heat at relationship different Coefficient of Performance efficiency values. A COP of 1 is inefficient. A highly efficient ground source heat pump has a COP of 3.5. Even an efficient ground source heat pump is 16% more expensive ($2.85 for one therm compared to $2.45 for a 95% efficient gas system in the Downstate New York area which covers 60% of the state’s population. Also note that air source heat pumps on a very cold day can reach COP’s of 1 – 1.5 and easily go below 2. As a result, they can be two to three times as expensive to operate.

Commercial Facility Projection

New York State legislators passed a prohibition on the installation of fossil fuel equipment and building systems starting in 2026 for small buildings and 2029 for larger ones. The prohibition starts in 2026 for new buildings up to 7 stories tall, except for commercial and industrial buildings larger than 100,000 square feet. There are exemptions for certain types of buildings including emergency backup power systems, manufacturing facilities, commercial food establishments, laboratories, hospitals and medical facilities, critical infrastructure (e.g., water treatment plants), agricultural buildings, crematoriums.

Ellenbogen applied the numbers derived from his house experiment to his business and extrapolated them to the 55,000 square foot factory which would fall under the less than 100,000 square foot rule for new construction after 2026. Admittedly, there is no law currently in place that would require a developer who wanted to replicate Ellenbogen’s manufacturing facility because of the exemptions. Eventually, however, the net-zero mandates will require all electric construction of all new facilities and for the replacement of existing equipment before the end of useful life. Therefore, it is a relevant example of Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act). costs.

Ellenbogen’s home has a backup gas boiler heating system and his manufacturing plant has a combined heat and power system. In 2002 he installed the first microturbine-based Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system in the Con Ed service area. This approach generates electricity by burning natural gas. Waste heat is recovered “to heat the building in the winter, or to be sent to absorption chillers to cool the building in the summer.” This approach allows him to recover 70 to 75 percent of the energy content of the fuel and augments a solar array on the roof.

By doing a thermal analysis of his home’s gas usage he was able to determine what would be needed to heat the factory. The end result is that removing gas from his manufacturing facility would raise energy bills to about $147,000, more than doubling them, and raise his carbon footprint by about 15%. The key takeaway is that even using the most efficient electric heating/cooling system available, it still means that this gas ban policy will cost businesses in NY state enormously while raising carbon emissions. When and if the Downstate New York electric system reaches zero GHG emissions the carbon emissions will be reduced.

Environmental Impacts

Ellenbogen calculated that because the Downstate electric system is CO2 rate is 950 pounds per MWh according to 2022 EPA data, that the CO2 emissions from using the CHP system are actually less than if heat pumps were used. He also pointed out he has replaced three compressors in his home’s ground source system over the past 21 years and each time the failure resulted in a full loss of refrigerant. He said that it is not preventable and that you only find out when the unit gives a fault code with no early warning.

Discussion

This post is based on three emails from Ellenbogen. I did not include all the calculation details he provided in the originals but will provide them if requested. The reason for the three versions is that the details provided enabled a reader to point out an issue that he corrected. Ellenbogen noted that:

Those damned Laws of Thermodynamics are getting in the way again, but this may be a teaching moment to show what a real peer review looks like and that we have to acknowledge errors to make sure that the best information is in the public space. It also is a clear example of how we can’t escape those Laws in our calculations. Miscalculations introduce errors and a failure to account for the Laws of Thermodynamics entirely when setting energy policy introduces huge errors.

This raises an issue with the implementation of the Climate Act. The agencies responsible for the implementation plans have not provided adequate documentation to enable detailed review of the plan. Even if it is possible to make a detailed comment on an obvious issue, there hasn’t been any acknowledgement of any problem, much less evidence of a revision to the plans. The appropriate peer review process exemplified by Ellenbogen’s analysis is not a feature of the Climate Act stakeholder process. As a result, Ellenbogen notes “errors are apparent across the entire spectrum of NY State’s Energy plan.”

Ellenbogen summarized his peer review concerns in this regard.

While I hate to beat on academia, it has a great deal of responsibility for NY State’s energy mess. A certain University Professor that sat on the Climate Action Council still refuses to acknowledge that all of the technologies for this transition do not exist despite a Public Service Commission conference determining that fact in 2023. Unfortunately, people in the legislature and certain environmental groups have adopted those ideas despite there being known large deficiencies in those theories as it applies to putting them into practice. Untested theories that can’t be put into practice in the “Real World” are dangerous for society. State residents shouldn’t be turned into a science project and that is what is happening.

I received the following response to my email from a retired professor that now works in industry. I have redacted portions to keep them anonymous. While on average, the refrigerant replacement is every 20 years as there are three heat pumps, their observations are profound and are critical to understanding a huge issue now facing the NY State. It follows in italics.

This is the most sobering analysis of a heating system I have ever read. I constantly hear about the miracles of heat pumps, but the carbon footprint is never honestly presented. Plus the replacement of freon every 7 years is never included. Thanks for providing a clear analysis of a day in the life of a NY business and resident.

I’m still enjoying life in XXXXXXXX, and in no longer being a professor. Academia lives in a bubble, and you can’t see that until you leave. Professors need to do a real sabbatical leave in industry and be forced to solve real problems, not problems they dream up. It’s tough out here! I thought I knew something about XXXXXX after XX years as an academic doing research, but XX years at XXXXXXX has shown me I have much to learn. It is stimulating, I’m glad to be here. They need to have a similar experience.

Regarding the statement above, one of the reasons that the carbon footprints of heat pumps is never honestly mentioned is that the loudest voices in the space are the people selling them and other people don’t have enough experience to question the results. I’ve been using them for 21 years. My house was built as a science project to satisfy my intellectual curiosity. It has yielded an enormous amount of data, some of which has been used by the state.

One of the major issues that I have with NY State policy is that many of the people that are hired to do the energy analyses for the government actually work for the manufacturers or other interested parties. The reports read more like advertisements paid for by the NY State taxpayers than a sound scientific document. I dealt with that in a 2020 paper on the Lansing Gas moratorium. The company hired to do the Tompkins County energy analysis sold heat pumps and the resulting report reflected that and had a huge error in its results. The paper is very relevant to the building electrification discussion.

Regarding the professor’s comments, when someone is forced to deal with the consequences of their decisions as occurs in industry, it greatly changes their perspective. There are no negative consequences for someone theorizing about policy on a University Campus and that is okay because it can move society forward. However, if they don’t really test those ideas before pushing them into society as a gospel, there will be huge problems and that is what we are now seeing in NY State.

Conclusion

The ramifications of New York’s Climate Act on business development are becoming evident. In 2026, certain new buildings in New York will no longer be able to install fossil fuel equipment and building systems. Richard Ellenbogen has performed a “science project” that proves that New York’s net-zero transition electrification plans for heating will be more expensive than using natural gas. It is also notable that the experiment was best on a geothermal heat pump system that is more efficient than legally possible today. Adding to the already large energy costs in New York is not a good way to attract and maintain manufacturing in the state.

This exercise also shows the importance of robust peer review. Ellenbogen’s first draft contained an error that was identified because he showed his work. He acknowledged the problem and corrected his analysis. New York’s Climate Act stakeholder process does not document analyses well enough for considered review and the Hochul Administration does not acknowledge any comments that do not comport with their narrative. As a result, the broken stakeholder process in New York will likely ignore Ellenbogen’s real-world results.

New York State 2024 GHG Emissions Inventory

This post describes the latest New York State (NYS) GHG emission inventory report that provides data through 2022. The Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) includes a target for a 40% reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from 1990 levels by 2030 and the inventory has some implications relative to that target.

Overview

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. In addition to the 2030 GHG emission target, the electric sector is required to be 70% renewable. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” The Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022. Since then, the State has been trying to implement the Scoping Plan recommendations through regulations, proceedings, and legislation.

NYS GHG Emissions

At the end of 2024 the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) released the 2024 statewide GHG emissions report (2024 GHG Report). DEC is required by the Climate Act to follow unique inventory requirements. I published an overview post of this greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory that described things that maximize emissions in an apparent attempt to make GHG emissions as large as possible.

Climate Act emissions accounting includes upstream emissions and is biased against methane. Obviously if upstream emissions are included then the total increases but at the same time it makes the inventory incompatible with everybody else’s inventory. There are two methane effects. Global warming potential (GWP) weighs the radiative forcing of a gas against that of carbon dioxide over a specified time frame so that it is possible to compare the effects of different gases. The values used by New York compare the effect on a molecular basis not on the basis of the gases in the atmosphere, so the numbers are biased. Almost all jurisdictions use a 100-year GWP time horizon, but the Climate Act mandates the use of the 20-year GWP which increases carbon dioxide equivalent values.

The 2024 GHG Report includes the following documents:

To calculate all the emissions in New York and estimate the upstream emissions it takes DEC, the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) and consultants two years to produce the reports. This article compares NYS GHG inventory electric sector emissions with EPA emissions and GHG emissions through 2022 relative to the 2030 40% reduction target.

Electric Generating Unit Emission Trends

Last month I summarized New York electric sector emissions trends. Electric generating units report emissions to the Environmental Protection Agency Clean Air Markets Division as part of the compliance requirements for the Acid Rain Program and other market-based programs that require accurate and complete emissions data. Table 1 lists the EPA CO2 emissions by fuel type for the available years and the total electricity sector GHG emissions from the NYS GHG Inventory.

