Washington State Hints At New York Climate Act Future

Paul Fundingsland has been sending me his thoughts on the implementation of Washington State’s experiences with their cap-and-invest scheme.  His latest correspondence points to a local news article that confirms our suspicions that companies will simply pass additional costs on to their consumers. Furthermore, the companies will not be allowed to clearly explain why the costs are going up.

Paul describes himself as “An Obsessive Climate Change Generalist”.   Although he is a retired professor, he say he has no scientific or other degrees specific to these kinds of issues that can be cited as offering personal official expertise or credibility. What he does have is a two decades old avid, enthusiastic, obsession with all things Climate Change related. 

New York Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act  

The Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050.  It includes an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% reduction by 2030 and a requirement that all electricity generated be “zero-emissions” by 2040. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.”  In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible using zero-emissions electricity. The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies.  That material was used to develop the Draft Scoping Plan.  After a year-long review, the Scoping Plan recommendations were finalized at the end of 2022.  In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations are supposed to be implemented through regulation and legislation.  New York’s cap-and-invest program is supposed to address one of those recommendations.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has developed an official website for cap and invest.  It states:

An economywide Cap-and-Invest Program will establish a declining cap on greenhouse gas emissions, limit potential costs to New Yorkers, invest proceeds in programs that drive emission reductions in an equitable manner, and maintain the competitiveness of New York businesses and industries. Cap-and-Invest will ensure the state meets the greenhouse gas emission reduction requirements set forth in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act).

Washington Climate Commitment Act

Washington’s Climate Commitment Act appears to be even more aspirational than California or New York.  The Washington Department of Ecology (“Ecology”) web page explains:

The Climate Commitment Act (CCA) caps and reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from Washington’s largest emitting sources and industries, allowing businesses to find the most efficient path to lower carbon emissions. This powerful program works alongside other critical climate policies to help Washington achieve its commitment to reducing GHG emissions by 95% by 2050.

The state plans in Washington, California, and New York all aim for net-zero emissions where greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are equal to the amount of GHG that are removed.  Washington’s emission reduction target is 95% by 2050.  California is shooting for 85% by 2045 while New York’s target is 85% by 2050 but covers the whole economy.  In addition to the target levels and dates there are differences in what GHG emissions are included, how the mass quantities are calculated, and which sectors of the economy must comply.  Nonetheless, I am sure a case can be made that Washington is the most aspirational.

According to the Washington State Department of Ecology description of their cap-and-invest program:

In 2021, the Washington Legislature passed the Climate Commitment Act (or CCA) which establishes a comprehensive, market-based program to reduce carbon pollution and achieve the greenhouse gas limits set in state law. The program started on Jan. 1, 2023, and the first emissions allowance auction was held on Feb. 28.

Businesses covered by the program must obtain allowances equal to their emissions and submit them to Ecology according to a staggered four-year compliance schedule. The first compliance deadline is Nov. 1, 2024, at which time businesses need to have allowances to cover just 30% of their 2023 emissions.

Washington State Implementation

I published several articles (Washington State Gasoline Prices Are a Precursor to New York’s Future, Do Washington State Residents Know Why Their Gasoline Prices Are So High Now?, and Washington State Gasoline Prices and Public Perceptions) about the experiences of Washington State as they implement their cap-and-invest program because I think it is likely that New York’s experiences will be similar.   I posted material by Paul based on his  “bit of research with some comments, thoughts and a more or less rough idea of what seems to be going on in the Washington State cap-and-invest scheme” that addressed the impact of their cap-and-invest scheme on gasoline prices.  Subsequently he wrote up more research results in a second article.  He concluded:

At the end of the day, the goal of any meaningful, measurable reduction of CO2 emissions or theoretical effective pathway to stop “climate change” looks to become a glazed over afterthought in this quagmire of a Washington State bureaucratic money-making machine. 

With this scheme, Washington State Government now joins the lucrative profit side of the climate industrial complex at the expense of its constituents while giving a completely different connotation to the term “Net Zero”.

In this post Fundingsland provides another update. I provide his thoughts with my commentary below.

Cap and Hidden Tax

Earlier this year I described the book Making Climate Policy Work that shows how the politics of creating and maintaining market-based policies render them ineffective nearly everywhere they have been applied.  Despite these warning signs these programs are much in favor.  Washington’s program began this year and the cost signals are showing up.  Fundingsland writes:

Here is a local news update example on how Washington’s “Cap & Invest” (Tax & Reallocate) scheme is currently functioning. Natural Gas company Puget Sound Energy (PSE) just announced a 3% rate price hike due to their mandated “Cap & Invest” auction allowance costs. 

Just as surmised, the companies required to participate in the auction allowances are simply passing these costs to their bottom line along to their customers. In essence, the State taxes the company and the company taxes its customers. 

I believe that New York utilities asked the Public Service Commission to include cost details for state mandated programs.  Not surprisingly that request was denied.  The same thing is playing out in Washington.  Fundingsland explains what is happening and the ramifications:

What makes this particular example more disgusting than usual is the fact that PSE wanted to simply include a line item on the customer’s bill identifying this cost but the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) actually made it illegal to do so claiming that would make for a “lengthy confusing” bill. 

I just looked at my latest PSE bill. It has only three line items for charges: Electric Charges, Natural Gas Charges and Total Charges. There is plenty of room for one more line item called “Cap & Invest” charges. 

There are rightful allegations that preventing PSE from including this one line item is deceptive, dishonest, lacks transparency, and smacks of censorship while giving the perception that PSE is just raising the prices to gouge their customers to make more money. 

Contradictorily UTC requires PSE to include in their bills extra line item charges and credits beneficial to some of their customers such as “carbon reduction credits”, whatever those are.

In other words, UTC would have us believe adding one factual consumer financially detrimental line item to the bill would make it lengthy and confusing but adding beneficial line items for some consumers to the same bill would not. This reeks of deliberately deceptive, opaque practices.

Paragraph 19 under “Discussion and Decision” from DOCKET UG-230470 Order 01

“Second, we agree with Public Counsel that PSE should not include the proposed “carbon reduction charge” as a line item on customer bills. Public Counsel correctly observes that including all program charges on customer bills would quickly result in lengthy and confusing bills. Additionally, only those charges or credits that inure to the benefit of customers should be included as line items on customer bills. For that reason, we require the Company to include the “carbon reduction credit on customer bills, which will also signal an economic incentive for consumers to reduce their own carbon emissions.”

There is plenty of room on the PSE bill for all the line items deemed necessary to give customers a fair, comprehensive, transparent understanding of what all the charges and credits are. I’m sure any number of PSE employees or their junior high school aged kids possess the necessary skills to successfully modify the look of their one page bill in less than an hour including all the pertinent line items making it factual, legible, understandable and transparent.

New York State has prevented transparent pricing for previous government mandates.  They are unlikely to start clearly admitting the costs for the New York Cap-and-Invest boondoggle now.  The similarities to Washington are clear.  Paul writes:

It’s fairly obvious that UTC is aggressively censoring the fact that the “Cap & Invest” scheme is costing Washington State PSE customers money. 

This fits right in with our Governor’s claim that the recent jump in Washington State gasoline prices has nothing to do with the “Cap & Invest” scheme. Rather it is just big oil gouging the public. In fact these companies are just pragmatically passing along the business costs of their state mandated financial participation in “auction allowance purchases” to their customers just like PSE is doing. 

PSE is only one company among the multitude in Washington State that has been forced to purchase “emission allowances”. There are most many more stories involving these companies simply making the most logically, sensible, efficient business adjustment when they are confronted with additional mandated costs to their bottom line: just pass their added costs on to their consumers. 

Fundingsland concludes:

It just got more expensive to live in Washington State. And based on how this “Cap & Invest” scheme is actually playing out in the real world, it looks like this scheme will continue to make it more expensive with each passing year.

The original idea that this scheme would significantly reduce CO2 emissions is turning out to be just another way for the State Government to extract considerable monies from the general public, sweeping those monies into their coffers by washing it through companies who have been forced to buy emission allowances and are merely passing along their state mandated costs while rendering an imperceptible if any reduction of emissions.

Discussion

The Climate Act requires the Public Service Commission (PSC) to provide a summary of the implementation status.  In July the first annual informational report was published but there hasn’t been a lot of coverage.  This report notes that Climate Act costs that have been authorized and were in the 2022 residential bills total $1.2 billion.  The Report notes that in 2022 the costs already associated with the Climate Act increased the Upstate residential monthly electric bills 7.6% or $7.15 per month for NYSE&G customers; 7.7% or $7.54 for RG&E customers; and 9.8% or $9.38 for Niagara Mohawk customers.   The report does not attempt to project future ratepayer costs of the authorized Climate Act funding to date that total another $43.8 billion so this is just the start of expected costs.    There is no comparison between the transparency that putting this specific information on ratepayer bills relative to burying it in an obscure PSC proceeding.  This approach also reeks of deliberately deceptive, opaque practice.

I have not been able to keep up with all the cost increase news associated with the net zero transition.  The New York Post notes that “In a fresh sign that New York’s state climate agenda is pure fantasy, contractors key to making good on a major piece of the so-called plan just filed to charge 54% more to build their offshore wind farms. “  I have heard that other projects are also saying that inflation and supply chain issues means that they too need more money.  These are all costs that show up in ratepayer bills as part of the delivery component.  The cap-and-invest costs will show up in the supply component and we have no idea how much that will be.  The only thing that I am sure of is that the Hochul Administration will go to great lengths to hide the cause of the inevitable increased costs and blame the innocent just like Washington State regulators are doing.

Conclusion

I am grateful to Fundingsland for his research and commentary on the rollout of the Washington State cap-and-invest program.  Everything that is happening there will very likely happen here.  He notes that “It just got more expensive to live in Washington State”.  That is the inevitable outcome in New York too.

How to Publish a High-Profile Climate Change Research Paper

Regular readers of this blog have noticed that there aren’t many articles in high-profile journals that suggest there are any issues with the narrative that climate change impacts are pervasive and catastrophic. Patrick T. Brown explains that “There is a formula for publishing climate change impacts research in the most prestigious and widely-read scientific journals. Following it brings professional success, but it comes at a cost to society.”  His formula explains part of the reason we see so little skeptical research in those journals.

The biggest topic on this blog is climate change and the proposed greenhouse gas emission reduction solutions.  From what I have seen the pressure to conform to the narrative described here is immense and it should be kept in mind by my readers.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Background

Patrick T. Brown is a Ph.D. climate scientist. He is a Co-Director of the Climate and Energy Team at The Breakthrough Institute and is an adjunct faculty member (lecturer) in the Energy Policy and Climate Program at Johns Hopkins University. 

This month, he published a lead-author research paper in Nature on changes in extreme wildfire behavior under climate change. This is his third publication in Nature to go along with another in Nature’s climate-focused journal Nature Climate Change. He notes that “because Nature is one of the world’s most prestigious and visible scientific journals, getting published there is highly competitive, and it can significantly advance a researcher’s career.” 

His article is based on this publication experience, as well as through various failures to get research published in these journals.  He explains:

I have learned that there is a formula for success which I enumerate below in a four-item checklist. Unfortunately, the formula is more about shaping your research in specific ways to support pre-approved narratives than it is about generating useful knowledge for society.

Formula for Publishing Climate Changes Impact Research

Before describing his approach to get research published, he describes what is needed for useful scientific research.  He says:

It should prize curiosity, dispassionate objectivity, commitment to uncovering the truth, and practicality. However, scientific research is carried out by people, and people tend to subconsciously prioritize more immediate personal goals tied to meaning, status, and professional advancement. Aligning the personal incentives that researchers face with the production of the most valuable information for society is critical for the public to get what it deserves from the research that they largely fund, but the current reality falls far short of this ideal.

Brown explains that the “publish or perish” mentality in academic research is necessary.  In addition, it also matters “which journals you publish in”.  It turns out a “researcher’s career depends on their work being widely known and perceived as important.”  Because there is so much competition now it has become more important to publish in the highly regarded journals”  “while there has always been a tremendous premium placed on publishing in the most high-profile scientific journals – namely Nature and its rival Science – this has never been more true.”  As a result, “savvy researchers will tailor their studies to maximize their likelihood of being accepted.”  In his article he explains just how he did it.

First, he offers general advice:

My overarching advice for getting climate change impacts research published in a high-profile journal is to make sure that it supports the mainstream narrative that climate change impacts are pervasive and catastrophic, and the primary way to deal with them is not through practical adaptation measures but through policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, the paper should try to check at least four boxes.

