Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York

My November 2018 Comment on NYS Carbon Pricing

New York’s energy planning process continues its efforts to meet the aggressive goals of a remodeled energy system that relies on renewable energy. The latest boondoggle in that effort is a plan to price carbon in the wholesale electric market. I have previously posted comments on this initiative and this post summarizes the latest comment I submitted at the end of the stakeholder process.

Introduction

I participated in the year-long stakeholder process for this initiative because I wanted at least one voice included from the unaffiliated public whose primary interest is an evidence-based balance between environmental goals and costs to ratepayers for New York State energy policy. I was the only active independent citizen involved with this process. I submitted my comments as a private retired citizen. They 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.

The question I addressed in my comments is whether the proposed program to price CO2 in the wholesale electric market is an appropriate response for New York State policy. Since the August 10, 2017 release of Pricing Carbon into NYISO’s Wholesale Energy Market to Support New York’s Decarbonization Goals (hereinafter the “Brattle Report”) there has been an active stakeholder process to examine that proposal for using carbon pricing within wholesale markets to further New York’s energy goals. The documentation for this policy is available at the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) web site. My comments are in there but are also available at the NYS Department of Public Service (DPS) website.

This whole process exemplifies my problem with many of the climate change policy initiatives. The majority of NYS ratepayers are unaware of the ramifications of this proceeding or have any idea of the potential cost of a price on carbon emissions in NYS wholesale electricity markets. On the other hand, every advocacy group that likes the concept and every special interest who could benefit from this is not only aware of it but actively participating. Consequently, within this little echo chamber everything sounds great. Moreover, the momentum within NYS agencies is for leading the way on climate policy initiatives and a carbon price is near the top of the list of “must have” climate initiatives. Finally, the majority of the stakeholders and the parties who will vote in the next phase of the NYISO implementation process do not represent the interests of ratepayers so I fear that this flawed proposal will eventually be implemented.

To cut to the simplest summary, the carbon pricing initiative proposes to add the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) to CO2 emissions from electric generators that provide power to the wholesale electric market in NYS. I have reviewed documents and provided comments for over a year. Based on my review and analysis I conclude that the original criteria for success defined last year are not met. The small CO2 reduction benefits estimated do not support implementation given the potential for significant costs to consumers, considerable implementation issues and likelihood of unintended consequences.

My comments used the criteria listed in the Brattle Report preamble. The NYISO and DPS agreed in the preamble to the Brattle Report that in order to be successful, “Any carbon pricing proposal must contribute to achieving New York State’s public policies, while providing the greatest benefit at the least cost to consumers while also providing appropriate price signals to incentivize investment and maintain grid reliability.”

New York’s energy policies are driven by Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) which is Governor Cuomo’s plan to “rebuild, strengthen and modernize New York’s energy system” in order to” build a clean, more resilient, and affordable energy system”. The 2030 goals for REV are:

40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels;
50% of electricity must come from renewable sources; and
600 trillion Btu increase in statewide energy efficiency.

The REV 2050 emission goal is an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels.

Summary

My criteria for evaluating the success of the carbon pricing initiative are:

Will its CO2 emission reductions effectively help meet the REV 40% reduction goal;
Does the program incentivize renewable energy?; and
Does the program provide the greatest benefit at the least cost to the consumer?

The ultimate goal of this program is to reduce CO2 emissions. In order to meet the REV 40% reduction goal I estimate that the electric sector must reduce its emissions by 676,599 tons per year. The emission reductions projected by Brattle (0.3 million tons) and RFF (0.2 million tons) as a result of this policy fall well short of that level and are well within normal annual variation. New York State cannot replace existing programs with this initiative and hope to meet the REV 2030 goal.

This carbon pricing initiative proposes to set a price on carbon for one sector in one state whereas the ideal approach is to cover all sectors globally. That major shortcoming reduces the effectiveness of this policy to increase renewable energy development. I believe that there are existing programs in place that will be more effective incentivizing renewable energy.

In order to provide the greatest benefit to the consumer the cost of carbon reductions must be less than the social cost of carbon. This program fails to meet that criterion. With regards to cost, the modeling analyses claim minor costs to the consumer but there are significant uncertainties that I think all would tend to increase the final cost. This program is only more effective than RGGI investments if the offsetting benefits modeling results come true. I don’t have as much faith in the prospective cost effectiveness rates as the observed RGGI rates. Therefore, I think the risks of substantial consumer impacts make this a less attractive option than existing programs that can target economically-disadvantaged ratepayers who stand to lose the most with this regressive carbon tax proposal.

The potential for implementation issues and unintended consequences should also be considered. Examples of implementation issues include: border treatments, determining the RGGI price used, calculating emissions for the program, and addressing double payments. Unintended consequences include negative impact on beneficial electrification, the potential to game the system, and decreased economic viability of new fossil-fired generation that is likely needed to maintain system reliability.

In conclusion, I believe that the results of the stakeholder process indicate that this is a risky approach that will have high costs and could have unintended consequences that might hurt consumers and businesses in New York. As a result I cannot recommend implementing the policy as proposed.

Consistency with REV 40% Goal

Although one would think that there would be some place where there is a roadmap for how the state plans to meet the 2030 REV 40% goal I have been unable to find it so I made my own estimate. The NYSERDA report New York State Greenhouse Gas Inventory: 1990-2015 provides the data needed to quantify the REV goals.