Table 1: EPA and NYS Electric Sector Emissions

The EPA electric sector emissions are significantly less than the NYS GHG inventory. There are three primary reasons: the inclusion of upstream emissions, imported electricity emissions, and including three other greenhouse gases: methane (CH4), nitrous oxide N2O, and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). Note that the choice of the GWP-20 rather than GWP-100 increases the final numbers further.

2022 GHG Emissions

Table ES.2 in the Summary Report presents emissions for different sectors. Electric generation emissions are listed as electric power fuel combustion, imported electricity, and as part of imported fossil fuels. In 2022, GHG gas emissions from electric power fuel combustion totaled 27.79 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (mmt CO₂e) using a 20-year global warming potential. Imported electricity totaled 8.71 mmt CO₂e. Fuel combustion and imported electricity emissions were primarily CO₂. The Table ES.2 imported fossil fuel value shown covers all fossil fuel used in other sectors.

NYS GHG Emissions Data

There is one notable feature of the GHG inventory. DEC and NYSERDA previously conducted an analysis of statewide emissions in 1990 to establish a baseline for the “Statewide GHG Emission Limits” established by ECL 75-0107 and reflected in 6 NYCRR Part 496. It is important to understand that GHG emission inventories are not based completely on measured emissions. The EPA CAMD data are based on direct measurements but all the other estimates are derived using emission factors and estimates of activities such as fuel use or vehicle miles traveled. The last four emission inventories all have estimated a different 1990 value than the regulatory limit in Part 496. The report notes “The 6 NYCRR Part 496 regulation may be revised at a later date using updated information. For your information, I have compiled all four tables explaining the differences between the estimate of gross statewide emissions in 1990 from the 6 NYCRR Part 496 rulemaking and in this report.

Trends in Sectors

The 2022 GHG Inventory includes four sectoral reports for energy, industrial processes and product use, agriculture, forestry and land use, and waste. The Summary Report describes the observed trends:

In Figure ES.2, emissions are organized into the sectors described in the IPCC approach (IPCC 2006). The Energy sector encompasses emissions associated with the energy system, including electricity, transportation, and building/industrial heating. The Industrial Process and Product Use (or IPPU) sector covers emissions associated with manufacturing and manufactured products. The Waste sector encompasses any activities to manage human-generated wastes. Finally, the Agriculture, Forest, and Other Land Use (or AFOLU) sector encompasses emissions from the management of lands and livestock as well as net emission removals from land management and the long-term storage of carbon in durable goods.

The Energy sector represents the majority of emissions (76%, 2018-2022), but energy emissions in 2022 were 17.7% lower than in 1990 (Figure ES.2). The overall reduction in energy emissions was offset by increases in all other sectors and by a 1.7% decline in net emission removals. The largest increases occurred in IPPU due to the increasing use of hydrofluorocarbons (4.66mmt CO2e) and in AFOLU resulting from changes in agricultural practices (2.37mmt CO2e). Waste sector emissions declined by 4.36mmt COze over the period, primarily due to implementation of landfill gas capture systems.

Discussion

The implications of the GHG inventory are important. The Climate Act includes a target for a 40% reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from 1990 levels by 2030. The NYS Part 496 1990 baseline emissions were 404.26 million metric ton (mmt) CO₂e. The total 2022 NYS emissions were 371.38 mmt CO₂e which is only a 9% or 37.9 mmt CO₂e reduction from the baseline. The 2030 limit is 245.9 mmt CO₂e which will require a further 34% or 163.4 mmt CO₂e reduction.

It is beyond the scope of the GHG inventory to provide any commentary regarding the achievability of meeting the 2030 target, but it is clear that, absent a miracle, the targets will not be met. It is time for the Hochul Administration to acknowledge that the 2030 targets cannot be achieved. The Climate Act requires that the Public Service Commission (PSC) issue a biennial review for notice and comment that considers “(a) progress in meeting the overall targets for deployment of renewable energy systems and zero emission sources, including factors that will or are likely to frustrate progress toward the targets; (b) distribution of systems by size and load zone; and (c) annual funding commitments and expenditures.” The draft Clean Energy Standard Biennial Review Report released on July 1, 2024 will fulfill this requirement. The final report was due at the end of 2024 but was delayed on December 17, 2024. The draft document compared the renewable energy deployment progress relative to the Climate Act goal to obtain 70% of New York’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030. It projects that the 70% by 2030 goal will not be achieved until 2033 when historic renewable resource deployments are considered. The report did not address the 40% reduction of GHG emissions by 2030 target.

The Climate Act has always been a political ploy to gain favor with certain constituencies and has had little basis with reality. Nowhere is the missing link to reality starker than regarding the implementation of emission reduction programs. The green narrative is that the transition away from fossil fuels will be economic, simple, and only a matter of political will. The reality is completely the opposite. The fact is that to reduce GHG emissions to zero as mandated means that existing energy use of fossil fuels requires replacement of existing infrastructure, development of additional supporting infrastructure, and development of new implementation resources (supply chains and trained trades people). To compound the challenge the Climate Act schedule was not developed on the basis of a rational plan. Instead, the politicians arbitrarily chose the deadlines. We are now seeing the results of this boondoggle and the ramifications are unclear.

Conclusion

The 2024 GHG emission inventory reports should be a wake-up call regarding Climate Act implementation. It is clear that the 2030 GHG emission reduction target cannot be met. In addition, the transition of the electric generating system requires a new technology to ensure reliability and the Hochul Administration has not yet responded to last summer’s Comptroller report that found that: “While PSC and NYSERDA have taken considerable steps to plan for the transition to renewable energy in accordance with the Climate Act and Clean Energy Standard, their plans did not comprise all essential components, including assessing risks to meeting goals and projecting costs.” It is obvious that that New York State should pause implementation of the Climate Act and address the myriad issues uncovered to date.

Governor Hochul and Climate Act Affordability

I have argued that Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) affordability would become a political issue soon. My previous article concluded that there is no way to simultaneously achieve the Climate Act emission reduction goals and maintain affordability such that it will not be a campaign issue for Governor Hochul 2026 re-election campaign. This article follows that up with the ramifications of this news “The New York Power Authority (NYPA) backed down from a significant rate increase proposed for hydropower after facing bipartisan backlash, but it was an order from Gov. Kathy Hochul herself that ultimately doomed the plan.”

Overview

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. It includes two 2030 targets: an interim emissions reduction target of a 40% GHG reduction by 2030 and a mandate that 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” After a year-long review, the Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022. Since then, the State has been trying to implement the Scoping Plan recommendations through regulations, proceedings, and legislation.

NYPA Rate Hike

According to the Governor’s press release:

Governor Kathy Hochul today announced that she is demanding the New York Power Authority suspend its proposed electric rate hike, protecting consumers from sky-high utility costs that are making New York State less affordable.

“Today, I’m calling for an end to the Power Authority’s unacceptable proposal to raise electric rates on its customers statewide,” Governor Hochul said. “Too many New Yorkers are already falling behind on their energy bills and I will do everything in my power to reign in these astronomical costs. While I recognize the Power Authority’s critical importance in providing invaluable, clean, baseload power from its large hydroelectric power plants Upstate, I expect NYPA to go back to the drawing board, shelve this existing proposal, and figure out a better way forward.”

Spectrum News provided background on the news:

The New York Power Authority backed down from a significant rate increase proposed for hydropower after facing bipartisan backlash, but it was an order from Gov. Kathy Hochul herself that ultimately doomed the plan.

The increase, which was in the midst of a lengthy implementation process, would have sent hydropower rates from $12.88/MWh to $33.05 over the next four years before settling back to a rate of $24.26 by 2029.

Republican lawmakers in Western New York pushed back on the proposal.

Sen. George Borrello told Spectrum News 1 he is thankful that NYPA called the rate hike off.

“As a business owner in New York state, this is one of he few things that is actually a positive when doing business in New York, the ability to get low cost power,” Borrello said.

Spectrum News noted that:

“At Governor Hochul’s request, NYPA will move to withdraw the 2025 proposed rate increase. We understand that New Yorkers are struggling right now, and we intend to make every effort to collaborate with our customers and stakeholders to find a way forward,” NYPA told Spectrum News 1 in a statement

NYPA had said the increases were necessary to keep pace with maintenance and operational costs.

I question the claim that the costs were primarily related to maintenance and operational costs. I am not alone. Spectrum News said that:

Borrello and others have blamed both instances on the state’s drive toward clean energy to meet its climate goals.

“It’s all directly related to the [Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act] then you add to it the reliability, the fact that we’ve shut down reliable forms of energy like Indian Point which supplies 20% of New York City’s power,” Borrello said.

Not surprisingly Hochul has pushed back on that premise. When discussing the large proposed Con Ed hike, she said: “It is a factor, but to increase rates to this percentage is not supported by that.”

New NYPA Climate Act Responsibilities

In the magical world of political cost accounting, adding responsibilities to state agencies is free. In the last year Governor Hochul has placed significant mandates on NYPA related to the Climate Act. According to the NYPA Strategic Renewables Plan dated January 28, 2025:

The 2023-24 State Budget authorized the most significant expansion of NYPA’s authority under the Power Authority Act in a generation. This expanded authority builds on the day-to-day work of NYPA staff to supply the state with reliable electricity, expand New York’s transmission system, and provide clean, affordable power and innovative energy services to our customers.