The first box to hit is that it is that “climate change impacts something of value is usually sufficient, and it is not typically necessary to show that the impact is large compared to other relevant influences.”  In order to do this there are tradeoffs:

In my recent Nature paper, we focused on the influence of climate change on extreme wildfire behavior but did not bother to quantify the influence of other obviously relevant factors like changes in human ignitions or the effect of poor forest management. I knew that considering these factors would make for a more realistic and useful analysis, but I also knew that it would muddy the waters and thus make the research more difficult to publish.

This type of framing, where the influence of climate change is unrealistically considered in isolation, is the norm for high-profile research papers. For example, in another recent influential Nature paper, they calculated that the two largest climate change impacts on society are deaths related to extreme heat and damage to agriculture. However, that paper does not mention that climate change is not the dominant driver for either one of these impacts: temperature-related deaths have been declining, and agricultural yields have been increasing for decades despite climate change.

The second box is to avoid discussion of anything that could reduce the impact of climate change:

This brings me to the second component of the formula, which is to ignore or at least downplay near-term practical actions that can negate the impact of climate change. If deaths related to outdoor temperatures are decreasing and agricultural yields are increasing, then it stands to reason that we can overcome some major negative effects of climate change. It is then valuable to study how we have been able to achieve success so that we can facilitate more of it. However, there is a strong taboo against studying or even mentioning successes since they are thought to undermine the motivation for emissions reductions. Identifying and focusing on problems rather than studying the effectiveness of solutions makes for more compelling abstracts that can be turned into headlines, but it is a major reason why high-profile research is not as useful to society as it could be.

His third component is to focus the presentation on alarm:

A third element of a high-profile climate change research paper is to focus on metrics that are not necessarily the most illuminating or relevant but rather are specifically designed to generate impressive numbers. In the case of our paper, we followed the common convention of focusing on changes in the risk of extreme wildfire events rather than simpler and more intuitive metrics like changes in the amount of acres burned. The sacrifice of clarity for the sake of more impressive numbers was probably necessary for it to get into Nature. 

Another related convention, which we also followed in our paper, is to report results corresponding to time periods that are not necessarily relevant to society but, again, get you the large numbers that justify the importance of your research. For example, it is standard practice to report societal climate change impacts associated with how much warming has occurred since the industrial revolution but to ignore or “hold constant” societal changes over that time. This makes little sense from a practical standpoint since societal changes have been much larger than climate changes since the 1800s. Similarly, it is conventional to report projections associated with distant future warming scenarios now thought to be implausible while ignoring potential changes in technology and resilience.

The good news is that Brown has transitioned out of a tenure-track academic position to one that does not require high-impact publications.  He explains a better approach than what is necessary to publish there:

A much more useful analysis for informing adaptation decisions would focus on changes in climate from the recent past that living people have actually experienced to the foreseeable future – the next several decades – while accounting for changes in technology and resilience. In the case of my recent Nature paper, this would mean considering the impact of climate change in conjunction with proposed reforms to forest management practices over the next several decades (research we are conducting now). This more practical kind of analysis is discouraged, however, because looking at changes in impacts over shorter time periods and in the context of other relevant factors reduces the calculated magnitude of the impact of climate change, and thus it appears to weaken the case for greenhouse gas emissions reductions. 

The final key to publication is presentation:

The final and perhaps most insidious element of producing a high-profile scientific research paper has to do with the clean, concise format of the presentation. These papers are required to be short, with only a few graphics, and thus there is little room for discussion of complicating factors or contradictory evidence. Furthermore, such discussions will weaken the argument that the findings deserve the high-profile venue. This incentivizes researchers to assemble and promote only the strongest evidence in favor of the case they are making. The data may be messy and contradictory, but that messiness has to be downplayed and the data shoehorned into a neat compelling story. This encouragement of confirmation bias is, of course, completely contradictory to the spirit of objective truth-seeking that many imagine animates the scientific enterprise.

Brown explains that despite the allowances he had to make to get it his work published there still is value in it:

All this is not to say that I think my recent Nature paper is useless. On the contrary, I do think it advances our understanding of climate change’s role in day-to-day wildfire behavior. It’s just that the process of customizing the research for a high-profile journal caused it to be less useful than it could have been. I am now conducting the version of this research that I believe adds much more practical value for real-world decisions. This entails using more straightforward metrics over more relevant timeframes to quantify the impact of climate change on wildfire behavior in the context of other important influences like changes in human ignition patterns and changes in forest management practices.

Brown explains his motivations for this post and his new plans:

But why did I follow the formula for producing a high-profile scientific research paper if I don’t believe it creates the most useful knowledge for society? I did it because I began this research as a new assistant professor facing pressure to establish myself in a new field and to maximize my prospects of securing respect from my peers, future funding, tenure, and ultimately a successful career. When I had previously attempted to deviate from the formula I outlined here, my papers were promptly rejected out of hand by the editors of high-profile journals without even going to peer review. Thus, I sacrificed value added for society in order to for the research to be compatible with the preferred narratives of the editors.

I have now transitioned out of a tenure-track academic position, and I feel liberated to direct my research toward questions that I think are more useful for society, even if they won’t make for clean stories that are published in high-profile venues. Stepping outside of the academy also removes the reservations I had to call out the perverse incentives facing scientific researchers because I no longer have to worry about the possibility of burning bridges and ruining my chances of ever publishing in a Nature journal again.

Brown concludes:

So what can shift the research landscape towards a more honest and useful treatment of climate change impacts? A good place to start would be for the editors of high-profile scientific journals to widen the scope of what is eligible for their stamp of approval and embrace their ostensible policies that encourage out-of-the-box thinking that challenges conventional wisdom. If they can open the door to research that places the impacts of climate change in the appropriate context, uses the most relevant metrics, gives serious treatment to societal changes in resilience, and is more honest about contradictory evidence, a wider array of valuable research will be published, and the career goals of researchers will be better aligned with the production of the most useful decision support for society.

My Conclusion

It is no wonder that all we hear from greenhouse gas emission reduction advocates is that climate change is an existential threat because the “science” says so.  Peeking around the curtain shows that the “science” has been perverted to reinforce and maintain this narrative.  I applaud Brown for giving insight into the way this is done.

This sums up a primary motivator for my work on this blog. New York’s planned transition to a net zero economy is a solution to a non-existent problem.  I have shown that New York GHG emissions are less than one half of one percent of global emissions and global emissions have been increasing on average by more than one half of one percent per year since 1990 so even if there was a problem our actions cannot make a difference.  Worse, the so-called solution has enormous reliability risks, eye-watering costs, and under evaluated environmental impacts.  There is no redeeming virtues to New York’s net-zero transition plan.

Articles of Note Relevant to the Climate Act September 3, 2023

Sometimes I just don’t have time to put together an article about specific posts about the net-zero transition and climate change that I have read that I think are relevant.  This is a summary of posts that I think would be of interest to my readers.

I have been following the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) Climate Act since it was first proposed and most of the articles described are related to it. I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good.  .  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Climate Act Background

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050.  It includes an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% reduction by 2030 and a requirement that all electricity generated be “zero-emissions” by 2040. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.”  In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible and power the electric grid with zero-emissions generating resources.  The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies.  That material was used to write a Draft Scoping Plan.  After a year-long review the Scoping Plan recommendations were finalized at the end of 2022.  In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations are supposed to be implemented through regulation and legislation. 

Lomborg Newsletter

Bjorn Lomborg sends out a newsletter on a regular basis that I recommend. The latest newsletter included articles that exemplify the pragmatic approach to environmental issues such as climate change and addressed climate alarmism.  One story explained that fear-mongering and the suppression of truly inconvenient truths are pushing us dangerously toward the wrong solutions.  There was a plug for his ns new book Best Things First that shows how the world’s 12 most efficient policies, for just $35 billion a year, could save more than four million lives per year, and generate annual economic benefits worth over a trillion dollars.  He frequently publishes commentary.  In his brand new article for New York Post, he writes that if we want to do better on climate, we must resist the misleading, alarmist climate narrative because panic is a terrible advisor.  In another commentary this time in the Wall Street Journal (also in New York Post without paywall) he points out that one of the most common tropes in our increasingly alarmist climate debate is that global warming has set the world on fire. But it hasn’t.

Climate Bullying

The mainstream media has ignored a story in which a group of prominent scientists bullied a scientific journal into retracting an article they did not like.  Anthony Watts describes the incident:

The paper, A critical assessment of extreme events trends in times of global warming, said in its abstract, “In conclusion on the basis of observational data, the climate crisis that, according to many sources, we are experiencing today, is not evident yet.” This single phrase likely triggered the demands by prominent climate scientists for the paper to be retracted. Yet that claim is true, supported by real world data and numerous conclusions presented in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent report.

This is yet one more in a growing list of shameful episodes in the catalog of climate science calumnies. It features many of the same rogues gallery of climate researchers caught playing fast and loose with data and short-circuiting peer review in the infamous ClimateGate scandal of 2009, such as Dr. Michael E. Mann and Dr. Stefan Rahmsdorf who used their influence to get this paper retracted. Here is the notice from The European Physical Journal Plus, which has officially retracted the paper with this statement:

“Retraction Note: A critical assessment of extreme events trends in times of global warming

The Original Article was published on 13 January 2022

Retraction Note: Eur. Phys J. Plus (2022) 137:112

The Editors-in-Chief have retracted this article. Concerns were raised regarding the selection of the data, the analysis and the resulting conclusions of the article. The authors were invited to submit an addendum to the article, but post publication review of the concerns with the article and the submitted addendum concluded that the addendum was not suitable for publication and that the conclusions of the article were not supported by available evidence or data provided by the authors. In light of these concerns and based on the outcome of the post publication review, the Editors-in-Chief no longer have confidence in the results and conclusions reported in this article.

  • The authors disagree with this retraction.”

Mind you the paper had already gone through peer review and the Editors didn’t cite any specific instance of the use of bad data or the drawing of unsupported conclusions, rather, it seems, unwanted attention from large mainstream media organizations and pressure from prominent outside researchers lead to a failure of “confidence” in the results. When they let “the science” through the peer review process decide, the paper was approved and published. When climate alarmism raised its ugly head objecting, the paper was retracted. This cowardly decision was the subject of Team Climate Crisis Resorts to Bullying, Againpublished at WUWT ten days ago. At that date, the paper was simply “under dispute”.

Watts referenced a couple of other accounts: Tony Thomas, How Science is Done These Days and Roger Pielke Jr “Think of the Implications of Publishing”.  All three articles document the clear machinations by climate scientists determined to protect their careers and funding streams from anyone daring to suggest that there is no climate crisis.  

Global Warming Attribution

Fortunately, the climate scientist cabal cannot cancel every article contradicting their narrative.  In my opinion when the question does mankind affect climate is asked the answer is yes.  However, the idea that all of the effects are due to GHG emissions is absurd.  I have always thought that land use changes must be a major factor and a new study suggests global warming confirms my suspicion.  The paper explains global warming could be mostly an urban problem:

A new study published in the scientific peer-reviewed journal, Climate, by 37 researchers from 18 countries suggests that current estimates of global warming are contaminated by urban warming biases.

The study also suggests that the solar activity estimates considered in the most recent reports by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) likely underestimated the role of the Sun in global warming since the 19th century.

It is well-known that cities are warmer than the surrounding countryside. While urban areas only account for less than 4% of the global land surface, many of the weather stations used for calculating global temperatures are located in urban areas. For this reason, some scientists have been concerned that the current global warming estimates may have been contaminated by urban heat island effects. In their latest report, the IPCC estimated that urban warming accounted for less than 10% of global warming. However, this new study suggests that urban warming might account for up to 40% of the warming since 1850.

The German Experience

The Climate Act includes language that the experiences of other jurisdictions should be considered during implementation.  I submitted comments a year ago calling attention to the fact that the Climate Action Council.  In section 16 of § 75-0103 there is a mandate to consider efforts at other jurisdictions: “The council shall identify existing climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts at the federal, state, and local levels and may make recommendations regarding how such policies may improve the state’s efforts.”  To date, however, the only efforts are considered are those that are consistent with what the powers to be want to hear. Pierre Gosselin explains that Germany’s so-called Energiewende promised green energies, primarily from wind and sun, would be cheap, plentiful and clean in the future but the reality is it is bringing economic pain as energy prices are projected to keep rising until 2040.  He includes the following chart “Electricity price for private households in Germany with an electricity consumption of 4,000 kWh in the years 2004 to 2022. Source: Statista. Published by n V. Pawlik, August 1, 2023.”  New York State has not explained why New York’s transition will be any different.