Table S-2. New York State GHG Emissions, 1990–2015 (MMtCO2e) in that document lists values for 1990 through 2015 based on historical data. Table 1 New York State CO2 Fuel Combustion Emissions lists the 1990, 2015 and 2030 fuel combustion CO2 emissions (1000 tons) converted from those values in Table S-2. For the purposes of this estimate I assume that the REV 40% goal applies only to CO2 from fuel combustion. I am not sure what to do about emissions from electricity imports so I included those values too.

The baseline for REV is the 1990 total CO2 emissions or 222.2 million tons. If those emissions are reduced 40% the REV target is 133.3 million tons. The 2015 data show the status of CO2 emissions and it shows that the reductions from 1990 to 2015 are only 12.2%. On the other hand, the electric generation sector has gone down over 53% so they have already met their share of the 40% goal. If we assume that in order for the state to meet the 40% target all sectors have to come down equally from the 2015 level to meet the 2030 goal, then another 10,148,981 ton reduction in CO2 is necessary from the electric sector. If that reduction is apportioned equally across the 15 years between 2015 and 2030 then the annual average reduction needs to be at least 676,599 tons per year.

There are three independent estimates of future CO2 reductions expected from the proposed policy to price CO2 in the wholesale electric market:

The Brattle Group provided their latest estimate on 10/12/2018;
The Daymark Energy Advisors provided their latest estimate for NY UIU on 10/29/2018; and
Resources for the Future (RFF) provided their latest estimate on 9/24/2018.

There were subsequent updates but I did not incorporate them into Table 2 2025 CO2 Emissions Reductions.

The ultimate goal of this program is to reduce CO2 emissions. Frankly, the emission reductions projected by Brattle and RFF as a result of this policy are well within normal annual variation so if they are correct this policy is ineffective. On the 11/9/18 IPPTF conference call Daymark said that they predicted “no material change in CO2”. None of these projections satisfy the annual average reduction of 676,599 tons per year necessary if all sectors reduce emissions equally to meet the REV 2030 goal. As a result, New York State cannot replace existing programs with this and hope to meet the REV 2030 goal.

Incentives for renewable energy

The theory for carbon dioxide taxation is that when the cost of fossil-fueled energy reflects the social cost of carbon then the market will produce alternatives. Unfortunately there is a large gap between this theory and the proposal to set a price on carbon in the New York wholesale electric market. The first problem is estimating the external cost of CO2 to establish the rate. The NYISO process ignores that problem by simply relying on the state value. I have shown previously (here, here, and here) that the fundamental problem is that the Integrated Working Group SCC value that has been proposed does not accurately reflect the current state of the science relative to the probability of temperature being highly sensitive to CO2. Secondly, while the theory might work for an entire economy covering all sectors and all regions, this proposal covers only the wholesale electric sector and just the New York region. The most likely outcome is that emissions will simply relocate.

The New York public policy has a 2030 target for CO2 reductions. This approach relies on an indirect incentive for renewable energy. There is a lag between the necessary carbon price market signal for the private investments and the availability of the new infrastructure. The question is whether other programs might provide more timely and effective investment signals. For example, the National Grid System Data Portal includes a “collection of maps to help customers, contractors and developers identify potential project sites. Each map provides the location and specific information for selected electric distribution lines and associated substations within the National Grid NY electric service area.” The Joint Utilities of New York are working together to provide the same sort of information for all service territories. I don’t believe the vague signal provided by the carbon price proposal could ever provide more timely and effective investments than the site-specific signals provided by the Joint Utilities. As a result, there are existing programs that are more effective meeting the REV goals.

Cost Benefit Comparison

In order to determine whether the carbon pricing proposal provides the greatest benefit at the least cost to the consumer we have to consider costs. The Synthesis Report reported costs in two ways: changes in consumer costs and changes in system production costs. All three analyses claim that there won’t be significant cost increases.

For the changes in consumer costs the Synthesis Report notes:

Brattle and RFF both find aggregate customer costs would increase slightly in 2025 due to a carbon charge, increasing $0.7/MWh and $0.8/MWh respectively. Brattle finds customer cost impacts fall over time. Daymark does not report changes in customer costs.

For changes in the system production costs the Synthesis Report notes:

The Brattle study finds negligible changes in annual system production costs (+/- $10 million) due to a carbon charge. The RFF estimate is within this range and finds that the policy would increase production costs by $7.2 million in the Eastern Interconnect in 2025. Daymark similarly finds system production costs change by +/- $30 million through 2025, increasing to $148 million by 2035.

The ultimate measure of success for any carbon dioxide emission reduction program is whether or not the cost per ton of CO2 reduced exceeds the Social Cost of Carbon. According to the NYISO power trends 2018 document the 2017 annual energy usage in New York was 156,370 GWh. In order to estimate the total increase wholesale energy prices due to the carbon charge I assume 150,000,000 MWh and so the expected cost to the consumer will range between $105 million and $120 million. The Brattle Group predicts a 0.3 million ton reduction at a cost of $105 million for a $350 per ton of CO2 reduced rate. RFF predicts a 0.2 million ton reduction at a cost of $120 million for a $600 per ton of CO2 reduced rate. The cost of a ton of CO2 reduced by this program approaches an order of magnitude higher value than the SCC proposed for this program.