The enactment included four new areas of responsibility for NYPA, one of which expanded our authority to develop, own, and operate renewable energy generation projects to help meet the state’s clean energy goals. The expanded authority directed NYPA– beginning in 2025 and biennially thereafter– to develop and publish a renewable energy generation strategic plan that identifies our renewable energy generating priorities for the next two years. In addition, NYPA is directed to update the plan annually and may update the plan more often than annually if needed.

Beyond directing NYPA to build renewables, the budget enactment contained several other mandates:

NYPA will work with the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) to establish the REACH program to provide renewable energy bill credits to low- or moderate-income New Yorkers in disadvantaged communities;

NYPA will invest up to $25 million annually in workforce training in collaboration with the New York State Department of Labor (DOL);

NYPA will cease fossil fuel generation at its small natural gas power plants by the end of 2030, so long as electric system reliability and environmental conditions allow.

In addition, NYPA will lead the Decarbonization Leadership Program, which calls for the development of energy and emissions profiles for state government’s largest carbon-emitting facilities and decarbonization action plans that will guide state agencies on facility improvements that will reduce carbon emissions.

If I was a betting man, I would wager that the costs of these efforts are a significant chunk of the revenues raised by increasing hydropower rates from $12.88/MWh to $33.05 over the next four years before settling back to a rate of $24.26 by 2029.

Time for a Cost Reckoning

It is time for the Hochul Administration to acknowledge the total costs of all the programs associated with Climate Act implementation. The Climate Act requires that the Public Service Commission (PSC) issue a biennial review for notice and comment that considers “(a) progress in meeting the overall targets for deployment of renewable energy systems and zero emission sources, including factors that will or are likely to frustrate progress toward the targets; (b) distribution of systems by size and load zone; and (c) annual funding commitments and expenditures.” The draft Clean Energy Standard Biennial Review Report released on July 1, 2024 will fulfill this requirement. The final report was due at the end of 2024 but was delayed on December 17, 2024.

On December 18, 2024, the New York Assembly Committee on Energy held a public hearing where the status of the Biennial Report was discussed. At 28:01 of the video, Jessica Waldorf, Chief of Staff & Director of Policy Implementation, New York State Department of Public Service (DPS) explained the decision to delay:

The decision to pull the report yesterday was really based on the fact that we did a major review of the main program that would have otherwise been included in that report – the Clean Energy Standard that governs all the renewable energy programs. That report is currently under consideration by the Commission. Rather than do things piece meal we’re going to release the next version of the CLCPA annual report once the commission has acted on that CES biennial review. We will include one comprehensive review report that will look back two years and also respond to other stakeholder feedback that we’ve received in response to the issuance of the first report.

My interpretation of this statement is that there is no commitment when the costs report is coming out. If they could get away with delaying the report, they would wait until after the 2026 election. More troubling was her comment about NYSERDA spending increases:

It also can’t be attributed to just the Climate Act. Many of the initiatives go back several years all the way to 1996 when we started authorizing funds for things like energy efficiency investments and so a lot of programs and initiatives preceded the Climate Act.

My concern is that this suggests that the DPS is going to hide the total costs of all the programs needed to achieve Climate Act mandates when the biennial report cost estimates are released. The emphasis on the Clean Energy Standard when describing the review suggests that they will try to list only the costs of that component of New York’s energy plan net-zero transition. If the costs of programs and initiatives like the Clean Energy Standard, that preceded the Climate Act are not included, then Hochul can claim lower costs but New Yorkers are still on the hook for all the costs. I recently described this as mal-information because while the costs listed are based on reality it is misleading and harms New Yorkers because it improperly excludes necessary costs to achieve all the goals of the energy transition. New Yorkers deserve to know all the costs associated with Climate Act implementation.

Discussion

The costs of green energy policies has become an issue elsewhere as well. Gordon Tomb of the Commonwealth Foundation recently explained that

Last October, electric grid operator PJM Interconnection received a joint letter from five Democrat governors—Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, Illinois’ JB Pritzker, New Jersey’s Phil Murphy, Maryland’s Wes Moore, and Delaware’s John Carney. According to them, PJM, which supplies electricity to 13 states and the District of Columbia, has gouged customers with its annual capacity auctions

Just like Hochul rather than take accountability for destructive policies that produced the higher costs these Democrat governors are playing the blame game. Tomb concludes:

It is time for policymakers to face the economic and physical realities of energy production. Their misguided efforts to reduce carbon emissions—from cap-and-trade schemes to government mandates favoring solar and wind—have proved costly to consumers and damaging to the reliability of power systems.

This perfectly exemplifies Progressive New York Democrats led by the Governor Hochul. Their Climate Act fantasies are going to cost enormous amounts of money and risks to reliability have been largely ignored by them. So far, the Hochul Administration has not fulfilled the mandate to document the “annual funding commitments and expenditures” and I suspect that they when they finally provide numbers they will continue the mal-information coverup used to minimize Scoping Plan costs y excluding costs not associated with the Climate Act itself.

There is another missing piece in the cost assessments. The cost projections in the Scoping Plan are approaching several years old now. It is time that those numbers were updated. To do it right, clear documentation for all the energy use and emission reduction strategies proposed that includes assumptions, expected costs, and projected emission reductions is necessary.

Conclusion

Hochul was quoted as saying “Too many New Yorkers are already falling behind on their energy bills and I will do everything in my power to reign in these astronomical costs.” It is inconceivable that her Administration does not understand that these new NYPA responsibilities will cost a lot of money. That makes her actions hypocritical. She was indignant that the companies and NYPA would hike rates when people are struggling but conveniently overlooks all the costs for renewables and other Climate Act mandates that are buried in the rate cases. It is time for transparency. There should be a line on consumer bills that documents Climate Act costs.

New York Cap and Invest Status

New York’s Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) is stalled. This article updates the current status of NYCI implementation based on a analysis of a comprehensive overview by Samanth Maldonado titled “Green Lawmakers Pressure Hochul to Speed up Action on Climate Act”.

Overview

The New York Cap-and-Invest Program (NYCI) is a key component of Climate Act implementation. Before the 2025 State of the State was released, I believed that Governor Hochul would announce the next steps associated with the implementation of NYCI. However, the only mention of NYCI in the speech and in the FY2026 NYS Executive Budget Book noted that in the coming months the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) will take steps forward on developing the cap-and-invest program by proposing new reporting regulations to gather information on emissions sources. Not surprisingly, Climate Act proponents were outraged.

Samanth Maldonado’s article Green Lawmakers Pressure Hochul to Speed up Action on Climate Act is a useful summary of the status of NYCI. I also realized while reading it that some arguments by people she interviewed deserved a response.

Status

Clearly Governor Hochul is having second thoughts about the Climate Act relative to her re-election ambitions in 2026. Maldonado summarized the political considerations:

But Hochul has had other priorities and expressed a willingness to “rethink” where climate fits into her agenda. Her current main theme is “Making New York State More Affordable,” and the governor has been sensitive to anything that might hit New Yorkers’ wallets. That includes measures that would advance aspects of the climate law — but could also raise household costs.

“It was a different time,” Hochul said in July, noting that the climate law passed under her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, adding “I can’t be caught in the past of 2019 into 2024 and 2025 and make decisions based on that, because a lot has changed.”

She called the climate goals “something I would love to meet but also the costs have gone up so much, I now have to step back and say, “What is the cost on the typical New York family?’ just like I did with congestion pricing.”

Maldonado is clearly a believer in the rationale for the Climate, but she acknowledges that things have changed since it was passed:

That law, enacted in 2019, requires the state to drive down planet-warming emissions and shift away from fossil fuels, touching on nearly every sector of the economy and costing a projected $300 billion. Nearly six years later, the goals at the heart of the CLCPA remain aligned with what climate scientists agree is urgent and necessary to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of a warming globe, but the political and economic environment have changed. Notably, federal funds supporting New York’s progress may disappear thanks to Trump’s federal funding freeze.

For the record, the $300 billion dollar figure is Hochul mal-information because that figure only includes an unspecified fraction of the total costs and the projection cost methodologies consistently biased the expected costs low. As to her deference given to Climate Scientists™ Dr. Matthew Wielicki explains that many ignore long-standing scientific norms to push alarmist narratives.

The implementation problems highlighted by Maldonado can be traced back to the fact that there is no plan that includes a feasibility assessment. She notes that “an advisory group led by state officials came up with a blueprint to achieve the CLCPA, it did not create a spending plan, nor did it prescribe which actions to take first”. This is because the CAC Advisory Group was made up of individuals chosen by ideology not technical expertise and limited discussion on issues outside of the narrative. The Hochul Administration has yet to acknowledge that there is a reliability crisis brewing. The lack of a plan is evident to others too.

Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, said that lack of planning and prioritization means it’s hard to know what the most cost-effective emissions reduction strategies or resiliency investments might be.

“We’ve got to pick and choose what we’re going to spend,” Rein said, referring to the state. “People are advocating for positions and keep debating, which makes it hard to be flexible with circumstances and facts as they change. That’s where I think New Yorkers have to come together and say, ‘We have to balance affordability, the economy and environmental needs. What can we do together?’”