Bad Energy Planning Dangerous, Irresponsible

Dennis Higgins wrote this commentary for All Otsego.

Under the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, a group of political appointees—the Climate Action Council—was charged with developing a scoping plan to achieve major decarbonization goals in the law. Their plan, as implemented by the state energy and research development authority, NYSERDA, would require 55 gigawatts of solar, 10 GW of onshore wind, and 17 GW of offshore wind. NYSERDA believes we’ll need storage 50 to 100 times the size of the largest lithium-ion battery complex on earth, as well as backup generation equal to or greater than the state’s entire fossil-fuel power-plant fleet. Solar and wind resources will also need new transmission lines to connect them to the existing grid.

The North American Energy Reliability Corporation just came out with a report identifying major risks to the bulk power system. The top two risks NERC identified are energy policy and grid transformation made in pursuit of that policy. In other words, it is precisely state policies arising from the CAC’s energy scoping plan, and the grid transformation currently underway, that are the top risks to our power system.

If an engineer had at their disposal a source of carbon-free baseload electricity which needed little land, could employ thousands of workers in high-paying jobs, required fewer materials than other resources, was as safe as solar or wind, and could last a hundred years, wouldn’t they make it the backbone of the grid? Or would they ignore rural opposition in order to bulldoze a million acres of farmland and forest for resources requiring new transmission, back-up generation, and storage infrastructure? Would they choose resources generating little energy and almost no permanent jobs; requiring the sacrifice of home rule, environmental review, and fair tax levies?

With pressure from big greens like Riverkeeper and support from NRDC, Sierra, AGREE, Food and Water Watch, and others, New York unplugged 2,100 MW of emission-free electricity when it shut down Indian Point. In all its safe years of operation, IP never prompted a “shelter in place” order from the governor, as recent fires at battery energy storage systems did. IP, which had supplied a quarter of metro NY’s power, was partially replaced with two big new gas power plants, increasing state emissions by tens of millions of tons annually. The grid operator NYISO notes that due to IP’s closure, energy prices have increased downstate. We see those price hikes are now percolating through upstate. Also related, NYISO’s recent second quarter reliability report indicates insufficient capacity margins for the metro region over the next decade. Even with normal weather, NYISO has predicted that New York City could experience a capacity shortfall of about 450 megawatts—meaning blackouts in the summer heat that could last many hours.

The Champlain-Hudson Power Express will bring hydro-generated electricity to the metro region. But Quebec is not obliged to send power during a polar vortex. With building electrification, New York will experience winter demand peaks.

Bad energy planning is not just irresponsible. It is dangerous. Roll-out of the state’s policy—in land-hungry panels and turbines, fiery BESS units, transmission cables, and back-up peaker plants—may ultimately be embarrassing for the governor, for NYSERDA, and for the CAC. But summer or winter power failures could prove fatal for the most vulnerable urban and rural populations: the elderly and poor.

New “environmental justice” communities are being created across rural New York. The land is being plastered with solar panels and gigantic turbines without full environmental review, over the rule of local law, robbing communities of fair revenue. And opposition is growing.

Ontario abandoned a “green energy” plan like New York’s in the face of fierce backlash from the rural north which was required to host the renewables resources expected to power the wealthier, more populous, south. Acknowledging the program’s failure, Ontario’s Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault issued a mea culpa. As reported, Economist Brady Youch at the Canadian Consumer Policy Institute said that “[the government] appears to have overridden concerns of experts” and “now you have a political electricity system, as opposed to one that’s based on economics or cost-effectiveness,” he said. Liberals ignored advice that could have saved Ontarians billions. Ontario will instead add a third generating station to the Bruce Power nuclear facility near Kincardine.

Here in New York, too, a more efficient and economical grid could be achieved by relicensing existing upstate nuclear plants and integrating new nuclear power into the grid. Nuclear does not require new transmission or new storage. Each nuclear reactor can last 80 years and support a thousand good jobs. It requires a fraction of the land needed for solar or wind. Pursuing New York’s slogan-driven policy, the first 80,000 acres of farmland bulldozed for Chinese panels will represent New York’s flawed effort to replace Indian Point’s reliable baseload generation with under-performing solar.

As gas and electricity prices continue to spike, as grid reliability declines, as rural New York becomes more resolute in its opposition to state-sponsored energy sprawl, perhaps we will hear similar mea culpa coming out of the CAC, NYSERDA, and the governor’s office in the next few years.

Dennis Higgins is a retired math/computer science professor. He and wife Katie run a farm in Otego and, as a family, they are committed to addressing climate change any way they can, including 20KW of solar panels, geothermal heat, all electric appliances, and driving an EV. Dennis has been engaged in regional energy issues for approximately 15 years.

New York Cap-and-Invest Update and Another Conundrum

One of the planned implementation components of the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) is a cap-and-invest program that sets a price on Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.  The first round of stakeholder comments were due in early July and this post provides an update on the process. There also is another upcoming advocacy dogma and reliability conundrum that must be addressed.  I recently noted that the retirement of peaking power plants is considered non-negotiable by environmental justice advocates but those facilities are needed for electric system reliability.  The same advocates are demanding removal of certain components that are in every emissions trading program variation, such as the New York cap-and-invest, that must be included or the claimed affordability and cost-effectiveness benefits will not be produced.

I have been following the Climate Act since it was first proposed. I submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan and have written over 350 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  I have extensive experience with air pollution control theory, implementation, and evaluation having worked on every cap-and-trade program affecting electric generating facilities in New York including the Acid Rain Program, Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and several Nitrogen Oxide programs since the inception of those programs. I follow and write about the RGGI cap and invest CO2 pollution control program so my background is particularly suited for the cap-and-invest plan.   I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Climate Act Background

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and an interim 2030 target of a 40% reduction by 2030. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.”  In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible and power the electric grid with zero-emissions generating resources by 2040.  The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies.  That material was used to write a Draft Scoping Plan.  After a year-long review the Scoping Plan recommendations were finalized at the end of 2022.  In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations are supposed to be implemented through regulation and legislation.  The cap and invest initiative is one of those recommendations.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and NYSERDA have developed an official website for cap and invest.  It states:

An economywide Cap-and-Invest Program will establish a declining cap on greenhouse gas emissions, limit potential costs to New Yorkers, invest proceeds in programs that drive emission reductions in an equitable manner, and maintain the competitiveness of New York businesses and industries. Cap-and-Invest will ensure the state meets the greenhouse gas emission reduction requirements set forth in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act).

I have written other articles that provide background on NYCI.  I recently posted a Commentary overview for the New York Cap & Invest (NYCI) program that was written for a non-technical audience. In late March I summarized my previous articles on the New York cap and invest proposal in a post designed to brief politicians about the proposal if you want more technical information.  There also is a page that describes all my carbon pricing initiatives articles that includes a section listing articles about the New York Cap and Invest (NYCI) proceeding.

NYCI Status

Recently there was an update on the status of the NYCI process at the Equity & Climate Justice Roundtable (Equity and Climate Justice Roundtable Presentation [PDF] and Session Recording).  Jonathan Binder showed the regulation development timeline that shows that DEC is near the end of the “assess input and develop pre-proposal phase” shown in the slide below.  I think there are two takeaways from this update. To date DEC has not given any indication of any particulars regarding implementation and there will be an opportunity to provide comments on the preproposal details.  This is important because once the official regulatory proposal is released the agencies can no longer discuss the contents.  The other point is that this timeline confirms that there is no way this program is going to be issued this year.  Binder said the goal is to have revenue coming in during 2025.

In June DEC hosted a series of webinars designed to spur discussion and get input on specific questions.  The comments received are available and now DEC is assessing the input.  After giving an overview of the general plans Binder described what they have heard in the comments.  His presentation listed the following points that they have been hearing from environmental justice, climate justice, and equity-related shareholders.  Note that there was no substantive discussion of the following in the presentation:

  • Prohibit or limit emissions trading solutions
  • Set caps with timetables
  • Minimize cost, emissions, and other impacts on DACs
  • Ensure adequate investments
  • Ensure emission reductions are verifiable & enforceable
  • Track GHG and co-pollutant emissions from all sources
  • Provide transparent demonstration of emissions and investments
  • Ensure Disadvantaged Community representation in oversight and program review
  • Consider burdens and job impacts on businesses located in or near DACs

In addition. he noted that stakeholders had proposed the following recommended steps:

  1. Identify stakeholder groups
  2. Establish robust communication
  3. Implement target programs based on stakeholder feedback
  4. Track and measure progress
  5. Conduct regular reviews

The primary point I want to make in this post is that there are tradeoffs that I do not think the environmental justice, climate justice, and equity-related shareholders understand.  Binder mentioned that stakeholder expectation setting is important but the rhetoric of these stakeholders is at odds with that goal.  Binder emphasized that DEC is trying to prioritize disadvantaged community (DAC) concerns saying that they need to “ensure emission reductions are prioritized in DACs while also:

  •            Raising revenue to adequately fund investments into DACs,
  •            Keeping high quality jobs and businesses available within DACs, and
  •            Decreasing energy burden and maintaining reliability.

He went on to summarize a few of the specific regulatory provisions and options being considered.  He said the following are under consideration:

  • Prohibit DAC sources from purchasing allowances from outside of the DAC.
    • Set source specific caps on DAC sources (declining caps)
    • Require DAC sources to surrender allowances at some multiple of GHG emissions rather than 1:1

He did note that there have been requests to prohibit allowance trading but that DEC expects that  there will be some allowance trading.  Allowance trading is a key to ensure “overall affordability and cost effectiveness of the program”.

Emissions Market Program Overview

Earlier this year I published an overview of cap-and-invest programs and the proposed New York program.  I concluded that New York policy makers have glommed on to Cap and Invest because they think it is a solution that will easily provide revenues  and compliance certainty.  Unfortunately, that presumption is based on poor understanding of market-based emissions programs.  The reality is that successful programs used emissions reduction strategies that are not available in the quantity or quality necessary for New York to meet its emission targets.

The deference being given to environmental justice, climate justice, and equity-related shareholders further endangers any hopes that the program will work. The proposed New York Cap-and-Invest policy is a type of an emission trading pollution control program.  EPA explains that:

Emissions trading programs have two key components: a limit (or cap) on pollution, and tradable allowances equal to the limit that authorize allowance holders to emit a specific quantity (e.g., one ton) of the pollutant. This limit ensures that the environmental goal is met and the tradable allowances provide flexibility for individual emissions sources to set their own compliance path. Because allowances can be bought and sold in an allowance market, these programs are often referred to as “market-based”.

Points Heard

In this section I will address the environmental justice, climate justice, and equity-related shareholders points that DEC has been hearing. 

At the top of the list was  “prohibit or limit emissions trading solutions”.  Binder did note that DEC expects that there will be some allowance trading.  EPA notes that this is a key component of any market-based program.  Binder admitted that allowance trading is a key to ensure “overall affordability and cost effectiveness of the program”.  Obviously if there is no trading then this cannot be called a cap-and-invest program and it won’t work as expected.

The suggestion that there will be “some” trading necessarily means that there will be “some” limitations.  One slide notes that the following are under consideration:

  • Prohibit DAC sources from purchasing allowances from outside of the DAC.
  • Set source specific caps on DAC sources (declining caps)
  • Require DAC sources to surrender allowances at some multiple of GHG emissions rather than 1:1

It is one thing to consider these options but it is an entirely different thing to implement any of them.  For starters note that there are several thousand DACs.   In order to prohibit DAC sources from purchasing allowances from outside of the DAC it would be necessary to label the ownership of each allowance which is unprecedented.  Setting source specific caps on DAC sources is another can of worms; what basis for each cap would be used and would there be different caps for different sectors within the DAC.  A requirement that DAC sources would have to surrender allowances at some multiple of GHG emissions rather than 1:1 sounds simple enough but the unintended consequences on the market would be immense.  In my opinion implementing something to address these options would necessitate an independent market for each DAC.  That way you could limit trading from outside the DAC, set source specific caps, and structure the market to address the multiple surrender concept.   However, given that there are several thousand DACs this clearly is not workable.