In order to evaluate effectiveness of the carbon pricing initiative we should compare it to other similar regulatory programs. The RGGI Report: 2016 RGGI Investments Generate Environmental and Economic Benefits, provides information that can be used for a comparison. According to the Executive Summary in this report:

For this analysis I have included data from both 2015 and 2016. Although the RGGI report includes lifetime benefits I only provide the annual benefits because the REV target is an annual target. This report says there were $436.4 million in RGGI investments funded programs in 2016 as compared to $410.2 million in 2015. In both Proceeds reports (2015 and 2016), Table 1 Benefits of RGGI Investments list the annual reported benefits for energy savings, electrical use and CO2 emissions reductions. In Table 3 Comparison of 2015 and 2016 RGGI Proceeds Funding and Benefits I list that data and calculate the CO2 emissions reductions cost per ton.

Compared to RGGI investments the carbon pricing initiative appears to be more efficient. If we could confidently rely on the carbon pricing initiative model estimates of cost then there might be evidence supporting this approach because of the relative effectiveness despite the minor CO2 reduction benefits projected.

In Synthesis Report Table 1, Comparison of State-Wide Increase in Wholesale Energy Prices Due to Carbon Charge, the total wholesale energy cost ranges from $17.9 per MWh to $22.2 per MWh. In order to estimate the total increase wholesale energy prices due to the carbon charge I assumed 150,000,000 MWh so the expected cost of the will range between $2.7 billion and $3.3 billion in 2025. Table 4 in the Synthesis Report lists the collected carbon revenue.

Table 4 2025 Total Energy Prices Due to the Carbon Charge lists the total energy price increase, the collected carbon revenue, the energy price difference which is a windfall for the generators, the projected change to the customer and the residual after the change to the customer is subtracted out. The energy price difference is due to the high LBMP prices. This is the crux of my concern. The generator windfall is $1-2 Billion or about $15/MWH on average! So we end up with a fleet where the average subsidy from carbon price is $15/MWH, existing RECs get $20/MWH, existing Nukes get $17-$25/MWH, and who knows what the subsidies will be for new RECs.

The plan is that the collected carbon revenue will be returned to the consumers. The modeling results claim that the final customer costs (change to customer) will only be between $105 and $120 million. That leaves between $988 million and $1.68 billion in energy prices that the analyses model away because there are “offsetting factors that provide customer benefits”. The CO2 reduction costs (between $350 and $600 per ton) calculated previously are only that low when you assume that there will in fact be offsetting factors that reduce those costs. On the other hand the upper bound, assuming no effective offsets to reduce costs, has CO2 reduction costs of between $3,600 and $9000 per ton. That order of magnitude difference concerns me.

Unfortunately there are issues with all three analyses that make me skeptical that the offsetting factors will indeed provide the customer benefits necessary to lower consumer prices to an acceptable level. They all rely on dynamic production cost models to evaluate the effects on dispatch, emissions, and LBMPs. In my opinion this kind of model is not well-suited to handle a major change to the electric system like adding a price on CO2. All three analyses ran a “business as usual” scenario and then one or more scenarios where the carbon price was added with various assumptions. My experience is that these models necessarily rely on averaged input that invariably do not reflect the range of input values. That is a problem because there are normal situations that are missed. For example, in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s when natural gas was usually a little more expensive than residual oil and both were not that much higher than coal, production cost model operating projections for the large oil-fired units in the state always under-estimated how much they would run simply because there were variations in price and those variations on occasion made oil economic. I have no doubt that similar unforeseen situations will occur so I think these modeling results have to be viewed with caution.

Even if you have more faith than I on the ability of these models to predict the future outcome for such a drastic change in the system, there are significant differences in the assumptions between the three modeling analyses. For example, even the price of RGGI allowances differs significantly. In 2030, NYISO and Brattle assume that a RGGI price of $24 per ton whereas Daymark assumes $12. That assumption makes a big difference in the amount of money that is supposed to be returned to the customer. Consequently, my confidence in the results is lowered. Furthermore, it is not only the assumptions but also the post-processing analysis that can lead to erroneous conclusions.

This program is only more effective than RGGI investments if the offsetting benefits modeling results come true. I don’t have as much faith in the prospective cost effectiveness rates as the observed RGGI rates. I think the risks of substantial consumer impacts make this a less attractive option than existing programs that can target economically-disadvantaged ratepayers who stand to lose the most with this regressive carbon tax proposal. In addition, existing programs can provide support for the electric system exactly where needed. Moreover, all the cost estimates assume that all the carbon price money will be returned to the consumer. New York does not have a good record investing proceeds from RGGI as originally intended. New York lawmakers have twice diverted RGGI proceeds directly into the general fund. Moreover, as shown by the Environmental Advocates of New York, the Cuomo Administration has used RGGI funds to replace other funding sources for existing programs rather than funding the original intent which was for additional programs.

Another major issue with all three models is how to handle the border. As noted previously, while the theory for pricing carbon might work for an entire economy covering all sectors and all regions, this proposal covers only the wholesale electric sector and just the New York region. The most likely outcome is that emissions will simply re-locate and the proposal has to address this issue. While this issue is beyond my area of expertise it is clear from the discussions that amongst the people who do understand this issue there is wide disagreement. Moreover, my modeling experience has been that it is extraordinarily difficult to anticipate all the nuances of actual implementation and correctly incorporate them into any model for the future. As a result I have no confidence that the models will correctly handle what actually happens and because this has so much of an increased impact on cost I believe that however it turns out will be more expensive than the models predict.