I believe that it is time to pause the implementation process be paused until the issues raised bb Rein are addressed, certain technical issues considered, and proposed emission reduction strategies are defined.

Political Climate

In my opinion, the Climate Act has always been more about catering to political constituencies than reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The failure to launch NYCI is undoubtedly due to political policy discussions. Maldonado points out:

Hochul’s recent announcement indicated the first cap-and-invest rules, related to emissions reporting, would come out by the end of this year. That means the cap-and-invest program wouldn’t likely take effect until late 2026 or sometime in 2027 — after the next election for governor.

She also notes that:

New York is falling behind on two key requirements of the Climate Act: sourcing 70% of its electricity from renewables like solar and wind by 2030, and reducing planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 (and 85% by 2050). New York is about three years behind the first target and has so far reduced emissions about 9% below 1990 levels, according to the latest data available.

The clean energy advocates also believe that NYCI’s delay is driven by politics:

Hochul’s slow-walking the cap-and-invest program is “110%” tied to her concerns around her reelection prospects, said John Raskin, president of the Spring Street Climate Fund and a political strategist. “It’s reasonable she wants to take care of people’s immediate needs, but she’s not doing herself any political favors by rejecting or stepping away from climate action,” Raskin said. “If she wants to improve her poll numbers and for people to see her as a leader, she should move forward on climate action while communicating how it helps to meet people’s needs.”

Of course, there are very few people in the state that have a bigger stake in the Climate Act proceeding quickly than Raskin. The Spring Street Climate Fund “supports high-impact policy campaigns that can make New York a model state for climate progress. We identify opportunities to win scalable climate solutions and invest in the grassroots climate campaigns that can succeed.” There is nothing in their business model that addresses affordability, reliability, or environmental impacts that affect New Yorkers.

Raskin is not the only one with a vested interest. Michael Gerrard is the founder and director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. The Sabin Center would not exist if there were not a problem. Maldonado quotes a thinly veiled threat from him:

“I think Gov. Hochul was exceeding her authority much as she did when pausing congestion pricing, and DEC has a legal obligation to issue the regulations,” Gerrard said. “Cap and invest would generate revenues that could be used to build more renewable energy and more energy efficiency — things that the federal government is pulling back on.”

Gerrard spearheaded a lawsuit against Hochul’s congestion pricing pause, and now suggests legal action to challenge the cap-and-invest program delay could be on the horizon.

Advocates for NYCI presume that it would be an effective policy that would provide funding and ensure compliance because existing programs worked. However, I have shown that results from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative show that cap-and-invest programs can raise money but have not shown success in reducing emissions. My biggest concern is that the draft NYCI documents have not acknowledged these results. Past results are no guarantee of future success, especially when past results did not produce the results that advocates claim.

The disconnect between reality and New York Progressive politician’s understanding of the energy system and the effects of climate change is even worse. Moldonado quotes Sen. Pete Harckham (D-Hudson Valley), chair of the Senate Committee on Environmental Conservation:

Harckham countered criticism of the Climate Act by pointing out that climate change impacts have only worsened since the law was enacted. Some investments could save money down the road, he added, a point NYSERDA staff made during public hearings about the CLCPA in years past.

“We need to be redoubling our efforts,” he told THE CITY. “Clean energy is cheaper than fossil fuel energy. I reject the equivalency that this is more expensive. In the long run, this is going to be much less expensive.”

The price on carbon through a cap-and-invest program could increase fuel costs for New Yorkers, including low- and middle-income households, in the short term, but rebates kicking in could result in net savings, according to a state analysis. Two reports issued by environmental groups in January showed how a cap-and-invest program could benefit low-income New Yorkers, depending on its design.

“We are literally showing you research and making a case that we are helping the exact New Yorkers that you say you want to from an affordability angle,” said New York City Environmental Justice Alliance Deputy Director Eunice Ko, who worked on one of the reports. “This is just one tool. We’re not saying it should be the only tool, but we need things like this, absent federal support and federal funding.”

I already explained that the State’s cost numbers are bogus. The idea that green energy is cheaper than fossil fuel energy is wrong. The idea that rebates could result in net savings is a favorite talking point but ignores implementation concerns. People who are having trouble paying for energy now do not have extra money available and will have difficulty waiting for the rebates to get to them. The claims that NYCI could benefit low-income New Yorkers are a stretch and ignore the fact that some of the money generated by NYCI must be spent to reduce emissions.

Conclusion

I agree with those who argue that NYCI deployment has been stalled due to political reasons. I do not agree that is necessarily a bad thing. While I have no hope that there will be an epiphany within the Hochul Administration that expectations for NYCI must be tempered by reality. It cannot support funding commitments to dis-advantaged communities, provide enough rebates to make low-income citizens whole, and fund emission reduction programs. Funding should be guided by the experience gained with the similar RGGI program and the necessity to support emission reductions must be acknowledged.

The reality is that there is no way to simultaneously achieve the Climate Act emission reduction goals and maintain affordability such that it will not be a campaign issue for Hochul. How she tries to resolve the irreconcilable will be fascinating to watch in the coming months. Going forward or stalling for time she cannot win.

Ellenbogen and Caiazza Comments on DPS Definitions for Renewable Energy Program

On November 4, 2024, the Department of Public Service (DPS) staff proposed definitions for two key components of the 2040 zero emissions Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) target. Recently I described the electric industry response comments that suggest that there will be consequences if there is no plan and recommend a re-assessment of the schedule. This post describes comments that Richard Ellenbogen and I filed that recommends the implementation process be paused until certain issues are resolved.

I am convinced that implementation of the Climate Act net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks. I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 500 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. The opinions expressed in this article only reflect my position and not necessarily those of Richard Ellenbogen.

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

Overview

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. Two targets address the electric sector: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.” The Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022. Since then, the State has been trying to implement the Scoping Plan recommendations through regulations, proceedings, and legislation.

I believe that the biggest shortcoming of the Hochul Administration’s implementation of the Climate Act is the lack of a plan. For example, to implement a transition to meet the mandate that all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040 it is first necessary to define “zero emissions”. Amazingly, draft definitions were not proposed for over four years. On November 4, 2024, the DPS staff proposal concerning definitions for key terms (Staff Proposal) in Public Service Law §66-p that finally defined “zero emissions”. The Introduction of the Staff Proposal explains:

In this proposal, the Department of Public Service Staff (Staff) suggests interpretations of key terms in the provisions of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act), codified in Section 66-p of the Public Service Law (PSL), which directs the Public Service Commission (Commission) to establish a renewable energy program and design it to achieve particular targets. At issue in this proposal is the language of PSL §66-p(2)(b), which directs the Commission to establish a program pursuant to which, by the year 2040, the “statewide electrical demand system will be zero emissions.” Of particular note, neither of the terms “statewide electrical demand system” nor “zero emissions” are expressly defined in the Climate Act or in the PSL. This lack of statutory definition requires the Commission’s interpretation of these terms to ensure proper regulatory implementation.

This post describes the comments that Ellenbogen and I filed for this proceeding.

Electric Industry Filings

We endorsed the filings made by the New York Independent System Operator and the Joint Utilities in response to the proposed definitions of “statewide electrical demand system” and “zero emissions” that I summarized earlier. We agreed that it is necessary to draft implementing regulations that rely on consistent and clear definitions to satisfy the zero emissions by the 2040 standard and to maintain electric system reliability. It is also essential that imported energy is treated consistently and transparently. Moreover, to maintain system reliability in a zero emissions electric system that meets the aspirational Climate Act schedule, new technologies and expanded existing technologies must be deployed on an unprecedented scale.

The theme of our comments is that the implementation process should be paused until certain issues are resolved to prevent a waste of effort on false solutions. One example reason is that a plan must be in place first and that is consistent with this Joint Utility recommendation:

Given the potential for New York’s clean energy resources to fall short of demand, or suffer from delayed entry for various reasons, and the challenges associated with the commercial availability and maturity of new energy technologies, the Commission should require Staff to develop a plan for the development of incremental renewables, the retirement of non-compliant resources, and methodologies to address gaps between existing resources and the reliability needs of the system, while also ensuring that reliability and resource adequacy do not suffer. Staff should also consider the development status and lead time of new and existing technologies from research and development to their commercial deployment. It is imperative to address these issues, set expectations and identify needs for the journey towards the 2040 zero emissions target.

Criteria for Pausing

The overarching reason to pause the process is that the safety valve provisions for affordability and reliability that are directly related to the zero emissions resource in New York Public Service Law § 66-p (4). “Establishment of a renewable energy program” are not defined. The implementation process should be paused for anything beyond Behind the Meter (BTM) generation sources and load reductions until criteria are defined and a tracking process established for “safe and adequate electric service” and “significant increase in arrears or service disconnections”. Without established criteria it is impossible to fulfill this legal mandate.

Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFR)

Responsible New York agencies all agree that new DEFR technologies are needed to make a solar and wind-reliant electric energy system work reliably. No one knows what those technologies are. We believe the only likely viable DEFR backup technology is nuclear generation because it is the only candidate resource that is technologically ready, can be expanded as needed, and does not suffer from limitations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

This situation is a fundamental reason why a pause is necessary. If the only viable DEFR solution is nuclear, then the wind, solar, and energy storage approach cannot be implemented without nuclear power. Using nuclear solely as a backup is inappropriate because it works best as a baseload resource. Developing baseload nuclear eliminates the need for a huge DEFR backup resource and massive buildout of wind turbines and solar panels sprawling over the state’s lands and water. Although nuclear power is expensive when compared to the resources needed for a wind, solar, energy storage, and DEFR system that all have shorter expected operational life spans it is likely that it would be cheaper.

NYSERDA and DPS have mentioned a related five-year plan presumably to determine what technology should be used going forward. It is obviously prudent to pause renewable development until some DEFR technology is proven feasible. The choice and even the viability of any DEFR technology will affect the entire design of the future electric structure necessary to meet the Climate Act net-zero energy system.

Lithium-Ion Storage Safety Concerns

The Climate Act “Resilient and Distributed Grid goal is 1,500MW of energy storage, expanding to 3,000 MW by 2030”. The Peak Coalition has recommended that battery storage replace peaking power plants and have endorsed the Rise Light & Power Renewable Ravenswood initiative that proposes to transition Ravenswood Generating Station into a clean energy hub. The plan involves the replacement of Ravenwood’s remaining peaking capacity with “a mix of offshore wind, upstate renewables, district heating, and large-scale battery storage”.

However, there are substantive safety concerns. These Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) must overcome space constraint issues and are not proven technology. When a leading expert on batteries says: “Everybody has to be educated how to use these batteries safely”, we think the best course of action is to follow his advice. It is not appropriate to make the residents of the disadvantaged communities near a BESS become unwilling lab rats to test whether a technology that can generate toxic gases, cause fires, and create explosions is appropriate in an urban setting.

A recent incident reinforces this energy storage safety issue and is another reason to pause implementation. Our comments argued that it is appropriate to consider what would happen if there was a fire at Ravenswood like the fire at the Moss Landing energy storage facility in California. Our comments were based on the analysis described in my Implications of the Moss Landing Battery Plant Fire article. At Moss Landing, there were 7,676 acres under evacuation with only 1,214 people living there. Richard Ellenbogen described the impacts of a fire at Ravenswood if it required a similar evacuation zone. A similar fire would require at least a shelter in place order and possibly an evacuation order for nearly a million people to say nothing about shutting down highways within the entire area circled by Routes 278 and 495 as well as the East River. Our comments posed questions about the ramifications within this area and the Roosevelt Island community in the East River opposite Ravenswood. Clearly, these safety concerns must be addressed before BESS facilities are built to replace peaking power plants in New York City.

BESS Timing

There are deployment timing issues that also should be addressed. Our comments posed the question why these facilities are even needed at this time. As Ravenswood is being redeveloped as a “Clean Energy Hub” it is not clear how much clean energy will there be to charge the batteries in the foreseeable future. The Clean Path NY transmission line designed to bring renewables to NY City from Central NY is up in the air. The termination of offshore wind by the Trump administration is another roadblock. Even if it weren’t threatened by the Trump administration it is likely that significant offshore wind is likely more than 10 years away due to high costs, supply chain constraints and a lack of Jones Act compliant Jack ships needed for the installations. We concluded that it will be years before sufficient zero-emissions energy is available for this facility.

A BESS facility built today will be storing fossil fuel-based generation with an average carbon footprint of approximately 950 pounds of CO2 per MWh as per EPA figures for the downstate NY utility system. With 15% – 20% charge-discharge losses added that carbon footprint is increased to over 1100 pounds of CO2 per MWh for any BESS System in the downstate area. In comparison, a highly polluting 60-year-old generating plant like EF Barrett or any of the peaking power plants that the Peak Coalition wants replaced could be replaced with a Combined Cycle gas plant with CO2 emissions of about 800 pounds per MWh, 30% lower than the battery facilities and will have a lifetime five to six times longer.

This is another reason to pause the process. New York State and New York City are not California where renewable development is much further along. Solar arrays generate far less energy per acre in NY State and as a result, the state is many years away from needing these BESS facilities. By the time that there are sufficient renewables available in NY State to create the Duck Curve and a need to charge the batteries, any Li-ion batteries installed now will have deteriorated past their 8 – 10-year operating life. As a result, NY State ratepayers will be saddled with hundreds of millions of dollars of expenses on their utility bills that had the net effect of raising New York City and state carbon footprint more than the peaker plants that they are designed to replace

Conclusion

We concluded our comments by endorsing the Joint Utility statement recommendation that the Commission direct Staff to develop a clear roadmap that addresses, among other things, clean energy technology readiness. This recommendation would not be necessary if there was a clear roadmap available. In the absence of such a plan the Hochul Administration’s approach to meet the Climate Act targets has been to push ahead without consideration of technological ramifications. The Moss Landing BESS fire underscores the risk of such an approach. It would be inappropriate to proceed with BESS installations in New York City and the other densely populated regions of New York State until the full scope of safety risks are understood. Additionally, the entire process should be paused until the state has a clear understanding of what resources will be needed to safely implement a sound energy plan. This will prevent the squandering of resources on technologies that will not reduce GHG emissions and will help to ensure safety and economic vitality for New York State residents.

Time for Resets in California and New York

The Breakthrough Journal published an article by Jennifer Hernandez and Lauren Teixeira entitled Time to reset California’s climate leadership that I think is relevant to New York. I have recently argued that because there are so many unanswered questions and unresolved issues that the logical next step for New York is to pause in Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) implementation until we understand how to decarbonize our electric system without adversely affecting affordability and current reliability standards. Hernandez and Teixeira come to the same conclusion but with arguments that I have not made but are applicable to New York too.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Act net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks. I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 490 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Overview

Responsible New York agencies all agree that new Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource (DEFR) technologies are needed to make a solar and wind-reliant electric energy system work reliably during periods of extended periods of low wind and solar resource availability. Because DEFR is needed and because we don’t know what technology can be used, I think that the Climate Act schedule needs to be paused. In that light I was interested in this article calling for California to “go back to the drawing board”.

Jennifer Hernandez and Lauren Teixeira are both well versed in California energy policies. Hernandez has practiced land use and environmental law for more than 30 years and has received numerous civil rights awards for her work on overcoming environmentalist opposition to housing and other projects needed and supported by minority communities. Teixeira is a Climate and Energy Analyst with the Breakthrough Institute.

California Climate Leadership

California was the first in the nation legislate a “solution” to climate change with its AB32 Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. After fourteen years the inevitable effects of reality are getting the attention of the politicians that supported the law. The introductory paragraph explains:

Faced with the election of Donald Trump to a second term, soaring inequality, and a decline in support from the state’s non-white majority, California’s Democratic leaders have begun asking hard questions about the state’s vaunted climate policies. California’s Democratic Assembly leader Richard Rivas opened the new Legislative session signalling a strong focus on meeting voter concerns about housing and the state’s extraordinarily high cost of living, specifically calling out the state’s climate policies: “California has always led the way on climate. And we will continue to lead on climate,” he told his Assembly colleagues. “But not on the backs of poor and working people, not with taxes or fees for programs that don’t work, and not by blocking housing and critical infrastructure projects. It’s why we must be outcome driven. We can’t blindly defend the institutions contributing to these issues.”

Hernandez and Teixeira compared several metrics for California, Florida, Texas, and the United States to determine how successful California’s claim that they lead the way on climate has been. They explained that:

California’s claims to eco-superiority long predate the passage of AB32, the 2006 law that committed the state to ambitious climate targets and established a cap-and-trade system by which to achieve them. Even before this landmark bill, the state’s per capita carbon emissions were far lower than the national average.

Table 1 compares the data from CA, FL, TX, and the US along with New York and the original ten Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI} states. I included the RGGI states because they also claim to be climate mitigation leaders. The authors chose to compare current emissions to 2006 when California’s landmark climate law AB32 was passed. I analyzed Energy Information Administration data and added two other years. I included 1990 because that is the base year for most net-zero transition programs and 2000 because that has been used by New York State in recent analyses. The results show that New York is close to California for most years. Note that compared to the other jurisdictions New York is the worst performer almost every year.

Table 1: Per capita energy-related carbon dioxide emissions

Hernandez and Teixeira explained the reason for the decreases was the same as what I have found in New York:

The reason why states like Texas and Florida were able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with practically no climate policy to speak of is quite simple: natural gas. Emissions reductions in Texas and Florida were driven by the electricity sector, which had transitioned from coal to natural gas for largely economic reasons. Indeed, by 2017, 41 out of 50 U.S. states had decoupled economic growth from emissions, a phenomenon widely attributed to this transition.

New York politicians were undoubtedly influenced by California’s AB32 because we have similar restrictions on the what technologies were acceptable for reducing GHG emissions:

Along with its climate commitments, California’s political leaders also decreed that further carbon emission reductions in the electricity sector would need to be achieved with a limited suite of renewable energy technologies: solar, wind and battery storage. (Both legacy technologies like hydropower and nuclear, and technologies considered renewable in other states and countries such as biomass, did not meet the state’s narrow definition of “renewable” energy.)