There are unappreciated problems associated with setting caps with timetables.  I have previously written about setting caps that do not account for potential strategies for making the reductions.  In other programs such as the EPA Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) the cap was set based on historical emissions, existing control technology, and potential improvements or additions for all the sources in the CSAPR-affected states.  The CSAPR cap was determined using this control technology evaluation to set a feasible limit.  The NYCI will be a binding cap set by the Climate Act mandates that did not include any such feasibility evaluation.  GHG emissions are closely associated with energy use so a NYCI binding cap essentially limits energy use.

Another of the recommendations heard was to “minimize cost, emissions, and other impacts on DACs”.  I think this is a general goal that should apply  to the entire state.  The tradeoff between trying to address past injustices while meeting these goals will be challenging. 

The “ensure adequate investments” recommendations is important.  In order to address it the first thing needed is to define what to fund.  Presumably, the priority is providing the funds necessary to implement the control strategies necessary to make the emission reductions.  The Hochul Administration must provide an estimate of how much these investments will cost in order determine how much money must be raised by the Cap-and-Invest program.  If the investments are insufficient then the energy system will fail to meet the cap limits.  Also needed is a feasibility analysis for the transition schedule that considers supply chain and trained labor constraints.  Even if the money is available, it may not be possible to build it fast enough to meet the arbitrary CLCPA schedule.

There are several recommendations that are all characterized by a lack of understanding of what regulatory requirements are already in place.  The “ensure emission reductions are verifiable & enforceable”; “track GHG and co-pollutant emissions from all sources”; and “provide transparent demonstration of emissions and investments” all fall into this category.  There are regulations in place such that affected sources report GHG and co-pollutant emissions that are verifiable and enforceable and in the case of power plant emissions the CO2 data are completely transparent.  The whole economy requirements of the Climate Act mean that additional reporting will be necessary.  I agree that transparency for emissions and investments is important and have recommended that in my comments.

I do not disagree that the program should “ensure Disadvantaged Community representation in oversight and program review”.  Unfortunately, from what I have observed to date, environmental justice, climate justice, and equity-related shareholders believe this means that they get to set the policies.  They should have a voice but their unconditional demands have no place in the development of a pragmatic program.  Simply put there are tradeoffs that must be incorporated in a rational program.

The Bider presentation emphasized the need to “ensure emission reductions are prioritized in DACs while also: “keeping high quality jobs and businesses available within DACs, and “decreasing energy burden and maintaining reliability”.  These are related to the last recommendation, “consider burdens and job impacts on businesses located in or near DACs”.  These statements exemplify my concern about tradeoffs.   All of the proposed trading limitations mentioned above necessarily impact businesses located in or near DACs and would increase the costs to do business relative to the costs of businesses outside of DACs.  How can those affected businesses keep high quality jobs and stay in business when confronted with extra costs inherent in the allowance limitations?

There is another aspect of the emphasis on emissions within DACs that is apparently not recognized by the environmental justice, climate justice, and equity-related shareholders.  While emissions are related to the air quality impacts in a particular location, there are other factors that affect impacts.  Air quality is determined by the transport and diffusion of emissions.  At any one time, the wind direction determines which areas are impacted while the state of the atmosphere (stable or otherwise) and the characteristics of the emissions (height of release, type of release (stack or over an area), and temperature of the effluent determines how much of an impact is observed.  Importantly, there are laws in place that ensure that all sources consider these factors when proving compliance with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards.  It is unclear how these stakeholders can be placated in this regard.

Discussion

I do not think that NYCI is going to live up to the expectations of its proponents.   This program is supposed to provide funding for Climate Act implementation and ensure compliance with the Climate Act emission targets.  Earlier this year I described the book Making Climate Policy Work that shows how the politics of creating and maintaining market-based policies render them ineffective nearly everywhere they have been applied.  I think that proponents of NYCI should read that book to understand what needs to be done to make the proposed program work.

In my earlier post I noted that I agreed with the authors that the results of RGGI and other programs suggest that the NYCI will generate revenues.  However, we also agree that the amount of money needed for decarbonization is likely more than New Yorkers will accept.  The problem confronting the Administration is that in order to make the emission reductions needed they have to invest between $15.5 and $46.4 billion per year.  I don’t think that range is politically palatable.

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

When the concerns of the environmental justice, climate justice, and equity-related shareholders are layered on top of these design flaws, the challenge to make a workable cap-and-invest program is increased.  I fear that the louder voices among these stakeholders will demand that their concerns be incorporated.  If that happens then I am sure that the program will fail.  Allowance costs will soar and those costs will get passed on to consumers disproportionally affecting the DACs.  If the insane idea to limit allowances within specific DACs is implemented then an artificial energy shortage within DACs is possible.

Conclusion

The New York cap-and-invest program is slowly coming together.  Implementation of something this complicated takes time (California took several years to set up their program) and must be developed by people with technical expertise.  Unfortunately, as was the case with the Scoping Plan development, the State’s approach is to excessively defer to ideologues with little relevant background experience. 

Consider this example from the Scoping Plan.  The Scoping Plan electric system recommendations rely on the ideological belief that existing technology is sufficient for the transition.  The Hochul Administration allowed a few ideologues to push that narrative despite conflicting information in the Integration Analysis and arguments from the New York Independent System Operator to the contrary.  The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) recently initiated an “Order initiating a process regarding the zero-emissions target” that will “identify innovative technologies to ensure reliability of a zero-emissions electric grid” that recognizes a new technology that can be dispatched without generating emissions is necessary if the state is to not go nuclear.  Failing to acknowledge this requirement means that there is no “Plan B” if this new resource cannot be developed and deployed as needed to maintain the Climate Act schedule.

The Hochul Administration appears to be doing it again in the cap-and-invest process.  Presuming that past performance of emissions trading programs would be indicative of future reduction success and establishing an arbitrary emissions target that is incompatible with realistic emission reduction trajectories has established a very difficult challenge.  Addressing ideological concerns about emissions trading programs and trying to incorporate social justice concerns makes the challenge that much more difficult.  The environmental justice, climate justice, and equity-related shareholders are demanding removal of certain components that are in every emissions trading program and that were essential to past success.  Deferring to ideology rather than historical precedent can only end in failure.

Climate Act Coercion

I recently described the New York State Comptroller’s Office Renewable Electricity in New York State Review and Prospects report (“Comptroller Report”) that addressed progress and prospects for attaining New York’s Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) 2040 mandate for a zero-emissions electric grid.  This post addresses the following quote from that report: “the Enacted Budget for SFY 2023-24 included a provision to hold the electric bills of low-income customers to 6 percent of household income if the customers participate in State programs to electrify home heating and appliances and undertake efficiency upgrades.”

I have been following the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 350 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Climate Act Background

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050.  It includes an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% reduction by 2030 and a requirement that all electricity generated be “zero-emissions” by 2040. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.”  In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible and power the electric grid with zero-emissions generating resources.  The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies.  That material was used to write a Draft Scoping Plan.  After a year-long review the Scoping Plan recommendations were finalized at the end of 2022.  In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations are supposed to be implemented through regulation and legislation. 

The provision mentioned in the Comptroller Report that conditionally limits electric bills of low-income customers to 6 percent of household income is an example of the programs that are being implemented to reach the Climate Act targets.  Until reading the quote I was unaware of this new law.  The condition “if the customers participate in State programs to electrify home heating and appliances and undertake efficiency upgrades” caught my attention and spurred this post.

Energy Affordability Program

The FY24 Enacted Budget included the following funding within the Public Service Commission’s Aid to Localities Budget (A.3003-D of 2023, signed Chapter 53 of 2023).  The Energy Affordability Program is allocated $200 million in new funding for utility bill relief for residential customers that do not currently qualify for the Department of Public Service’s current energy affordability policy program, but whose income is below the State median income. The Public Service Commission is directed to consider the feasibility of using area median income or other eligibility thresholds in the event the use of State median income prevents reaching all households that have an energy burden greater than 6%. In addition to Statewide residents, residential customers of electric corporations regulated by the Public Service Commission (PSC) and the Long Island Power Authority, and its service provider Public Service Enterprise Group-Long Island (PSEG-LI) are eligible to participate in the program. This appropriation may be disbursed to utilities, including LIPA, and then disbursed to ratepayers.

The Department of Public Service (DPS) is directed to provide an energy affordability guarantee to residential customers participating in home electrification efforts through the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)’s EmPower Plus Program such that EmPower Plus participants pay no more than 6% of household income on utility bills for the duration of the estimated useful life of an EmPower Plus electrification project.  DPS is authorized and directed to establish a cap on such customers’ energy usage applicable to the guarantee.

Discussion

Whenever I start researching a new topic for a blog article about the Climate Act, I have found that it is more complicated and leads to more questions than I had expected.  This topic was no exception.  In this case several things came up.  I was not aware of the Department of Public Service’s current energy affordability policy program.  There is a reference to a six percent energy burden target that I have seen elsewhere but have yet to find what I think represents an official definition or any status data.  I have heard of the EmPower program but never looked into it.  My primary concern is the conditional statement that is associated with EmPower program eligibility for a price guarantee.  I will address these below.

The Energy Affordability Working Group  August 15, 2023Status Report explains how this group associated with the energy affordability policy program was formed:

On August 12, 2021, the Commission issued its Energy Affordability Policy Phase 2 Order (Phase 2 Order) adopting certain modifications and improvements to the energy affordability framework established in the Affordability Order, Implementation Order, and Rehearing Order. Among the improvements to the Energy Affordability Policy directed in the Phase 2 Order, the Commission established an Energy Affordability Policy Working Group (Working Group) that encouraged participation from all interested stakeholders for the advisement of improving energy affordability.  

The working group is associated with two PSC cases: CASE 23-M-0298 In the Matter of Budget Appropriations to Enhance Energy Affordability Programs and  CASE 14-M-0565   Proceeding on Motion of the Commission to Examine Programs to Address Energy Affordability for Low Income Utility Customers.  The status report gives an overview of what they do.

One requirement is a submittal of low-income data to the docket.  On a regular basis Central Hudson Gas and Electric Corporation, Consolidated Edison Company of New York, National Fuel Gas Distribution Corporation, Brooklyn Union Gas Company, Keyspan Gas East Corporation,  Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation, New York State Electric and Gas Corporation, Rochester Gas and Electric Corporation, and, Orange & Rockland Utilities submit data in a proscribed format.  As an example of yet another question that comes up whenever I start digging note this: as far as I can tell the low-income information reports do not cover Long Island electric customers or anyone from the municipal utilities.  I think that is odd but I am not going down that rabbit hole to determine why or if my interpretation is incorrect.

I did combine available data from the most recent reports in a spreadsheet to create the following summary table.  I believe the low-income information reports only cover the participants in the utility Energy Affordability Programs.  If that is the case then the number of participants who are in arrears and the amounts owed  under estimates the state totals.  It is worrisome enough that 155,626 people were sent termination notices and their amount owed is $178.7 million.  The $200 million in this law would barely cover the emergency assistance needed of those people. 

PSC Energy Affordability Submittal Summary

I have seen references to a six percent energy burden target before but not as an official policy.  For example, a recent legislative proposal included a requirement for state agencies to identify policies to ensure affordable housing and affordable electricity (defined as electricity costs no more than 6% of a residential customer’s income) for all-electric buildings.  Alternatively, Addressing Energy Poverty in the US offers other possible criteria:

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the average energy burden for low-income households is 8.6%. That is three times higher than for non-low income households, which is about 3%.  And according to the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at University of Pennsylvania, more than one-third of US households are experiencing “energy poverty,” having difficulty affording the energy they need to keep the lights on and heat and cool their home. 

In my opinion there are two issues with the six percent electric burden criterion.  It appears to only apply to all-electric homes and that ignores the needs of people who heat their homes with other fuels.  With regards to the rural poor, the urban politicians who support the Climate Act overlook the fact that many people live in remote rural areas because that is the only location where they can afford housing.  As a result, transportation costs are a major part of their energy budgets because they must travel longer distances to work.

There is another problem with the energy burden criterion.  I have been unable to find where the state stands relative to the six percent target or any other energy poverty criterion  As part of a total energy transition, it seems obvious that we need a baseline status so that we can track whether the program is forcing more people into energy poverty.  The necessary data to calculate the status are not included in the energy affordability policy program reports and I could not find any summary that included it.