In order to provide the greatest benefit to the consumer the cost of carbon reductions must be less than the social cost of carbon. This program fails to meet that criterion for even the State of New York SCC values proposed which I believe the significantly over-value the impact of today’s CO2 emissions on future society. With regards to cost, the modeling analyses claim minor costs to the consumer but there are significant uncertainties that I think all would tend to increase the final cost. As a result, even though this program appears to be more cost effective than RGGI investments, I think the modeled values are speculative whereas the RGGI values are based on reality. Also, the risks of substantial consumer impacts make this a less attractive option than existing programs that can target economically-disadvantaged ratepayers and provide support for the electric system exactly where needed.

Investment of RGGI Proceeds in 2016

This is a post on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) report: The Investment of RGGI Proceeds in 2016 . It is another in a series of posts on RGGI that discusses how RGGI has fared so far and a follow up to the 2015 investments proceeds report post. Although the press release, RGGI Report: 2016 RGGI Investments Generate Environmental and Economic Benefits, describes the benefits of the program in glowing terms the fact is that the reported benefits for these investments fall far short of what is necessary to meet the RGGI reduction goals.

I have been involved in the RGGI program process since its inception. Before retirement from a non-regulated generating company, I was actively analyzing air quality regulations that could affect company operations and was responsible for the emissions data used for compliance. After years dealing with RGGI I worry that whether due to boredom or frustration, that there is very little dissent to the program. It may be because, contrary to EPA and State agency rulemakings, RGGI does not respond to critical comments and rebut concerns raised by stakeholders. After years of making comments that disappear into a void, industry does not seem to think there is value to making comments. 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.

Summary

According to the Executive Summary in this report:

Proceeds from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) have powered a major investment in the energy future of the New England and Mid-Atlantic states. This report reviews the benefits of programs funded in 2016 by $436.4 million in RGGI investments, which have reduced harmful carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution while spurring local economic growth and job creation. The lifetime effects of these RGGI investments are projected to save 30.4 million MMBtu of fossil fuel energy and 7.0 million MWh of electricity, avoiding the release of 6.4 million short tons of carbon pollution.

As a whole, the RGGI states have reduced power sector CO2 pollution over 50 percent since 2005, while the region’s gross domestic product has continued to grow. RGGI-funded programs also save consumers money and help support businesses. RGGI investments in 2016 are estimated to return $1.7 billion in lifetime energy bill savings to more than 182,000 households and 2,680 businesses which participated in programs funded by RGGI investments, and to more than 800,000 households and 100,000 businesses which received direct bill assistance.

The report describes how the RGGI investments were used 2016, a brief summary of cumulative investments, and then provides specific information for each state including an example of the programs.

Analysis

The claimed 2016 benefits are comparable to the 2015 report. This report says that $436.4 million in RGGI investments funded programs in 2016 as compared to $410.2 million in 2015. The lifetime effects of the 2016 RGGI investments are projected to save 30.4 million MMBtu of fossil fuel energy and 7.0 million MWh of electricity, avoiding the release of 6.4 million short tons of carbon pollution. The lifetime effects of the 2015 RGGI investments are projected to save 28 million MMBtu of fossil fuel energy and 9 million MWh of electricity, avoiding the release of 5.3 million short tons of carbon pollution.

In both Proceeds reports (2015 and 2016), Table 1 Benefits of RGGI Investments list the annual and lifetime benefits of the investments. Table 1 Comparison of 2015 and 2016 Proceeds Funding and Benefits lists the investment totals and the reported benefits for energy savings, electrical use and CO2 emissions reductions. I have also included the investment efficiency or $ per improvement.

Of particular interest is the cost per ton of CO2 reduced. The life time numbers ($64 per ton in 2015 and $82 per ton in 2016) are about twice the Obama era Social Cost of Carbon value of $36 for 2015 using a 3% discount rate. However, I don’t think using the lifetime values is appropriate.

The RGGI model rule updates agreed to by the RGGI States in December 2017 call for an annual post-2021 cap reduction of 2,275,000 tons per year. My question is how will the RGGI investments help meet that goal. In order to determine that you have to use the annual benefits of the investments. When you do look at the annual projections the results are pathetic. RGGI claims that its investments reduced CO2 emissions by 298,410 tons at a rate of $1,375 per ton in 2015 and 382,266 tons at a rate of $1,142 per ton in 2016. The 2016 investments fall short of the post 2021 cap reduction requirement by 1,892,734 tons.

How are the affected sources supposed to meet this reduction target? Although there have been significant reductions since the inception of the RGGI program most of those should be ascribed to economic fuel switching away from coal and oil to natural gas. As shown in a white paper submitted to RGGI by the Environmental Energy Alliance of New York the affected electrical generation units have made most of the cost effective reductions possible from their operations. As a result, future reductions will have to come from other investments such as RGGI. If the RGGI investments are the only way and the 2016 cost efficiency ($ per ton of CO2 reduced) is not improved then RGGI investments would have to be over $2.161 billion every year.