This decision had consequences. Costly renewable energy power purchase agreements, combined with the expense of integrating intermittent resources into the grid, helped to make California’s retail electricity prices the highest in the country (second only to Hawaii). Meanwhile, the state’s remarkable rate of rooftop solar adoption—due to the combination of costly retail electricity, generous state subsidies to often-wealthy homeowners, and rooftop solar mandates—ended up raising electricity prices still further, pushing costs disproportionately onto renters and low-income households who do not have their own rooftop solar.

Given California’s fourteen-year head start I am not surprised that New York’s rates have not shown comparable increases, but double-digit rate case settlements and all the other costs required for the transition will inevitably show similar impacts at some point. The important point made here is that California’s policies have disproportionately increased costs for those least able to afford it. I have always thought that was a likely outcome but here is proof.

Decarbonization at the expense of growth and civil rights?

In the introduction, Hernandez and Teixeira quoted Speaker of the Assembly Richard Rivas who said “California has always led the way on climate. And we will continue to lead on climate, but not on the backs of poor and working people, not with taxes or fees for programs that don’t work, and not by blocking housing and critical infrastructure projects.” The authors also addressed his concerns about effects of AB32 on the economy.

At first glance, California’s impressive economy—the world’s fifth largest, as state officials are fond of reminding the press and populace—would seem to vindicate its climate policy, demonstrating by virtue of its enormity that economic prosperity and deep decarbonization can coexist.

But the state’s wealth masks some troubling trends. While growth in California has significantly outstripped the rest of the country, it has been highly concentrated in just a few high-income places. Since 2001, California’s real GDP has grown by 82%–23 percentage points higher than the U.S. average of 55%. This difference disappears, however, when you take out the three Bay area counties that house Silicon Valley. Bolstered by four of the world’s seven companies with trillion dollar valuations, real GDP in these counties rose at four times the rate of the U.S. average. This remarkable and hyperlocal rise accounted almost entirely for California’s above-average growth:

New York proponents of the Climate Act also trot out New York’s economy relative to the world but don’t mention recent growth. New York does not have the benefit of four massively successful companies so growth is much worse than California. Hernandez and Teixeira note that even with those companies, recent growth is problematic:

But even with massively outsized contributions from Silicon Valley, California’s growth in recent years is not very impressive. Between 2017 and 2023, real GDP in California grew by only 18.5%, slightly above the national average (15.6%), and well behind real GDP in red state competitors Texas (25.7%) and Florida (27.3%).

I dug up some comparable gross state product numbers for New York. Between 2017 and 2023 the gross state product only grew by 10%, well behind all three states and the nation. Hernandez and Teixeira broke down growth by county and showed that the growth was unevenly distributed. They also showed there was a racial disparity to growth. I could not find similar data for New York, but I don’t think it is a stretch to imagine similar patterns are present in New York.

Hernandez and Teixeira also noted that growth is affected by environmental regulations:

California’s strict environmental regulatory regime has not helped to improve this unbalanced state of affairs; in fact, it has likely exacerbated it. Despite abundant natural reserves, the state’s once-mighty oil production industry—a source of well-paying jobs for non-college educated workers—is threatened with terminal decline due to a hostile regulatory environment. After 145 years in California, Chevron is moving its headquarters to Texas.

New York’s ban on hydraulic fracking has certainly limited growth in the same way. The authors addressed other issues raised by Speaker of the Assembly Richard Rivas. In both examples, the situation in New York is identical:

The high cost of living and scarcity of well-paying jobs for the non-college educated have made California an increasingly unlivable place for ordinary people.

People are now voting with their feet: between 2020 and 2023, population fell in 47 of 58 counties, an unprecedented trend that may significantly cut state tax revenues. And according to the Public Policy Institute of California, low income people are now twice as likely to leave as high income people.

Conclusion

Hernandez and Teixeira summed up by making several points:

Considering California’s environmental and economic record since 2006, one can reasonably conclude one of two things: either it is not possible to achieve deep emissions reductions without slowing growth and making economic inequality worse, or California is doing something wrong.

California’s climate policies have contributed to slow economic growth for most of the state and have disproportionately punished the poor and non-college educated workers.

Until the state demonstrates that it can cut its emissions equitably, such that working people once more see the Golden State as a land of opportunity rather than fleeing it, California should not be held up as a model of climate governance.

Expensive policies, supported by high end keyboard economy tax revenue, are simply not exportable to the rest of the country, much less the rest of the world.

Buried somewhere in the Climate Act language is a mandate for New York to consider what is happening at other jurisdictions who are developing their own net-zero transition plans. Typically, California is considered an example of what we should be doing. In this instance I agree with the conclusion of Hernandez and Teixeira that: “While some state leaders may still be tempted to double down on current climate policies, the state, its political leaders, its economy, and the climate will be far better served by going back to the drawing board—as Speaker Rivas has urged.” I also think that New York would be well served by their recommendation: “California’s claims to climate leadership now depend not upon proving that the state is willing to cut its emissions at any cost but rather demonstrating that it can cut its emissions while assuring that home ownership, an affordable cost of living, and good jobs are available to all.”

Does New York Need a Climate Act Feasibility Analysis

On September 9, 2024 the Hochul Administration initiated the development of the State Energy Plan announcing the release of a draft scope of the plan. On November 15 New Yorkers for Clean Power (NYCP) sponsored a webinar titled “Get Charged Up for the New York Energy Plan” that was intended to brief their supporters about the Energy Plan. This article will be the first of two posts addressing this webinar. I have a tendency to write comprehensive posts that are too long for my readers so I am going to break this story up.

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the electric system transition relies on wind, solar, and energy storage. I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 470 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Overview

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction in GHG emissions and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. It includes an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% GHG reduction by 2030. Two targets address the electric sector: 70% of the electricity must come from renewable energy by 2030 and all electricity must be generated by “zero-emissions” resources by 2040. The Climate Action Council (CAC) was responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlined 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 quantified the impact of the electrification strategies. That material was used to develop the Draft Scoping Plan outline of strategies. After a year-long review, the Scoping Plan was finalized at the end of 2022. Since then, the State has been trying to implement the Scoping Plan recommendations through regulations, proceedings, and legislation.

Although related, the Energy Plan should not be confused with the Scoping Plan. Every several years the New York Energy Planning Board is required to update its overall energy plan for the state. The process begins with an initial document that identifies a “scope” of work–meaning the set of things to be evaluated in the plan with a defined planning horizon of 2040. This makes the Climate Act’s 2040 goal of carbon-free electricity particularly relevant. Unlike the 70% renewable goal which only applies in 2030, the 2040 goal does not mandate an arbitrary quota of “renewables”. Instead, it simply mandates carbon-free electricity, which can include nuclear power.

Key Action Items from the Webinar

The description of the New Yorkers for Clean Power webinar titled “Get Charged Up for the New York Energy Plan” stated:

Thank you for joining us for the “Get Charged Up for the New York State Energy Plan” Teach-In on November 15th. We are electrified by the demonstrated interest and information shared to support New York’s climate goals through the development of an ambitious and equitable State Energy Plan. To recap, our featured speakers were:

Janet Joseph, Principal, JLJ Sustainability Solutions (Former VP of Strategy and Market Development, NYSERDA

Dr. Robert Howarth, Member, New York’s Climate Action Council, and David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology at Cornell University

Christopher Casey, Utility Regulatory Director for New York Climate and Energy, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

We’re excited to share the recording and slideshow from the event: Here is the recording of the event and check out the Presenters’ slides here.

Key Takeaways from the Event

Energy Plan is foundational to achieving New York’s climate and energy goals, aligning policies with the CLCPA.

Engagement from advocates, community members and developers is critical for ensuring equitable and actionable outcomes

Challenges like building decarbonization and system reliability require innovative solutions and statutory changes.

I am going to address the presentations of Janet Joseph and Robert Howarth in a later post. I disagree with their comments that downplay my concern that transitioning the New York electric grid to one that relies primarily on wind, solar, and energy storage will adversely affect reliability and affordability. This post is going to describe Dr. Howarth’s response to my specific question about the need for a feasibility analysis.

Feasibility Analysis Background

Dr. Howarth is venerated by New York environmental advocates but I think their faith is misplaced. His Introduction at the webinar extolled his role in vilifying methane’s alleged importance as a greenhouse gas. I think that obsession is irrational. The hostess also lauded his work supporting a Biden Administration pause on applications for LNG export terminals. However his analysis was “riddled with errors” and he eventually retracted some of the more extreme claims that received media attention.

Howarth claims that he played a key role in the drafting of the Climate Act and his statement at the meeting where the Scopng Plan was approved claims that no new technology is needed:

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.

As I will show in this article, I think his claim that the transition can be implemented using wind, sun, and hydro using existing technologies is wrong.

Do We Need a Feasibility Analysis?

I thought it would be appropriate to give Howarth the opportunity to recant his feasibility claim so I submitted the following question:

On November 4, 2024, the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) staff proposal concerning definitions for key terms notes that “Pursuing the 2040 target will require the deployment of novel technologies and their integration into a changing grid”. Should there be a feasibility analysis in the energy plan to address their concern about the new technologies?

In his response, Howarth admitted that he was not familiar with the particular reference to the DPS proceeding that is implanting the Climate Act mandates. Then he answered (my lightly edited transcription of his responses):

I can give you the perspective of three years of discussion on the CAC. That it is we firmly stated that the goals can be met with existing technologies. We don’t need novel technologies.