The impetus for this post was the condition that in order to get support for an energy affordability guarantee, customers must “participate in State programs to electrify home heating and appliances and undertake efficiency upgrades.”  I am concerned that the rural poor are being overlooked in low-income support programs and this is a specific example.  I recall that there was a qualifying statement in the Draft Scooping Plan that noted that some residential building shells could not be upgraded because of the building type or historical significance.  For example, consider that the Integration Analysis assumes that building shell upgrades are not possible for mobile homes.  Without building shell upgrades, air-source heat pumps are not a viable heating option.  Does that mean that residents in mobile homes or other structures that cannot be improved are not eligible for these benefits?

I had to research EmPower program to determine how that condition might be implemented.  According to the webpage:

EmPower+ helps low- and moderate-income households save energy and money toward energy improvements made to their property.  Through EmPower+:

  • Households can receive a no cost comprehensive home energy assessment to pinpoint where energy and dollars are being wasted and receive a customized plan to lower energy usage.
  • No-cost direct install improvements identified during the assessment can be installed by participating program contractors.
  • Households can receive financial discounts on the cost of energy efficiency improvements.

The program is open to income-eligible owners and renters of 1-4 family households.

The eligibility guidelines do not mention anything related to feasibility.  The eligibility guidelines webpage notes:

Homeowners and renters must meet income requirements to qualify for EmPower+. You may be eligible if you can answer “yes” to these statements:

My household income is below 80 percent of the State/Area Median Income or lower
OR
I reside in a single family home located in a geographically eligible territory
OR
I participate in a utility payment assistance program

I think this is an overlooked concern in the legislation.  The energy improvements are contingent upon the comprehensive home energy assessment.  I believe that there will be instances where at least some of the potential electrification options will not be effective replacements.  There may also be situations in rural areas with poor reliability that electrification of any appliance is a safety issue.  It is not clear whether there are any caveats to the requirement that only customers who participate in State programs to electrify home heating and appliances and undertake efficiency upgrades are qualified for the six percent of household income guarantee. There should be assistance programs for people who have participated in the EmPower Plus home energy assessment but may not be able to implement all the home energy improvements.

If any reader can provide insights on these topics, I would appreciate hearing from you.

Conclusion

The Climate Act-related Public Service Commission’s Aid to Localities Budget included in the FY24 Enacted Budget is an example of the myriad laws, regulations, and policies being enacted to implement the Climate Act net-zero transition.  From the start of this process there has been inadequate evaluation of these programs to ensure that they do what they are supposed to do without unintended consequences.

In this instance, I object to the implicit coercion that there will be a guarantee that the energy burden will not exceed six percent only if customers participate in State programs to electrify home heating and appliances and undertake efficiency upgrades.  It appears the authors of the law did not consider the fact that Integration Analysis admits that not all residences can be electrified effectively and safely or that there are limitations on efficiency upgrades.  If there are no relevant caveats to implementation, then needy low-income citizens will be adversely affected.

Even if my interpretation is wrong and this is not a potential issue, there is a serious shortcoming in the implementation process.  There is not official energy poverty metric that covers all energy use and there is no status data available for the frequently referenced six percent electric bill target.  How will we know if there are increasing energy poverty issues associated the transition unless someone is tracking it?

Another Update on Micron Electric Needs

In early March I posted an article about the addressed the energy needs of Micron Technology’s planned semiconductor fabrication plant.  The takeaway message was that, when fully complete, the facility will consume more energy than the State of Vermont.  As part of their environmental impact analysis, it was recently revealed that more electric power will be needed.  More as in add the electric load of New Hampshire.  Earlier this month I did an article on this.  This post references an article by James Hanley at the Empire Center that describes other potential ramifications.

One of the implementation components of the (Climate Act) is a cap-and-invest program that sets a price on Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.  The first round of stakeholder comments were due in early July.  This post provides an update on the process and another upcoming advocacy dogma and reliability conundrum that must be addressed.  I recently noted that the retirement of peaking power plants is considered non-negotiable by environmental justice advocates but those facilities are needed for electric system reliability.  The same advocates are demanding removal of certain components that are in every emissions trading program variation, such as the New York cap-and-invest, that must be included or the claimed affordability and cost-effectiveness benefits will not be produced.

I have been following the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act since it was first proposed. I submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan and have written over 350 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Climate Act Background

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and an interim 2030 target of a 40% reduction by 2030. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.”  In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible and power the electric grid with zero-emissions generating resources by 2040.  The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies.  That material was used to write a Draft Scoping Plan.  After a year-long review the Scoping Plan recommendations were finalized at the end of 2022.  In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations are supposed to be implemented through regulation and legislation.  The cap and invest initiative is one of those recommendations.

Micron vs NY Energy Policy

James Hanley writes:

Computer chip manufacturer Micron has revealed that by the 2040s its Onondaga County factories are going to be sucking up enough electricity to power New Hampshire and Vermont combined. Put another way, in a single year Micron will use enough energy to power the city of Buffalo for more than six years.

All of it is supposed to come from renewable energy—but to date, despite offering Micron $6.3 billion in taxpayers’ money to move to New York, the state has no plan for providing that much renewable power.

Micron predicts it will use over 16,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity annually. To get a sense of how much that is, a gigawatt-hour is roughly the amount of energy produced by a single large nuclear reactor in one hour. Micron’s expected demand is almost exactly what the two reactors at the Nine Mile Point nuclear plant produce each year.

But since their factories will allegedly use 100 percent renewable energy, the big question is where it will come from.

Micron will need to draw 1.85 gigawatts of power from the grid continually, 24 hours a day, to power its operations. The New York Power Authority has offered Micron 140 megawatts (0.14 gigawatts) of hydropower. It may not have that much to spare, except at night when statewide electricity demand drops. But even if it can steadily provide Micron that much power, that’s just over 7 percent of the company’s needs.

Micron has also signed a 178-megawatt (0.178 gigawatt) onshore wind power agreement. That will produce less than 467 gigawatt-hours annually, a mere three percent of Micron’s needs.

Add those together, and 90 percent of Micron’s power demand remains to be determined.

Even before Governor Hochul bribed Micron to come to New York, the state faced a 10 percent deficit in its energy supply by 2040, creating a risky future of probable blackouts due to insufficient power production.

The danger is caused by the state’s climate policies. As consumers are mandated to buy electric cars, and households are forced to switch from natural gas to electric heat, electricity demand is expected to as much as double by midcentury. And 70 percent of that future electricity demand must be supplied by renewable energy.

Because hydropower output will not increase significantly, solar and wind power must increase from their current output of approximately 7,600 gigawatt-hours to as much as 185,000 gigawatt-hours by 2050. When Micron is added to the mix, the need will rise to almost 200,000 gigawatt-hours of wind and solar, a 2,600 percent increase from today.

That’s a challenge New York simply has no real plan for achieving, because the state’s renewable and clean energy goals are based more on wishful thinking than hard-headed analysis about the technical challenges of radically restructuring the state’s power system.

Discussion

I agree with all the points made.  I have a couple of other observations.

Hanley notes that Micron predicts it will use over 16,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity annually which is almost exactly what the two reactors at the Nine Mile Point nuclear plant produce each year.  Those two reactors have a nameplate rating of 1900 MW.

The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) released its quarterly assessment of reliability  of the bulk electric system for the second quarter of 2023.  The report noted that:

As an informational scenario, this STAR includes an evaluation of the impact of additional large load interconnection projects primarily in western and central New York. The anticipated increases to the demand forecast due to these large loads in 2025 is 764 MW

Based on the new estimate of electric load needed a new assessment is going to have to incorporate that estimated increase, maybe not in the short-term but necessarily in the longer term.

I previously discussed the increased load projection and got a reaction from Richard Ellenbogen.  He explained:

To put the Micron facility’s usage into perspective, in its last full year of operation the 2 Gigawatt Indian Point nuclear plant generated 16.3 Tera-watt hours so the Micron facility will need to be supported by a 2 Gigawatt fossil fuel or nuclear plant on site or  2.1 Gigawatts of generation off site, 5% more.  NY State’s policy makes absolutely no sense.  To run the Micron facility would require using about 4 GW of the projected 9 GW of offshore wind to support the plant or 16 GW of solar arrays covering 128,000 acres (80 acres per 10 MW)  or 200 Square miles.  NY State has 7 million acres of farmland so solar arrays to support the Micron facility  would use almost 2% of the farmland in the state and would also require an enormous amount of battery storage, the cost of which would greatly exceed the cost of a nuclear plant on site.  A combined cycle generating plant on site would be about 75% less than the cost of the nuclear plant.  Both the combined cycle gas plant and the nuclear plant on-site offer the option of recovering the waste heat and using it in the plant to make Micron even more energy efficient.  With regard to the solar and wind, NY State is having major difficulties getting all of their renewable projects finished because of cost issues and interconnection issues, let alone adding this gigantic lead weight to the Camel’s back.

Conclusion

Ellenbogen emphasizes the point that “When fantasies meet reality, reality always wins.”   Reality is that a modern manufacturing facility needs reliable electrical energy.  Available renewable technology such as solar, wind, and energy storage is not currently able to provide the needs of the proposed semi-conductor facility.  It was not so long ago that co-generation like that proposed by Ellenbogen was embraced by the environmentalists and politicians.  The irrational mandate to go to zero eliminates this pragmatic approach that we know will work.  Will the state sacrifice the benefits of the Micron facility to energy fantasy? 

Reliability vs. Advocacy Dogma – Climate Act Conundrum

One notable feature of New York’s Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) implementation process has been the emphasis on environmental justice (EJ) for disadvantaged communities.  A dogmatic concern of New York City EJ advocacy organizations is peaking powerplants which are alleged to be a primary air quality problem in disadvantaged communities.  Unfortunately, those generating facilities fulfill a critical reliability service so the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) has been warning that premature shutdown of the facilities will cause reliability problems.  This post highlights a relevant NYISO filing that concisely summarizes their concerns and recent comments by EJ advocates.  Get your popcorn, it will be interesting to see how this gets resolved.

I have been following the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 350 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Climate Act Background

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050.  It includes an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% reduction by 2030 and a requirement that all electricity generated be “zero-emissions” by 2040. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.”  In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible and power the electric grid with zero-emissions generating resources.  The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies.  That material was used to write a Draft Scoping Plan.  After a year-long review the Scoping Plan recommendations were finalized at the end of 2022.  In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations are supposed to be implemented through regulation and legislation. 

One of the implementation issues to be resolved is the subject of a New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) “Order initiating a process regarding the zero-emissions target” that will “identify innovative technologies to ensure reliability of a zero-emissions electric grid”.  The ultimate problem with wind, solar, and energy storage technologies proposed to replace fossil-fired electric generation is that they do not work all the time.  The Integration Analysis, NYISO, New York State Reliability Council, and the PSC order all recognize that a new technology is needed to support the grid during those periods.  The problem is exacerbated because the periods when wind and solar resources provide the least power are frequently the periods of highest load when peaking power plants are needed to prevent blackouts.  

Peaking Power Plants

I set up a page dedicated to this issue.  The following is a top-level summary.

In order to provide electricity to everyone who needs it when they need it the NYISO must balance power availability with the load on the system.  NYISO is responsible not only for the real-time delivery of power but also for reliability planning.  If the load did not vary, then this would be much less difficult but the reality is that load varies diurnally and seasonally.  Most important is meeting demand when loads are highest in the summer and winter because it is necessary to provide electricity to maintain the health and well-being of customers. Ultimately the problem boils down to the fact that there are short periods when so much load is needed that there are generating units dedicated by intent or circumstances to provide power during peak load demand. 

About fifty years ago, when Consolidated Edison was responsible for generating power and providing it to their customers, they developed a fleet of around 100 simple cycle combustion turbines at locations within New York City to provide this peaking power.  Those units were cheap but relatively inefficient and had high emission rates.  In a considered process the Department of Environmental Conservation, NYISO, and the owners of the facilities are in a regulation that ensures that the units either meet more stringent NOx emission limits or shutdown if the NYISO and Consolidated Edison do not identify specific reliability issues.  My point is that there is already a process in place to address the units that have always been considered peaking units.

The 2020 PEAK Coalition report entitled: “Dirty Energy, Big Money” is a primary reason that environmental justice organizations vilify all New York City peaking power plants.  I described this work in three posts.  I published a post that provided information on the primary air quality problem associated with these facilities, the organizations behind the report, the State’s response to date, the underlying issue of environmental justice and addressed the motivation for the analysis.  The second post addressed the rationale and feasibility of the proposed plan to replace these peaking facilities with “renewable and clean energy alternatives” relative to environmental effects, affordability, and reliability.  Finally, I discussed the  Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers (PSE) for Healthy Energy report Opportunities for Replacing Peaker Plants with Energy Storage in New York State that provided technical information used by the PEAK Coalition.  