The RGGI model rule update caps emissions in 2021 at 75,147,784 tons. Trading program theory states that when there is allowance scarcity the price will rise and so you could expect that more money will be available for investments. The RGGI allowance price necessary to provide $2.161 billion for 2021 would be $28.75. There is a problem with this however. The RGGI model rule cost containment reserve trigger price (included to insure that allowance prices don’t go to high) is $13.00 in 2021. As a result, they cannot go that high.

The good news relative to this potential problem is that 2017 RGGI emissions were only 66,235,513 tons, well below the 2021 target. The question is why was there a 21.8% drop in emissions relative to 2015? If it was primarily weather related then emissions could go back up. Only time will tell but the point is that at least the emissions are close to the cap targets.

Conclusion

Ultimately these findings illuminate my problem with CO2 emissions trading programs. My particular concern is affected source compliance. Because there is no cost-effective add-on control system available for CO2 reductions, an affected source basically has to buy enough allowances to cover its planned operations. RGGI is hell-bent on reducing its caps despite the fact that its investments for emissions reductions fall far short of what the emissions reductions it has promulgated. There are many complications beyond the scope of this post that determine allowance availability but I believe that by 2025 the compliance entities in RGGI are going to have to pay exorbitant prices to get allowances that they need to operate and soon thereafter there won’t be enough at any cost. At that point, they will have no choice but to shut down.

Warning Signs from Germany for New York Reforming the Energy Vision

Germany’s Federal Audit Office has released a report that accuses the federal government of having largely failed to manage the German equivalent of New York’s Reforming the Energy Vision (REV). There are warning signs in the report because some of the issues raised are already prominent in the New York energy vision.

Germany’s program, Energiewende or energy transition, is the change from nuclear and fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy. Legislation for the Energiewende passed in 2010 and includes a Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reduction target of 80% by 2050 the similar to REV. The Federal Audit Office review of the program found that costs are high and the targets will likely be missed. “Over the past five years alone, at least 160 billion euros have been spent on the transformation of the energy system,” the report states: “If the costs of energy system transformation continue to rise and its targets continue to be missed, there is a risk of a loss of confidence in the ability of government action.”

In order to implement the transition Germany has had to develop a large bureaucracy to manage the programs and enact 26 laws and 33 regulations. The audit notes that there is “no place where everything comes together, no place that assumes overall responsibility”. This is what is happening in New York. There are over 40 REV initiatives but no single summary.

The audit states:

In short: “A lot of effort does not necessarily mean a lot”. For despite a great frenzy of data collection there is no overall view. “The Federal Ministry of Economics uses 48 different data sources to check the status of the Energiewende on the basis of 72 indicators, and yet “there is a lack of meaningful data that could be relevant for assessment and control”. Many data would have little control value or would be available too late, but often they would “simply draw the wrong conclusions”.

New York’s REV has no status indicators available.

My biggest concern with REV is cost. The German Federal Audit Office report notes: “there are no quantified targets, no measurable indicators” for the energy policy goals of affordability and security of supply. REV also fails to provide that critical evaluation information.

I believe that someday there will be a similar cost-benefit analysis audit of REV with the same results of extraordinary costs and failures to meet the ambitious targets. I predict that the response from New York State will be the same as from the German federal government:

The Federal Government explained its refusal to conduct a transparent cost-benefit analysis of the Energiewende by saying that these costs could only be compared with a “counterfactual scenario”. Because electricity grids and power plants would have had to be renewed even without the Energiewende, only a comparison of a world with and a world without the Energiewende would be meaningful. However, such a comparison could not be made because of the large number of uncertain basic assumptions.

Murphy Commentary in Syracuse Post Standard: Earth has a Fever – Public Policy has the Cure

On September 23, 2018, the Syracuse Post Standard published a guest commentary entitled “Earth has a Fever – Public Policy has the Cure” by Cornelius B. Murphy, Jr. SUNY Senior Fellow for Environmental and Sustainable Systems. As is typical in Dr. Murphy’s commentaries a list of disasters is trotted out, the climate crisis of global warming is blamed for them, and the sermon ends with a call to “improve the future of our planet”. I disagree with his arguments and his proposed policies.

Unfortunately, Dr. Murphy’s list of disasters are, in fact, only peripherally related to climate change and I am not in the mood to dissect each of his claims because “the amount of energy necessary to refute BS is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it”, Brandolini’s BS asymmetry principle. Consider only the Cyanobacteria outbreaks in 55 lakes in New York State he claims are due to warm water column temperatures and nutrients. His attribution is correct but his emphasis is wrong. If there are limited nutrients it does not matter how warm the water is you will not get eutrophic algae blooms that lead to Cyanobacteria outbreaks.

I think that Dr. Murphy should read Roger Pielke Jr’s book on The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters and Climate Change to appreciate the actual problems associated with climate change. Dr. Pielke is reviled because he shows how the consensus of climate science does not support the climate crisis Dr. Murphy invokes as the reason to act now. As Ben Pile’s review of the updated version of the book notes “In other words, climate change may well be a problem, but the data sets consistently show that economic and technological development mitigate the worst problems that climate has always caused.”

Dr. Murphy says that Climate disruption is a social issue and that the “The least advantaged among us will suffer the most with limited access to air conditioners and cooling centers”. I agree that energy poverty problem is a social issue. I am sure that we disagree on the cure however. While Dr. Murphy would have us try to moderate extreme weather I believe that there is no evidence that the policies he espouses will prevent it. If anything we might be able reduce future frequency and severity but society is not where near resilient to existing weather so it makes sense to emphasize adaptation over mitigation.