One of my unresolved questions relative to Howarth’s position and the Scoping Plan is that he voted to support the Scoping Plan. However, the Scoping Plan explicitly contradicts his statement that technologies available in 2013 were sufficient for the transition away from fossil fuels. In particular, the Final Scoping Plan Appendix G, Section I page 49 states (my highlight included):

During a week with persistently low solar and wind generation, additional firm zero-carbon resources, beyond the contributions of existing nuclear, imports, and hydro, are needed to avoid a significant shortfall; Figure 34 demonstrates the system needs during this type of week. During the first day of this week, most of the short-duration battery storage is quickly depleted, and there are still several days in which wind and solar are not sufficient to meet demand. A zero-carbon firm resource becomes essential to maintaining system reliability during such instances. In the modeled pathways, the need for a firm zero-carbon resource is met with hydrogen-based resources; ultimately, this system need could be met by a number of different emerging technologies.

In addition to the Scoping Plan statement that a zero-carbon firm resource is needed, the organizations responsible for New York State electric system reliability agree. The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) 2023-2042 System & Resource Outlook, and Power Trends 2024 analyses and the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) Proceeding 15-E-0302 Technical Conference determined that DEFR was needed. Independent analyses by the Cornell Biology and Environmental Engineering, Richard Ellenbogen, and Nuclear New York also found that it was needed. For example, a very readable description of the DEFR problem by Tim Knauss describing the work done by Cornell’s Biology and Environmental Engineering Anderson Lab found that “Just 15 years from now, the electric grid will need about 40 gigawatts of new generating capacity that can be activated regardless of wind speeds, cloud cover or other weather conditions”.

While this is not directly applicable to the DEFR requirement I want to highlight the following Howarth quote:

Now having said that. There are a lot of details to work out, energy storage is going to be critical. Lisa made the point that ground source heat pumps and thermal networks are better than air source heat pumps. They are hugely more effective in the peak time in January. If we go that route we don’t need as much electrical capacity overall. I would add that thermal storage is cheaper than electrical storage for energy. Particularly if you have a thermal network because you can store heat that can provide a community with heat for weeks to months to even on an annual basis. There is a community in Saskatchewan I believe where they store heat six months at a time which is very cheap compared to other things

I believe Howarth’s thermal network reference is to Calgary’s Drake Landing solar heating community. There is only one problem. The system established in 2006 is failing and will be decommissioned less than 20 years after it was built. In my opinion, the New York Energy Plan must include a critique of the Drake Landing experiment and the implications for New York thermal networks. This is another feasibility analysis that I think is necessary.

Howarth went on to double down on his position that no new technologies are needed:

We don’t need new technologies to meet the goals of our climate law. Mark Jacobson from Stanford, who I think is the most brilliant engineer I know. He and I and others wrote a plan back in 2013, more than ten years ago, laying out specifically how to make the state of New York fossil fuel free on a realistic time frame. We made the case then, more than ten years ago, that we did not need new technologies, and it was cost-effective then. It is even more so now. The whole idea of waiting for the next new technology is an excuse for inaction. We don’t need to wait.

I have assembled a page that describes the analyses that contradict the Jacobson and Howarth work and includes a critique of their results. To adequately characterize the New York electric system, it is necessary to simulate the details of the New York electric transmission system. Not surprisingly, of the 11 New York Control Areas the New York City area requires the most energy. That fact coupled with geographical constraints because New York City is basically a load pocket means that transmission details are important. To characterize wind and solar it is necessary to evaluate meteorological conditions to generate estimates of wind and solar resource production. When that is coupled with projections of future load, the sophisticated analyses all conclude that the new dispatchable emissions-free resource is needed because simply adding much more short-term storage will not work. In my opinion, academic studies like Jacobson and Howarth short-change transmission constraints and/or weather variability leading to false solutions and conclusions.

Advocates for the Scoping Plan energy approach demand action now because the law mandates renewables. Invariably they overlook New York Public Service Law § 66-p (4). “Establishment of a renewable energy program” that includes safety valve conditions for affordability and reliability that are directly related to the zero emissions resource. § 66-p (4) states: “The commission may temporarily suspend or modify the obligations under such program provided that the commission, after conducting a hearing as provided in section twenty of this chapter, makes a finding that the program impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service; the program is likely to impair existing obligations and agreements; and/or that there is a significant increase in arrears or service disconnections that the commission determines is related to the program”.

Conclusion

The Climate Action Council should have established criteria for the three § 66-p (4) requirements so that there is a clear test to suspend or modify obligations. New York State law has restrictions that protect citizens from irrational adherence to a dangerous energy future and I believe that a feasibility analysis for the new DEFR technology should be part of the evaluation for this mandate.

In my opinion, the most promising DEFR backup technology is nuclear generation because it is the only candidate resource that is technologically ready, can be expanded as needed and does not suffer from limitations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. If the only viable DEFR solution is nuclear, then renewables cannot be implemented without it. But nuclear can replace renewables, eliminating the need for a massive DEFR backup resource. Therefore, it would be prudent to pause renewable development until DEFR feasibility is proven because nuclear generation may be the only viable path to zero emissions.

Jonah Messinger summarizes my worry that New York has placed undeserved reliance on the work of Robert Howarth:

That an activist scholar with a history of contested and critiqued claims could influence the Biden administration with such an obviously erroneous study is more than concerning. It demonstrates how faulty science in the name of climate can derail important policy debates, and make the global energy transition far harder.

I am sure that none of the advocates who venerate his work will ever be convinced that his work is fatally flawed. However, it is time that the energy experts in the state step up and confront public officials with the reality that the Climate Act schedule and mandates are only possible with a new technology. Evaluating the potential technologies and determining if they can be feasibly implemented affordably and without risking reliability standards is an obvious approach.

DEFR Concerns Update

I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the electric system transition relies on wind, solar, and energy storage. My primary reliability concern is the challenge of providing electric energy during periods of extended low wind and solar resource availability. Experts, including those that are responsible for electric system reliability, agree that a new category of generating resources called Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resources (DEFR) is necessary during those periods. This article summarizes a very readable description of the DEFR problem by Tim Knauss who describes the work done by Cornell’s Anderson Lab headed by Dr. Lindsay Anderson.

I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 470 articles about New York’s net-zero transition. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Takeaway Message – If you don’t have time to read the whole thing

This post summarizes a readable description of DEFR in an article by Tim Knauss. He described the work of Dr. Lindsay Anderson regarding the necessary DEFR component of the proposed transition of the electric system to zero emissions. The article explains how Anderson’s team calculates the gap between future wind, solar, and energy storage generating resources needed and projected electric load during periods of low renewable resource availability. I believe that the work of the Anderson Lab provides support to my contention that renewable development should be paused. A renewable-based electric system needs DEFR, the most likely DEFR solution is nuclear, but if you have zero emissions nuclear then you don’t need renewables. That makes renewables a dead-end approach.

Overview

Because of its importance to the feasibility of the Climate Act, the subject of DEFR rates its own Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York page. I described the page contents last July in an article that summarized six analyses describing the need for DEFR: the Integration Analysis, New York Department of Public Service (DPS) Proceeding 15-E-0302 Technical Conference, NYISO Resource Outlook, Richard Ellenbogen, Cornell Biology and Environmental Engineering Lindsay Lab, and Nuclear New York. I have updated the page with references to the Tim Knauss article on Cornell Professor Anderson’s work.

Syracuse Post Standard “Mind-Boggling Gap”

On November 19 the article There’s a mind-boggling gap in NY’s plan for a clean electric grid. ‘We are so far behind’ by Tim Knauss was published on the Syracuse dot com website. It is not clear to me whether the official link is accessible by non-subscribers so I have posted a version here and reproduce some of it with some annotations below.

Knauss poses the critical question: “What technology will grid operators turn to when solar and wind fall short?”. He notes:

Maybe it will be advanced nuclear reactors. Or hydrogen-burning power plants. Nobody knows for sure. Operators will need some emission-free power source they can turn on and off at will.

At Cornell University, Professor Lindsay Anderson and fellow researchers have been studying this problem. Given the specific layout of New York’s electric grid, they asked, how much of this new power source would be needed in addition to all the solar and wind?

A staggering amount, it turns out.

Just 15 years from now, the electric grid will need about 40 gigawatts of new generating capacity that can be activated regardless of wind speeds, cloud cover or other weather conditions, according to Anderson’s research.

How much is that? It’s roughly equal to the total capacity of all of New York’s current power plants – nuclear, natural gas, hydro, wind, all of it.

You read that right. To back up the massive quantities of solar and wind power that will provide most of our future electricity, the state power grid will need some new, mystery resource equal in size to the entire generating fleet of today.

The need for new, mystery DEFR, the potential quantity required, and the technological challenges for the resource are issues well known by those who understand the electric system. However, there is a loud and passionate segment of society who disagree that anything new is needed and reject the scale of the projected resource need. Anderson and Knauss understand that this is a touchy subject. Knauss writes:

Anderson knows that’s not easy to hear.

“That’s the thing, right?’’ she said. “Where people are going to start to worry is (to) say, ‘Okay, wait, so you’re telling us that we’re going to spend all this money building out all this wind and solar and batteries — AND we have to put in 40 gigawatts of this?”

But there will have to be a backup.