There are two relevant aspects of the PEAK Coalition report.  That report did not make a distinction between the traditional peaking simple cycle combustion turbines and other power plants that were originally designed for frequent operations.  The fuel costs to burn oil at New York power plants is so expensive that they do not generally operate except in peak load periods.  “Dirty Energy, Big Money” only defined a peaking unit as one that operates infrequently so the EJ advocates consider these relatively large steam boiler units peakers.  The second point is that I found that the presumption of egregious harm from all the peaking facilities is based on selective choice of metrics, poor understanding of air quality health impacts,  and ignorance of air quality trends.  This is not as dire a problem as it is portrayed.

Peaking Power Plant Shutdowns

Environmental justice advocates believe that it is a problem.  Marie French recently wrote a Politico article that noted that “Shutting the units down is a top priority for environmental justice groups in the city”.  The article quoted Daniel Chu, the energy planner for the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance: “We think it’s unacceptable that for the sake of reliability, we would have to sacrifice communities for two more years or potentially even longer just to ensure that we don’t have blackouts or brownouts”.  He went on to say: “We don’t want blackouts or brownouts, but we also don’t want continued pollution.”

Raya Salter who is the founder of Energy Justice Law & Policy Center and is a member of the Climate Action Council never misses an opportunity to emphasize her belief that these facilities are a root cause of air quality health impacts in New York City disadvantaged communities.  In a recent Equity and Climate Justice Roundtable session, she argued that the New York Cap-and-Invest program should make shutting down the peaking units a priority.  She believes that equity is only achieved when fossil plant emissions are zero saying that “Anything less than shutting down power plants is a distraction from the goals of the Climate Act”.  However, she also says getting to zero mush be done “in a way that prioritizes emissions and co-pollutant reductions in front line communities and does not disproportionately burden disadvantaged communities”. 

The disconnect between those goals will have to addressed in another post.  You cannot have your cake and eat it too.  In this post I will consider the unconditional demand for shutdowns relative to the concerns of NYISO.

NYISO Reliability Concerns

Last month NYISO released its quarterly assessment of reliability of the bulk electric system which found  a deficit in reliability margins for the New York City area beginning in summer 2025.  I explained that report found that without changes to existing load pattern the summer peak load demand in New York City would be “deficient by 306 MW in 2025 for a duration of 7 hours”.  It is possible, due to uncertain load demand forecasts, that the deficiency could be “446 MW over 9 hours.”  They found that: “The deficient margin is primarily due to the increased demand forecasts within New York City combined with the planned unavailability of simple-cycle combustion turbines to comply with the DEC’s Peaker Rule in 2025”.   

On August 25, 2023 NYISO submitted comments on a petition filed by Alliance for Clean Energy New York, Inc. seeking modification to Clean Energy Standard Tier 1 Renewable Energy Certificate purchase and sale agreements as part of Case 15-E-0302 – Proceeding on Motion of the Commission to Implement a Large-Scale Renewable Program and a Clean Energy Standard.  The submittal includes a succinct description of the replacement power problem. 

In the introduction to the comments, the letter states:

The NYISO is committed to operating an electric system that provides reliable service 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and to planning a reliable system for the future grid. The Climate Action Council’s Scoping Plan accurately notes, “[w]hile transitioning away from fossil fuel use, maintaining reliable access to power, whether through centralized or distributed energy sources, is crucial for maintaining good public health in our energy-dependent society.”  The NYISO takes no position on the issue of whether, and if so how, REC Agreements should be modified as requested in the Petition and related dockets. The NYISO offers these comments to highlight the importance of developing and deploying generation resources that comply with the CLCPA requirements in a manner that is rationally coordinated with the retirement of existing fossil resources so that system reliability is not jeopardized.

The following is the letter’s comments section (without footnote references):

New Yorkers have long enjoyed reliable electric service and will expect the same level of service to continue. Reliable electric generation supports every aspect of New Yorkers’ daily lives and is vital to the state’s economy. Economic development within the state is driving the interconnection of large loads to the grid and increasing the demand for electricity. As transportation and building heat turn to the electric grid to drive the required economy-wide greenhouse gas emission reductions, people will become even more dependent on reliable electric service for their health, welfare, and safety. Reliable electric service is critical today and will become more critical to everyone’s daily life and general well-being as other sectors of the economy electrify.

Reliable, dispatchable electric generation is in jeopardy as generation retires faster than new resources become operational. Electric system margins have decreased to unprecedentedly low levels. In fact, the NYISO’s Short-Term Assessment of Reliability for 2023 Quarter 2 concluded that the New York City locality is deficient by as much as 446 MW for a duration of nine hours on the peak summer day under expected weather conditions, after accounting for forecasted economic growth and policy-driven increases in demand for electricity. The deficiency would be significantly greater if New York City experiences a heatwave or an extreme heatwave. The narrowing margins and the identified deficiency in New York City demonstrate that the addition of new resources is timely and critical.

NYISO’s ability to facilitate a reliable electric system, including delivery to consumers, requires that the introduction of new resources be coordinated with and occur prior to the orderly retirement of any existing generators. This order of operations is critical for maintaining reliability after such retirements. Electric system reliability margins are already close to minimum reliability requirements in certain areas across New York and continue to tighten, as discussed above. If these margins are totally depleted, the reliability of the grid would be at risk and power outages could disrupt normal life or negatively impact public health, welfare, and safety.

The figures below demonstrate the trend of shrinking reliability margins. Figure 1 shows how resource retirements are beginning to outpace resource additions, notably over the last three years. Figure 2 depicts how this trend is leading to tighter reliability margins in the coming years. While the state’s bulk electric system meets current reliability requirements, risks to reliability and system resilience remain. One key factor driving this risk continues to be resource retirements outpacing additions.

A sufficient fleet of new generation resources that satisfy the CLCPA must be available before more of the existing, traditional generators retire voluntarily or are forced out of service. New generation resources are required now to serve consumers’ needs and to maintain electric system reliability as load increases and existing generators retire. Large-scale renewable energy

generation, offshore wind generation, storage, and distributed energy resources are needed to satisfy CLCPA mandates and to support electric system reliability. Renewable energy generation must still increase substantially to achieve the CLCPA’s 70 percent by 2030 renewable energy requirement and then increase further between 2030 and 2040. This transition will facilitate new renewable resources entering service in the near term, fossil generation will operate less and less prior to retiring, but remain available for when it is needed to serve load and maintain system reliability.

Conclusion

Two opposing viewpoints must be reconciled to resolve the direction of Climate Act implementation.  On one hand, there are ideologues who have so far been setting Climate Act policy.  Despite their lack of energy system qualifications, they argue that the Climate Act mandates require zero emissions.  On the other side NYISO says that introduction of new resources to get to zero emissions must be coordinated with and occur prior to the orderly retirement of any existing generators. Failure to acknowledge this requirement will risk and power outages that could disrupt normal life or negatively impact public health, welfare, and safety.

I believe that those who believe that the Climate Act law has no implementation restrictions are wrong.  There are reliability and affordability safety valve provisions in New York Public Service Law  § 66-p (4). “Establishment of a renewable energy program”.   §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”. 

I have never seen anyone else suggesting that this is a possibility so it is likely that I am wrong.  In any event, is the Hochul Administration so invested in appeasing the EJ constituency that they are willing to risk causing a blackout or out of control energy costs?  In my opinion if the pragmatic approach to put the implementation on hold until the costs are known and reliability risks are minimized, the ideologues will have a meltdown and call for Hochul’s head.  There is no sign whatsoever that they will accept any compromises or delays to their demands.  As noted in the introduction, get out the popcorn watching this unfold is going to be fascinating.

Renewable Electricity in New York State Review and Prospects

On August 1, 2023 the New York State Comptroller’s Office released Renewable Electricity in New York State Review and Prospects (“Comptroller Report”) that addressed progress and prospects for attaining New York’s Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) 2040 mandate for a zero-emissions electric grid.  This post discusses the findings of that report.

I have been following the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 350 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good.  The opinions expressed in this post do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Climate Act Background

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050.  It includes an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% reduction by 2030 and a requirement that all electricity generated be “zero-emissions” by 2040. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.”  In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible and power the electric grid with zero-emissions generating resources.  The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies.  That material was used to write a Draft Scoping Plan.  After a year-long review the Scoping Plan recommendations were finalized at the end of 2022.  In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations are supposed to be implemented through regulation and legislation. 

Annotated Press Release

The press release DiNapoli: State Needs to Supercharge Efforts to Meet Renewable Electricity Goals is as good a place as any to discuss the report.  In this section I will comment on the points made.

My overarching concern with the Comptroller Report is that it underestimates the technological challenges of the net-zero transition.  That is entirely consistent with the Scoping Plan and the beliefs that the politicians who dreamed up the Climate Act and the ideologues who controlled the Climate Action Council can develop rational energy policy.  The introduction basically says all we must do is try harder:

New York state will have to take multiple steps to increase renewable electricity generation to achieve the objectives of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act). Success will also require state agencies to consistently and proactively identify and address problems, continue streamlining permit and interconnection study procedures, and develop the necessary infrastructure to connect renewable projects to the grid and New Yorkers’ homes, according to a report issued today by State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.

“New York State has rightly pursued an aggressive campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit the most dangerous impacts of climate change,” DiNapoli said. “New York’s energy goals are attainable, but require careful attention and management to address challenges, meet ambitious deadlines and avoid future pitfalls.”

My first thought when I heard that the Comptroller had issued this report was why in the world did he get involved.  The definition of comptroller, a public official who audits government accounts and sometimes certifies expenditures, wasn’t much help.  The responsibilities listed on State Comptroller website includes “Providing independent fiscal oversight on State, New York City and local finances” which I suppose could provide justification. 

Fiscal oversight means numbers and the report quotes New York Independent System Operator numbers:

DiNapoli’s report found that renewable generators in New York would need to produce an additional 78,073-gigawatt hours above 2022 levels, an increase of over 200%, to reach the Climate Act’s 2030 goal of 70% renewable electricity consumption. The analysis is based on projections from the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO).

NYISO has also projected that the state would need to add 20 gigawatts of installed renewable capacity by 2030, which is triple the 2022 capacity of approximately 6.5 gigawatts. In the last 20 years, New York added 12.9 gigawatts of total electric generation, including both fossil fuel and renewable sources.

The press release discusses the actions taken to try to meet the targets:

The state has taken steps to address these challenges:

  • Increased and consistent funding under the state’s Clean Energy Standard facilitated increases in the development of renewable electricity generation. Between 2017 and 2021, at least 1,100 megawatts of projects came under contract annually, compared to between 0 and 726 megawatts annually in the preceding years.
  • The Department of State’s Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) was formed to streamline the permitting process, and the NYISO has also been improving the interconnection process to bring renewable electricity generation projects online more quickly. Continuing to improve the renewable electric project permitting and interconnection processes to allow for timely approvals, while ensuring community responsiveness and project impacts are mitigated, is critical to achieving the Climate Act goals.

The solutions proposed here are supposed to be a good thing.  I am not impressed.  Increased and consistent funding translates to throw more and more money at it without a plan that defines what the affordability tolerance level is.  ORES is a gift to the renewable energy developers that circumvents environmental protections, home rule, and anything else that could slow down much less stop renewable development.  Here is a new flash to the Albany bureaucrats – not all projects deserve to be built.  ORES has no responsible solar siting requirements in place so solar developers routinely exceed the Department of Agriculture and Markets guidelines for protection of prime farmlands.  My solar development scorecard found that prime farmland comprises 21% of the project area of 18 utility-scale solar project permitted applications which is double the Ag and Markets guideline.

The following paragraph talks about the transmission requirements.  All the points raised are legitimate and there are few technological barriers to development.  It is just a matter of cost and no one has owned up to the expected costs.  The subsequent paragraph acknowledges the problem and implies the problem can be resolved can be resolved if the state wishes hard enough to hold down the costs.