My biggest concern is that the current New York State Energy Plan promotes the use of fossil-free technology that is so expensive that the least advantaged among us will have limited access to the energy they need for cooling and heating because they will be unable to afford it. Ben Pile explains:

Moreover, campaigners’ conviction that anthropogenic climate change is bringing disaster upon us overlooks the extent to which economic and social development has enabled us to cope better with extreme weather events. As Pielke explains, ‘societal change is underappreciated, overlooked, and part of that is politics’. ‘The climate-change issue’, Pielke continues, ‘has taken all the oxygen out of the room for vulnerability, resilience, natural climate variability, indeed pretty much everything else that matters. It is absolutely the case that overall being richer as communities, as nations, is associated with more resilience, less vulnerability to natural disasters, particularly when it comes to loss of life… The climate issue has become so all-encompassing that it’s hard to get these other perspectives into the dialogue.’

Oneonta New York Decompressor Station and New York Energy Policy

Last month I stumbled upon references to a decompressor station in Oneonta, New York. Firstly, I had no clue what a decompressor station and secondly I was born and raised in Oneonta, New York so I followed up on the story. It is a perfect example of New York State’s emotional rather than rational energy policy.

I was astonished to learn that there is a natural gas load pocket in Oneonta. This small city is located in the western Catskills in Otsego County SW of Albany New York. The natural gas pipeline installed when I was living there in the 1950’s is no longer adequate for all users on the coldest days of the year. As a result the local utility has to curtail natural gas to larger users so that the residential users have adequate supplies to heat their homes. The solution is to compress natural gas elsewhere, truck it to the curtailed facilities, and then decompress it for use.

Mr. Zakrevsky described the decompressor station proposal at the Oneonta Town Board meeting on August 8. He explained that there isn’t enough natural gas for heating on the 30-odd coldest days of the year from the existing pipeline to Otsego County so bigger users have to curtail their use so that homeowners do not have to maintain a backup heating system. Two hospitals, several manufacturers, and a college in Oneonta need energy-dense, constantly available fuel to supplement their natural gas use when that fuel is curtailed. They have considered setting up their own decompressors to replace higher-polluting, less-efficient fuel oil so the Otsego Development Authority submitted a proposal for a grant to explore the possibility of a single centralized decompressor station to provide the necessary natural gas.

The link listed above documents a hearing at the Oneonta Town Board meeting including comments from a crowd of folks who do not want new fossil fuel infrastructure. I did not listen to all the speakers who attended the Town Board meeting to protest the decompressor station because the arguments I did hear all seemed confined to emotional pleas for “cleaner, greener” alternatives. My problem is that I do not believe numbers or history support such alternatives. There were opponents to this project that proudly claimed victory for the permit denial of the Constitution natural gas transmission project nearby that would have provided all the natural gas necessary for everyone in Oneonta. Apparently that natural gas was from Pennsylvania and is fracked so it is evil and must be stopped. I think that all those who opposed the decompressor proposal and opposed the Constitution pipeline should explain how they propose to solve the specific problem of heating the city’s hospital on the coldest days of the year.

I do not think that the decompressor station and compressed natural gas (CNG) trucks is a particularly “good” solution. From a pollution standpoint using natural gas is better than fuel oil so I agree that using natural gas is preferable and my experience with fuel switching is that process also has implementation risks which could cause heating problems so sticking with natural gas rather than switching to fuel oil is better. Clearly moving CNG by truck during the winter is risky and I understand why speakers at the meeting described them as “bomb trucks”. However, the safer solution is to have enough natural gas pipeline infrastructure in place to prevent curtailments. Because that is not available, the proposal to have a central station just off the interstate rather than decompressor stations at each location that faces curtailment requirements reduces transport risk and makes sense. I must point out that the Constitution pipeline would have solved this problem so the folks that claim that preventing that as a “victory” have to accept culpability for what I believe is a worse alternative.

I expect that the opponents will claim renewables can provide the answer to providing heat for the hospital. I would love to see quantitative support for a solution to the need for constant, dense energy for heating the hospital on the days when not having heat would surely exacerbate illness and maybe even cause deaths. Renewables are intermittent and diffuse. What kind of storage solution do they propose for this winter problem when the available solar energy is low and, on the really cold days, when winds are light? Heating the hospital without the need for outside electricity is necessary in case of a power outage – think ice storm. The hospital uses a heating plant with a boiler that provides hot water for heating and hospital use. The problem with renewable electrical energy is that there is no way to provide in-kind replacement for the boiler fuel. In order to provide heat with renewables the whole heating system would have to be replaced, probably with heat pumps. Those systems have their own problems on these cold days. Proponents of renewable energy have to provide a solution and costs to make their case that there is a viable and affordable alternative to the proposal.

When I was growing up in Oneonta during the 1950’s I missed the Delaware & Hudson Railroad steam engine era when there were over a hundred coal-fired locomotives operating out of the city. However, I do remember the excitement when natural gas came to town so that my family no longer had to deal with maintaining our coal-fired furnace fire, dealing with the ashes and having a coal bin in the basement. I am not aware of any records of the air quality in Oneonta when coal was the preferred heating source and the roundhouse had coal-burning locomotives but I am sure that it was poor. Since 1980 statewide average SO2 levels have decreased by 95%. When homes and the railroad were burning coal in the “City of the Hills” the SO2 concentrations must have been a couple of orders of magnitude greater than today’s levels. That improvement was thanks to oil and natural gas replacement of coal.