Knauss describes the analysis work done to generate the “mind-boggling” projections.

Anderson chairs Cornell’s department of biological and environmental engineering. She has a PhD in applied math and a master’s degree in engineering. For the past decade, she has worked with a shifting assortment of doctoral candidates and other graduate students in her eponymous Anderson Lab, housed in a large room full of cubicles and computers. They examine issues related to the growing importance of renewable energy.

The Anderson Lab is looking at the physics of how all that will work. To do so, they built an elaborately detailed computer model – a “digital twin’’ — of New York’s electric grid.

That level of detail sets their work apart. Many of the studies that look at phasing in renewable energy pretend that the electric grid is a single pool of electrons that flow from point to point without constraint. It‘s known as the “copper plate’’ assumption.

In reality, the New York electric grid is a complex, lopsided network that has been stitched together piece by piece over a century. There are limits on how much electric current can move from one area to another.

The six analyses that are described on my DEFR page all handle the electric system in similar fashions and all unequivocally conclude DEFR is needed. The reference to studies that use the “copper plate” assumption refers to the analysis that was used by the politicians who authored the Climate Act. It is the basis of the Climate Act presumption that implementation was simply a matter of political will because no new technology would be required. New York’s electric grid experts disagree. This contradiction needs to be resolved.

The Knauss article goes on to describe DEFR:

carbon-free generating plant that can be turned on and off as needed. It’s pronounced DEE-fur.

Today, dispatchable power is provided mostly by natural gas power plants. Energy planners hope to replace them with something that does not produce greenhouse gases. Nobody knows what that will be.

“They’ve come up with a name for something that they don’t know what it is, but their modeling shows that they need something. It kind of seems like dark matter in the universe,’’ said environmentalist Tim Judson, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Referral Service.

When the state’s Climate Action Council issued their December 2022 report on how the state will eliminate greenhouse gases from the grid by 2040, they estimated a need for 18 to 23 gigawatts of DEFRs. Anderson’s study concluded that the estimate should be roughly doubled, to 37 to 40 GW. In its most recent forecast, the NYSIO estimated a need for at least 20 GW of DEFRs, and as much as 40 GW, by the year 2040.

Knauss explains that Anderson is concerned about the need for DEFR and the quantity required as well as the ramifications of this new resource:

The need stems from two main vulnerabilities, Anderson said.

First, there will be lulls when the wind dies down for days on end and the skies cloud over, resulting in power shortages that exceed the current ability of batteries to compensate. Second, there will be periods when the state has plenty of renewable energy but not enough transmission capacity to get it where it’s needed.

There would even be times when Upstate produced too much renewable energy, which must be disconnected to keep from overloading the grid, even as blackouts rolled across Downstate due to bottled up transmission lines.

Most of those problems are likely to occur in the coldest part of winter and the hottest part of summer, when demand for electricity will surge to peak levels. And the region most vulnerable to blackouts would be Downstate, where communities with massive electricity needs sit at the end of transmission lines from Upstate that are often overloaded.

These issues raise a concern of mine. I maintain that there are unacknowledged challenges associated with weather variability risks associated with planning for the DEFR resources needed. The first challenge is calculating the resources needed which requires analysis of meteorological data to estimate resource availability and expected loads. I believe no one has done a comprehensive enough analysis because they haven’t used the longest period of data available, and they have not included adjacent regional transmission operator areas. The second challenge is more concerning to me. The evaluation of the meteorological data develops a probabilistic estimate of the resources needed that are analogous to the one in a hundred-year flooding parameter. The problem is that we often see a flood exceeding the one in hundred probabilities. It is inevitable that the weather conditions that caused the worst-case resource drought planning scenario will also be exceeded. When that happens there will not be enough electric energy available, blackouts are likely, and the consequences of blackouts on a society that decarbonized by using electricity will be catastrophic.

There is another issue relative to the aspirational Climate Act mandate to go to “zero emissions” by 2040. We need DEFR but the technology is not available. Knauss describes potential DEFR technologies:

Some experts propose converting power plants to burn hydrogen rather than natural gas. Or hydrogen could be used in fuel cells, which rely on chemical reactions rather than combustion to make electricity.

Others promote the idea of sequestering the carbon emissions from gas plants underground. Or burning “renewable” methane recovered from landfills and other sources.

Recently, New York officials have expressed interest in small advanced nuclear plants, which are under development by various companies. State energy planners are developing a “roadmap’’ that should be released early next year detailing how new nuclear technology might be encouraged.

None of the possible technologies is ready for commercial application. Which will emerge?

“That’s the million-dollar question,’’ said Lanahan Kevin Lanahan, a spokesman for NYISO, the grid operator.

The article goes on to note a difference of opinion regarding DEFR deployment. On one side is the electric industry who are obligated to provide reliable electricity.

New York is long overdue to identify DEFR technologies and to support their development, said Gavin Donohue, executive director of the Independent Power Producers of New York, a trade group representing power plant owners. IPPNY formally asked the Public Service Commission three years ago to decide what it will accept as “zero-emission’’ generating plants. The PSC is still mulling that over in a regulatory proceeding. “The timely development of fully dispatchable zero emitting resources is crucial to maintain reliability as the economy electrifies and reliance on intermittent renewable and duration limited resources increases,’’ the group wrote.

On the other side are the special interests who have no accountability.

But some environmentalists argue against a rush to develop DEFRs, saying it could distract from building wind and solar resources and could lead state officials to hastily subsidize unproven technology such as hydrogen combustion.

Following a technical presentation to the state Public Service Commission last year by Anderson and a NYISO planning director, representatives from Sierra Club and Earthjustice submitted rebuttal comments claiming that NYISO’s forecast of the need for DEFRs was “alarmist.” (The forecast presented by NYISO that day was about 25% lower than the Anderson Lab’s estimate.)

The critics said the state should focus on proven techniques such as importing power from out of state, improving transmission, and encouraging demand response programs under which customers cut their power consumption during peak periods. “Rushing to deploy expensive and untested DEFRs risks committing New York to flawed technologies, as it is unclear at the present time which technologies will emerge as commercially scalable and cost effective,’’ they wrote.

I responded to some of the referenced rebuttal comments because I think their analyses are naïve. In the first place, their analytical methodologies are not as sophisticated as the Anderson Lab. Secondly, they don’t acknowledge the correlation of wind energy across New York so their estimates of the magnitude of the problem are flawed. Knauss mentions the critics “solutions”.

It’s a complicated issue, in part because there are strategies other than adding power plants to help reduce demand for electricity during peak periods. Improvements in meter technology, for example, will enable residential customers to respond during power shortages by reducing their demand, as some commercial and industrial customers do already. Likewise, grid operators could one day draw power from electric vehicle batteries during peak periods.

This line of reasoning is naïve because it ignores the fact that DEFR is needed when the electric system energy requirements are highest. The conditions that cause light winds and low wind power output also cause extreme temperatures which lead to peak electrical loads. Those are the conditions when residential customers are not going to want to reduce power consumption. They will want to keep their homes warm!

The article goes on to discuss practical alternatives to the “mind-boggling” gap and the aspirational Climate Act schedule. Dr. Anderson suggested looking at slightly less stringent emission limits at least as a bridge until a DEFR solution is found.

Knauss also points out that the Anderson Lab work makes the optimistic assumption that all the wind and solar projected by the Hochul Administration actually gets built on schedule.

In reality, siting battles and other issues have stalled many large wind and solar projects for years. And as inflation drives up the capital costs of renewable energy, Gov. Kathy Hochul is under mounting pressure from business and consumer groups to keep the cost of the energy transition under control.

Because of those barriers, there is a vast gap between New York’s renewable energy capacity today and what would be needed to retire all the fossil fuel plants. Developers would have to build about 10 times the wind and solar power that exists now.

“It’s a huge problem, and we are so far behind,’’ Anderson said.

Conclusion

I think that the Knauss article does a great job explaining the intricacies of the DEFR issue and the work of the Anderson Lab. I believe they appropriately describe the challenges of DEFR. However, the article does not address the policy implications of DEFR.

The Hochul Administration has finally started its update of the NY Energy Plan. The draft scope of the plan considers an electric system that relies on wind and solar generation consistent with the Climate Act Scoping Plan. No jurisdiction anywhere has successfully developed such a system. The State agencies responsible for a reliable electric system agree with Professor Anderson that a wind, solar, and energy storage system requires DEFR. I believe that it is prudent to fund a demonstration project to prove that such an electric system will work. At the very least, the energy plan must provide a comprehensive renewable feasibility analysis to determine whether such a system will maintain affordability and reliability standards.

The most likely DEFR backup technology is nuclear generation because it is the only candidate resource that is technologically ready. Nuclear power has a proven record for resilient electric production, development would not require changes to support the transmission system and buildout the system, it is not limited by weather extremes, it has lower environmental impacts, and when life cycle and backup costs are considered is likely cheaper. Its use as backbone energy would eliminate the need for wind, solar, energy storage, and new DEFR deployment to meet Climate Act zero-emissions mandates.

Sierra Club and Earthjustice argue that DEFR is a distraction to their preference for wind and solar development. I believe that the work of the Anderson Lab provides support to my contention that renewable development should be paused because that development cannot work until DEFR is proven feasible. If the DEFR solution is nuclear then renewables are a dead-end approach.