The state will also face challenges given the volume and scale of new projects. The transmission capacity for connecting upstate regions to New York City is limited and renewable facilities in some upstate regions are already being forced to curtail generation due to transmission constraints. Significant new electric transmission infrastructure is needed to allow for the transmission of renewable electricity to customers throughout the state, including interconnect offshore wind projects and additional export capacity from Long Island, and bulk transmission connecting New York City and Long Island to upstate.

The costs of incentives to encourage renewable siting and the costs of transmission projects approved by the Public Service Commission are borne almost exclusively by New York’s utility customers. The state should make every effort to clearly identify how these costs will affect consumer electric bills and must hold down these costs to the state’s electric customers.

The final section of the press release explains “where New York ranks”.  It is not clear how relevant the numbers are vis-à-vis Climate Act implementation or why the 2022 data presented in the report were not used.  Also conspicuous by its absence is where New York ranks relative to global emissions.  Clearly, acknowledging that New York GHG emissions are less than one half of one percent of global emissions and global emissions have been increasing on average by more than one half of one percent per year since 1990 is not a fact that the Comptroller wants to acknowledge lest someone ask what is the point?

In 2020, New York produced 124,912 gigawatt hours of renewable energy, ranking 6th in the nation. This figure includes both renewable fuels, such as biodiesel, and renewable electricity sources, including hydropower, solar, and wind. New York was 3rd in the nation after Washington and Oregon in the generation of hydroelectric power, 10th in generation of solar electricity, and 18th in generation of electricity with wind.

As of 2022, approximately 29% of the electricity generated in the state came from renewable sources. Of this renewable generation, roughly 75% came from hydroelectric generation, with the remaining 25% primarily split between wind and solar.

Report Topics Not Included in Press Release

The press release was not an exhaustive summation of the contents of the Comptroller Report.  The report also addressed the renewable energy goals,

The Comptroller Report notes that:

The State’s renewable electric generation averaged 20 percent of total electric generation between 2005 and 2016. Since then, the share grew to approximately 29 percent of State generation in 2022. To reach the CLCPA goal of 70 percent in 2030, renewable generators in New York would need to produce an additional 78,073 gigawatt hours above 2022 production levels, an increase of over 200 percent.

It goes on to describe the New York Independent System Operator 2021-2040 System & Resource Outlook projections for the renewable energy needed.  It concludes that the State will have to increase the rate at which renewable electricity projects are permitted and approved for interconnection to the State electric grid.

This leads into a more detailed explanation of the challenges to meet the Climate Act goals.

There are three interrelated processes that play a role in the development of renewable electric generation resources in New York, and the State has faced challenges in each of these processes. These processes work on a parallel basis and project developers do not need to have completed any of the processes before they can enter one of the other processes.

Two of them, permitting and grid interconnection, are required for any all-new sources of generation.

  • Incentives – Through various programs, particularly renewable energy certificates, incentives are provided to stimulate the market and ensure that there are enough renewable electric generation projects to meet State goals.
  • Permitting and Siting – The permitting process is intended to ensure that projects are sited in areas and under conditions consistent with State and local laws and regulations.
  • Interconnection – The interconnection process is intended to ensure that there is sufficient electric transmission and distribution infrastructure to move the electricity generated by the facilities to consumers and that electric service reliability standards are met.

The State faced three key challenges that hindered its progress: inconsistent provision of incentives; project cancellations; and lengthy project timelines due to delays in siting and operationalization.

In the discussion of the inconsistent provision of incentives the report stated that “New York State has used two basic approaches to incentivize the development of renewable electricity generation: contracts for the purchase of renewable energy certificates (RECs) from project developers proposing to build large scale facilities that sell electricity into the State grid; and incentives to reduce the cost of installing small facilities sited behind a customer meter that primarily generate electricity for the customer’s use, but also sell unused electricity into the distribution grid (BTM solar).”

The BTM solar incentive was cited as a success because distributed solar generation has grown steadily.  They claim that “the total combined capacity of complete projects and those in the pipeline for all years was approximately 7.1 gigawatts” as the result of increased funding commitments.  I don’t think the authors of the report understand that the electric energy planning commitment to providing reliable power at all times is hindered by this program.  There is no question that distributed solar generation reduce load requirements, but it creates operating challenges including short, steep changes in load that must be balanced, an oversupply risk when all the solar is operating at peak rates, and decreases resiliency when less resources are operating and available to automatically adjust electricity production to maintain grid reliability.  When the costs to address those problems are considered it is clear that success is limited.

The Comptroller Report argues that the RECs program has had mixed results. Each REC represents a megawatt hour of electricity sold into the State’s electric grid.  To date: “Most, but not all, of the large-scale renewable electricity generators that move through the permitting and interconnection processes are recipients of REC contracts.”   However, an analysis by the Comptroller’s Office shows a lot of variation in the projects that have had contracts:

Funding commitments under the State’s CES increased dramatically, resulting in a significant increase in the projects under contract, as shown in Figure 5. Whereas the last procurement under the RPS in 2016 carried a commitment of $360 million, the funding commitment for the 2017 procurement was approximately $1.4 billion.

The Comptroller Report seems to be surprised by the number of project cancellations:

Between 2005 and April 2023, 28 projects totaling 1.3 gigawatts were canceled—an amount equal to 11.3 percent of capacity under contract during those years—with the largest amount of capacity canceled in 2017, 2018 and 2020. In these years, canceled projects represented 20.4 percent of contracted capacity. Projects may be canceled for a variety of reasons including opposition to the project, changes in the finances of the developer, or unforeseen costs for transmission needed for grid integration.

The report notes that facilities that are operating but have lost their REC subsidies “could potentially enter into long term contracts with consumers outside of the State, which could prevent their generation from counting toward State goals.”  However, there is no mention of the operating facilities that already are under contract out-of-state.  Robert Bryce reviewed data published by the Department of Energy and the New England Power Pool and found that “of the nearly 4 million megawatt-hours of wind energy produced in New York in 2018, the state exported 1.2 million megawatt-hours, or 30 percent, to New England.  Furthermore, the Cassadaga Wind Project that was commissioned in 2021 produces power that was procured through the New England Clean Energy request for proposals’ in 2016 for a group of seven New England utilities.  Note that I have never seen an acknowledgement of this in any of the Scoping Plan documentation.

Two additional considerations are mentioned.  Getting the power from the wind and solar facilities to where it is needed is described:

New electric transmission and distribution capacity will be needed to connect the new renewable electric generation required to meet the CLCPA goals to the grid. Transmission capacity connecting upstate regions to New York City is limited and renewable facilities in some upstate regions are already being forced to curtail generation due to transmission constraints.

The other issue is affordability.  The report notes:  “The costs of incentivizing renewable electricity development and transmission upgrades are borne almost exclusively by New York’s utility customers through a charge per kilowatt hour of electricity consumed.”    The RECs described earlier are funded by the ratepayers.  In addition, the investments necessary to develop the transmission upgrades are buried in the rate cases.  The document suggests without justification that this problem will be addressed by existing programs.

Conclusion

Not surprisingly this political document proposes political solutions.  The acknowledged problems of the timeline can be resolved if “the projects currently under contract to sell RECs to the State and the projects in the NYISO’s interconnection queue are able to move through the interconnection and construction process and needed transmission and distribution infrastructure is completed in a timely way, the CLCPA’s goal of generating 70 percent of the State’s electricity with renewable technologies appears to be in reach.”  The Comptroller’s Report falls back on the it is only a matter of political will faith-based creed.  Reality is very likely to make that impossible.

In addition to political will, the report suggests that we can resolve issues by throwing more money at projects.  The State’s prior poor performance is chalked up to inconsistent funding commitments. At the same time, it acknowledges that “mechanisms to hold down the cost of meeting its goals on the State’s electric consumers” are necessary.

Against the background that New York’s contribution to global GHG emissions is less than the rate of increase in global emissions my frustration is unbounded.  Is it too much to ask Albany politicians to document the expected costs, the potential risks to reliable energy, and the environmental tradeoffs of the net zero transition called for in the Climate Act? 

Articles of Note Relevant to the Climate Act

I have a “to-do” list of posts and analyses that I want to do.  Some items on the list are over a month old.  Rather than adding to the list with articles about specific posts that I have read that I think are relevant, this post describes articles that caught my attention.

I have been following the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) since it was first proposed and most of this blog articles are related to it. I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good.  .  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Weather and Climate

It seems that every day there is at least one article that claims that a recent extreme weather event is related to climate change caused by humans.  Roger Pielke, Jr was prompted to write a post after the Lahaina, Maui fire disaster link to climate change.  The post Signal and Noise that addresses this issue and includes the following lessons:

Just because the signal of climate change for particular variables cannot (yet) be detected in the context of historical variability does not mean that climate change is not real or important, and in many, if not most cases, a lack of signal is to be expected.

Natural variability is real and significant. It does not mean that climate change is not real or important, but that detecting signals is often difficult even when climate is changing and there is always a risk of erroneously detecting signals where none is present.

He concludes:

The challenges of detection and attribution should tell us that both adaptation and mitigation policies must be built upon a foundation that involves justifications for action that are much broader than climate change alone.

So far, climate advocates have sought to shape perceptions of science to support a climate-change-is-everything agenda. We will have a lot more success if we instead shape policy to align with what science actually says.

My pragmatic take concerns the tradeoff between the resources devoted to climate change mitigation relative to extreme weather adaptation.  I was involved with emergency planning at a nuclear plant so I have experience with this kind of planning.  From what I have seen the emergency planning for Lahaina relative to an identified wildfire threat was criminally negligent.  Blaming climate change absolves blame for the guilty parties.  Trying to mitigate climate change displaces resources that would be better employed to address existing weather problems. 

I wrote the preceding paragraph before I read that Bjorn Lomborg said that politicians were blaming climate change for disasters like the wildfires on Maui to duck “responsibility” for “failures” in addressing them.  It is reassuring that my thoughts agree with him.

One final note about the Maui fires.  Professor Cliff Mass did an excellent job explaining what really happened: a high amplitude atmospheric wave forced by strong winds interacting with the mountains of northwest Maui.  He explains that:

It did not matter whether the grass or light vegetation were wet or dry the days or weeks before:  this extraordinary atmospheric animal would ensure they were dry enough to burn.   Prior dry conditions during the weeks before were immaterial.

With respect to the current state of the climate, Judith Curry, Jim Johnstone, and Mark Jelinek presented a “deep dive into the causes of the unusual weather/climate during 2023.  People are blaming fossil-fueled warming and El Nino, and now the Hunga-Tonga eruption and the change in ship fuels.  But the real story is more complicated.”  They conclude, among other things:

The exceptionally warm global temperature in 2023 is part of a trend of warming since 2015 that is associated primarily with greater absorption of solar radiation in the earth-atmosphere system.  This increase in absorbed solar radiation is driven by a slow decline in springtime snow extent, but primary by a reduction in reflection from the atmosphere driven by reduced cloudiness and to a lesser extent a reduction in atmospheric aerosol.  Any increase in the greenhouse effect from increasing CO2 (which impacts the longwave radiation budget) is lost in the noise.

Climate Emergency

Alex Epstein writes that it would be inappropriate for the Biden Administraiton to declare a Climate Emergency.  He argues that there is no emergency because rising CO2 levels are:

  1. Not dire: Humans are safer from climate than ever.
  2. Not temporary: They will rise for decades.
  3. Not in our control: We emit 1/7 of CO2—and falling.

He makes the point that a government “emergency” declaration is a temporary increase in power that should only be used if a problem meets three criteria:

  • Dire: Unusually deadly
  • Temporary: Of limited duration
  • In our control: Actually solvable by our government

His conclusion is that none of the conditions necessary to declare a climate emergency have been met and goes on to support his arguments in detail.

Climate Act and Electric Vehicles

The Climate Act is a political animal.  While I focus primarily on the environmental and energy-related issues associated with GHG emission reductions, there is a social justice aka “Green New Deal”  component that is a primary interest of many of the Act’s proponents.  The contradiction between advocating for zero GHG emissions that will markedly increase energy prices and risk electric reliability that will impact those that can least afford to deal with the problems the most while at the same time demanding investments in disadvantaged communities has always seemed incongruous to me.  No where is this tradeoff more stark than in the push for electric vehicles.

The CalMatters post Will California’s push on electric vehicles reduce inequality — or deepen it? touched on the issues that concern me.  The post described a CalMatters panel discussion that addressed the question whether California can make sure the electric vehicle revolution isn’t just for the wealthy few. 

The post noted:

While bringing down the cost of EVs is crucial, so is the availability of chargers. And that is something of a chicken-and-egg proposition.