I think this is a good example of New York’s dysfunctional energy policy. Ultimately the opponents of the decompressor station must rely on emotional arguments because a rational analysis supports the proposal as a reasonable, albeit not “good”, solution to a problem caused by the lack of sufficient pipeline infrastructure. The better solution would be new pipelines to provide the necessary natural gas. The irrational fear of fossil fuel infrastructure in New York is causing poor decisions.

New York State Air Pollution Concentration Trends to 2017

I do not think that the general public understands how much improvement there has been to New York State’s air quality and how big the emissions reductions have been. This is a summary of the trend of observed levels of SO2, NO2 and ozone since 1980 in New York State and it shows significant improvements. This is a companion to an earlier post showing emissions trends.

I have to apologize for my inability to incorporate tables and graphs in the body of a WordPress blog post. If I had that ability then this post would be a heck of a lot easier to read. Instead I offer three alternatives. Each of the figures and tables is available by links in the following post. I also have prepared a pdf version of this post and you can view that entire document NYS Air Pollution Concentration Trends. Finally that document and a spreadsheet with the data, tables and graphs are available at the NY Pragmatic Environmentalist dropbox.

Although the Environmental Protection Agency has a good air quality trend website, it does not have New York only data available and the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation does not provide a summary of air quality trends. In order to assess New York trends I accessed ambient monitoring data from an EPA website. I made no attempt to limit the monitoring sites used. I just calculated values for all reporting stations. As a result this is not an accurate picture of trends because changing stations can skew the results.

According to the EPA air quality Status and Trends document national air quality levels have decreased significantly from 1990 to 2017:

Carbon monoxide -77%
Lead – 80%
Nitrogen Dioxide (annual) – 56%
Nitrogen Dioxide (1-hour) – 50%
Ozone – 22%
Particulate Matter (2.5µ) (annual) – 41%
Particulate Matter (2.5µ) (24-hour) – 40%
Sulfur Dioxide – 88%

For the New York only data I found the following reduction trends:

Nitrogen Dioxide (annual) – 52%
Nitrogen Dioxide (1-hour) – 63%
Ozone – 23%
Sulfur Dioxide – 93%

New York State annual average ambient (SO2, NO2 and Ozone) trends are shown in Figure 1 NYS Ambient Concentration Trends NYS Trend Summary for SO2 NO2 and Ozone.

In order to compare the air quality to the National Ambient Air Quality Standards I need to show the data in the appropriate reporting format. The standards use complicated averages so the following graphs use the appropriate parameters.

The most problematic pollutant is ozone. The Ozone standard is the 0.070 ppm measured as the annual fourth-highest daily maximum 8-hour concentration, averaged over 3 years. Figure 2 NYS Maximum Annual Ambient 8-hr 4th High Ozone shows the trend of the highest observed value of the fourth-highest daily maximum 8-hour concentration. While averaging over 3 years reduces the values somewhat clearly New York is close to the standard. The highest value in 1988 was 0.148 and in 2017 the observed value was 0.079.

EPA recently instituted a one-hour NO2 standard of 100 ppb measured as the 98^th percentile of 1-hour daily maximum concentrations averaged over 3 years. I did not include the 3-year averaging component but Figure 3 NYS Maximum Annual Ambient NO2 Max 98th Percentile shows the trend of the maximum observed annual value in the state. There are no observed values greater than the standard.

EPA also has a 1-hour NAAQS for SO2. That limit is 75 ppb measured as the 99^th percentile of 1-hour daily maximum concentrations, averaged over 3 years. I did not average these values either so Figure 4 NYS Maximum Annual Ambient NO2 Max 98th Percentile shows the trend of the maximum observed value. There has been a sharp decline in observed values until 2017 when a higher value was observed. That is the result of adding data from a new private monitoring network specifically designed to determine whether there is an issue with this limit for their facility. In 2017 that monitor recorded a 90.5 ppb value for the 99^th percentile.

The spreadsheet, NYS EPA Data for SO2 NO2 and Ozone, lists all the monitoring data for those parameters since 1980. Because of the size of that spreadsheet I did not include it. The spreadsheet included at the dropbox has a summary tab with the data and graphs for the information shown in this post.

CPV Valley Energy Center Operating Status August 1, 2018

On August 1, 2018 New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) CPV Valley Permit denied (DEC letter to CPV August 2018) the renewal of the Air State Facility Permit for the Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) Valley Energy Center natural gas power plant located in Orange County, New York. In this post I will describe the decision, what I think is going to happen, potential ramifications, and rationale for the decision. Initially, I thought it might have been an oversight on the part of CPV Valley but the more I poked around the more evidence surfaced that this was a politically motivated decision that will likely end up in court.

Background and Decision

On July 8, 2018, the Middletown Times-Herald Record reported that the “$900 million, 680-megawatt plant built between Interstate 84 and Route 6 will be connected to a natural-gas pipeline in a matter of days, and should begin full-time operation in a matter of weeks.” At the time the last apparent hold up was connecting the plant to the natural gas transmission system after New York Governor Cuomo’s administration tried to block the construction of the connecting pipeline after the plant was nearing completion. However, CPV Valley did not apply for their Title V operating permit and DEC said in their letter that “CPV may not lawfully operate the facility”.