Some on the panel — moderated by CalMatters’ climate reporter Alejandro Lazo — called for building out the charging infrastructure in disadvantaged communities in advance, especially residential chargers.

  • Steve Douglas, vice president of energy and environment for the Alliance for Automotive Innovation: “You can’t ask low-income residents to spend an hour, three hours, six hours away from their families, every week, just to charge their car, while affluent people pull in, plug in and wake up to a full car.”

But others said without enough EV owners in a neighborhood, it’s a recipe for vandalism and disuse. 

  • Ted Lamm, senior research fellow in the climate program at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy, & the Environment: “When charging is installed in an area where there is no demand for the vehicles and no local desire to use them, it’s this sort of dead infrastructure. It has no use to the local population and local community, and so it is more likely to be subjected to vandalism, or just disuse and disrepair.”

Montana Court Climate Decision

A group of young people in Montana won a landmark lawsuit on August 14, when a judge ruled as unconstitutional the state’s failure to consider climate change when approving fossil fuel projects. While this has been hailed as a turning point by the usual suspects the reality is different.

David Wojick explained why the court decision was not a big deal.  He writes:

Much ado is being made from the supposed win of a kid’s climate lawsuit in Montana. The alarmists call it a victory, the skeptics a tragedy, but it is neither. What was won is almost funny, while the big ask was in fact denied. The climate kids won a little, but lost a lot.

On the win side the judge merely ruled that the Montana law forbidding consideration of GHG emissions in permitting was unconstitutional. How it is considered is up to the agency or legislature. This need not slow down or stop any project.

The Montana constitution says there is a right to a healthful environment. Alarmism says emissions are harmful which all Courts to date have bought, including this one. So given the possible harm, one cannot simply ignore emissions which the law said to do. Hence the decision to kill the law.

Gregory Wrightstone debunked the claim that Montana is a “major emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world” and the state’s emissions “have been proven to be a substantial factor” in affecting the climate.   He explains:

Montana’s CO2 emissions are 0.6% of the total U.S. emissions. If Montana had gone to zero emissions of CO2 in 2010, it would only avert 0.0004 degree Fahrenheit of greenhouse warming by 2050 and 0.001 degree by 2100, according to the MAGICC simulator, a tool created by a consortium of climate research institutes including the National Center for Atmospheric Research. These numbers are far below our ability to even measure and certainly not the “substantial factor” as claimed.

New York’s emissions are a greater proportion of total U.S. emissions but I have found they are not high enough to measure and are also not a “substantial factor”.

The Montana Attorney General’s office considered arguing against the plaintiff’s witnesses about the alleged harms of climate change.  They retained Dr. Judith Curry to prepare evidence but ended up not using it.  She explained the inside story, her written expert report, and why she was not asked to testify at the trial.  I found it fascinating and there is plenty of ammunition included to debunk many of the arguments used by proponents of the net-zero transition.    This will be useful when the inevitable lawsuit is filed in New York.

New York Zero Emissions Proceeding: Richard Ellenbogen Comments

The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) recently initiated an “Order initiating a process regarding the zero-emissions target” that will “identify innovative technologies to ensure reliability of a zero-emissions electric grid”.  Implementation of the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) started soon after the law was passed at the end of 2019.  It was recognized early that “as renewable resources and storage facilities are added to the State’s energy supply, additional clean-energy resources capable of responding to fluctuating conditions might be needed to maintain the reliability of the electric grid”.  I recently summarized the proceeding and my comments.  This post summarizes the comments by Richard Ellenbogen that I think describe the overarching problems of the Climate Act.

I have been following the Climate Act since it was first proposed. I submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan and have written over 300 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  I have extensive experience with meteorological aspects of electric generation because I have worked in the sector as a meteorologist for over four decades.  I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act and the issues raised in this proceeding because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good.  I represent the Environmental Energy Alliance of New York on the New York State Reliability Council Extreme Weather Working Group.  The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of the Alliance, the Reliability Council, the Extreme Weather Working Group, any of my previous employers or any other company I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.

Climate Act Background

The Climate Act established a New York “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050 and an interim 2030 target of a 40% reduction by 2030. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.”  In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible and power the electric grid with zero-emissions generating resources by 2040.  The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies.  That material was used to write a Draft Scoping Plan.  After a year-long review the Scoping Plan recommendations were finalized at the end of 2022.  In 2023 the Scoping Plan recommendations are supposed to be implemented through regulation and legislation.  The zero emissions analysis is part of that effort.

Ellenbogen Background

I have published other articles by Ellenbogen because he truly cares about the environment and the environmental performance record of his business shows that he knows how to protect the environment while running a business.   At the Business Council of New York 2023 Renewable Energy Conference Energy he [BIO] gave the keynote address (presentation and video) –  Why NY State Must Rethink Its Energy Plan and Ten Suggestions to Help Fix the Problems.”  which I summarized here.  His comment submittal includes more background information.

Comments

Ellenbogen’s comments are available on the DPS DMM website.  Many of the points in the Business Council keynote presentation were incorporated into his comments.

His introduction notes:

While Mr. Ellenbogen is in favor of the decarbonization identified in the CLCPA, the way that the policy is structured cannot possibly work and it is going to cost the state hundreds of billions of dollars, while not reducing atmospheric carbon, and worse yet, it precludes methods of reducing carbon emissions that actually will work much more rapidly based upon the physics of how utility systems actually operate.

Issues Raised in the Comments

He goes on to describe five issues related to Climate Act bet-zero transition:

  1. There is a lack of available energy to support the Plan
  2. Costs to implement the Plan will far exceed other, better solutions

These costs accrue based upon shortages of materials and skilled labor, high energy storage costs, and a lack of financial adequacy

  1. Atmospheric Carbon Levels will rise far above what could be achieved using other alternatives
  2. Planned timing mandates are unachievable
  3. There are major non sequitur issues contained within the CLCPA

 

He argues that the Scoping Plan does not accurately estimate the energy available from wind and solar and how much energy will be needed when the electrification proposed is in place.  His analyses, indicate that “even if all of the renewables specified in the CLCPA are installed, the state will still be over 100,000 GWh short of what is needed and there will be hundreds of hours of rolling blackouts annually.”   He also notes that renewable facility installation rate is falling behind the Scoping Plan schedule.

Ellenbogen has hands-on experience designing, building and operating a low-carbon energy system for his business.  Based on that background he believes “project costs will far exceed other, better solutions, based upon a shortage of materials, labor, and capital needed to complete Plan implementation”.  This is based on energy storage requirements, transmission upgrades, and the materials and labor needed to resolve those needs.

He points out that GHG emissions will not decrease as quickly as projected because the renewable energy/ carbon free energy resources won’t be available in time.  When other sectors of the economy are electrified that means that the additional loads will be supported by fossil fuel generation.  He points out that the demands for no new fossil fuel infrastructure means that old power plants will be kept on line longer.  He argues that building new, more efficient power plants for the decades long transition is the better solution.

The reason for this proceeding is that there is only one zero-emissions resource that fulfills most of the electric system requirements and nuclear is politically toxic.  In addition, it is unlikely that even if nuclear power were embraced it would be unlikely that the targets of the Climate Act could be met.  His discussion of schedule issues also raise a problem associated with the proposed dispatchable emissions-free resource (DEFR) included in the Scoping Plan.  As envisioned there, these resources will only be used 3% of the time:

That doesn’t work in the real world. Most generating technologies don’t lend themselves well to being dormant 97% of the time. Additionally, based upon the math, the 3% is an extremely low estimate. It would be far more cost effective to build more nuclear generation and fewer renewables. That would remove the intermittency issue and the storage cost issue documented earlier.

Finally, Ellenbogen explains that the conclusions of the Climate Act are based on fantasy.   He notes that the projected solar annual energy production from the listed capacity requires an annual capacity factor of 22% but that the state has a solar capacity factor of 13% when the arrays are new.  As a result, the calculated solar output is overestimated by 72% or 51,000 GWh. Using the correct solar capacity factor results in only 70,768 GWh of solar output in 2050, 51,000 GWh less. Combined with his estimate that the amount of energy needed is going to be 120,000 GWh more than the 2050 Scoping Plan projections is the reason he believes “that we can expect hundreds of hours of rolling blackouts every year if the Climate Act is executed as planned. “

Viable Alternatives in the Comments

Ellenbogen argues that natural gas-fired combined cycle power plants are a viable alternative during the transition.  They can be built relatively quickly and would replace the old more inefficient power plants that have to be kept on-line in the absence of adequate resources.  He makes a persuasive case that the huge electricity load of the proposed Micron chip fabrication plant north of Syracuse should include a combined cycle co-generation plant that would provide both electricity and heat for the facility.  He explains:

With regard to Micron Technologies, one could be built on-site that would eliminate 350 GWh of line loss while also providing Micron easy access to high temperature thermal energy. The Energy on Demand aspect of the generating plants also eliminates the need for trillions of dollars of battery storage. It is not a perfect solution, but it is a far better solution than “ideal” solutions that can’t be executed because of the previously documented issues. As hydrogen technologies are perfected and a sufficient supply of hydrogen is developed, hydrogen injection technologies can help to further reduce the GHG emissions of the plants.

Overview Conclusion

He concludes:

The prior analysis is based upon facts, math, and physics, not opinions or wishful thinking.. The issues don’t require an understanding of calculus. They just require an open mind and a knowledge of arithmetic. People can’t only say, “Follow the science” when it tells them what they want to hear. Any engineer knows that science, math, and reality can screw up the best plans.

Einstein defined “Insanity” as repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Why is NY State repeating Germany’s failed renewable experiment that hasn’t worked in 33 years and expecting it to work in seven years or seventeen years. The results in NY State are going to be just as bad as they have been in Germany. However, time is now an issue and significant GHG reductions need to be achieved quickly. The CLCPA in New York State will not be any more successful than Germany policy has been in their efforts to combat climate change.

NY State is currently in the CLCPA, mandating a non-functional utility system which will be plagued by greater fossil fuel use, higher carbon emissions, energy failures, and stability issues that will result in deaths, and a mass exodus of people and businesses that will destroy the tax base and with it, the state economy.

Response to Questions

The zero-emissions proceeding request for comments included 14 questions.  He did not respond to specific questions  Instead, I quote his response “Regarding Answers to Some of the 14 Questions”:

“How should zero be defined?” Zero is zero. If they meant otherwise, they should have used the word “low”. Carbon offset projects still have to be distinguished from true zero emission technologies such as solar, wind, and nuclear. If the state wants to offer credits to a process that offsets carbon for accounting purposes, that’s fine but don’t call it zero. It should be in a separate “offset” category.

Regarding Carbon Capture, many of the technologies cool the exhaust to separate the CO2 as a liquid and either use it in other materials or pump it underground in a deep well to sequester it. While that will greatly reduce atmospheric CO2, it will greatly increase energy use. That energy has to be accounted for. Where is it going to come from?

Regarding “Green Hydrogen”, hydrogen electrolysis should not qualify. There is going to be an enormous shortage of electrical energy to support the utility system, even if all of the renewables are magically installed. A recent study done in Australia found that if all of their current proposals to produce green hydrogen by electrolysis were implemented, the total energy required would exceed all of Australia’s generating capacity. The math will be no different in NY State. A better solution would be to generate hydrogen by investing in a thermo-chemical process using the waste heat of the nuclear plants to power or by using the NYSERDA Biomass Power Guide qualifying waste to energy plants to generate the hydrogen.

Pragmatic Environmentalist Conclusion

I highly recommend reading his comments.  Ellenbogen offers alternatives that would be cheaper, will reduce GHG emissions in the short term, and are technologies that will actually “work much more rapidly based upon the physics of how utility systems actually operate.”  Alas he argues that going to zero is not appropriate.  The ideologues on the Climate Action Council who shaped the Scoping Plan demand perfection but do not seem to comprehend that the real world makes that impossible.

I don’t think the ideologues understand the risk to their goals.  The proposed Scoping Plan cannot work as written and will cost enormous amounts of money.  There is no indication that proponents understand the risks to reliable energy inherent in the Scoping Plan and that poor energy policy will cause greater health and economic damage than climate change.  When these problems get to the point that they cannot be denied, I believe it is likely that public backlash will be so strong that there will be no appetite for any of the idealistic dogma in the Scoping Plan energy policy.  Moreover, even the alternatives proposed by Ellenbogen will be off the table for future energy policy.