On August 3, 2018, the Middletown Times-Herald Record reported:

The state Department of Environmental Conservation announced its decision in a letter to CPV officials on Wednesday, one day after the air permit DEC granted in 2013 expired. A department official explained that a change in federal regulations required CPV to get a so-called Title V permit from the Environmental Protection Agency before starting up the plant, something the company had not done.

It was not immediately clear if CPV, which had planned to begin operating the $900 million power plant in Wawayanda this month, will contest the decision, or comply with it by applying for a Title V permit. It also was unclear how long it would take to obtain such a permit and what obstacles the company could face. The DEC letter said the permit application requires a public comment period and a 45-day review period for the EPA.

What is going to happen?

I believe that this article is correct that this represents a delay rather than a sign that the facility will not operate someday. The Albany Times Union headline that says State pulls plug on controversial Orange County power plant is incorrect and a Riverkeeper article that suggests that this permit denial indefinitely shuts down the power plant are wrong.

This is a controversial power plant for two reasons. Firstly, there is strong environmentalist opposition to any fossil fuel infrastructure and second there is an associated political scandal. This is election season in New York and the Governor is trying to keep his environmental credentials as clean as possible. This facility’s opponents consistently link this plant to fracked natural gas and point out that it will delay the transition to renewables and call for its permanent closure. Nothing about this administration shocks me anymore so even shutting down a plant needed to replace power from the closure of Indian Point so I would not be that surprised to see them propose that but I can guarantee that there is no way that the permitting process for the missing permit will be completed until well after the election.

The political scandal occurred when a top Cuomo aide was found guilty of getting an executive from CPV to get his wife a high paying “low-show” job for his wife. The payments were in exchange for helping to win state power contracts. Apparently CPV took the lobbying approach to get their power plant commissioned because there is a money trail to politicians associated with the plant. As a result of this there have been calls to prevent the power plant from opening.

Ramifications

I have written about the role of CPV Valley as replacement power for Indian Pont (a nuclear station that Cuomo has forced into accepting a shutdown in April 2021. The New York Independent System Operator concluded that there would be no issues with replacement power if three major generation facilities were completed including CPV Valley. As noted above, because I believe this represents a delay rather than a cancellation I do not expect that to be an issue. However, if Cuomo’s political team decides to go all in for the environmentalist vote and he refuses to give them an operating permit reliability issues will arise.

I have always been on the technical side of things in the power industry. My dealings with the business side of the house were uniformly stressful because their idea of long lead time was tomorrow and environmental permitting takes time so I was always pushed to produce faster. Nonetheless I question whether permanently shutting down a completed power plant makes NY “Open for Business” generally. If I were on the business side of a power generating company I certainly would not be comfortable proposing to build a new power plant to replace the old power plants that the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) wants shut down. It will be interesting to see how this turns out not only in the short term but also the long haul.

Rationale

I did not understand how CPV Valley got into a position where they did not even have an application listed on the NYS DEC draft Title V permit website. Title V permits are described as the “operating permit”. How in the world did CPV Valley think that they would not need that?

The Middletown Times Herald-Record article says “A department official explained that a change in federal regulations required CPV to get a so-called Title V permit from the Environmental Protection Agency before starting up the plant, something the company had not done.” Trying to determine what that statement meant was a challenge.

According to the CPV Valley website description of the permitting approval process the first permitting submittal was completed in March 2008. The Town of Wawayanda Planning Board SEQRA Findings Statement was published on May 23, 2012.

In 2013 there was a revision to 6 CRR-NY 201-6.2 Permit Applications to clarify the acceptable time frame for the submittal of Title V permit applications: Renumbered Paragraphs 201- 6.2(a)(1) through 201-6.2(a)(4) were revised to clarify the acceptable time frame for the submittal of Title V permit applications. According to this rule they should have had a complete application prior to construction:

The owner or operator of a facility subject to this Subpart shall submit a complete application, as defined in Part 621 of this Title and this Subpart, for initial issuance of a title V permit, or renewal, in accordance with the timeframes established under paragraphs (1) through (6) of this subdivision:

(1) Prior to the commencement of construction of a new facility subject to permitting under this Subpart

The SEQRA Findings Statement mentions that they submitted an “application for regulatory agency review in conjunction with Federal and State PSD and non-attainment new source review requirements and process” before March 2012. There is no mention of a Title V permit in the document.

It looks like there was a rule change after the project was permitted and the revision clearly says that a new facility has to have a complete Title V permit before they can begin construction. I can only guess that CPV Valley thought that because they had a State facility permit that it would roll over as if it were an existing facility modification per sub-sections (2) and (3):

(2) Prior to the commencement of operation of new emission unit(s) or modified emission units at an existing facility that make the facility subject to title V permitting. The owner or operator of a facility subject to this provision may choose to apply for a State facility permit pursuant to section 201-5.2 of this Part. Upon issuance, that permit shall authorize both construction and operation of the new or modified emission units until a title V permit is issued in accordance with this Subpart.

(3) Prior to the commencement of construction of a new emission unit at an existing title V facility. The owner or operator of an existing title V facility, which is being modified by the addition of a new emission unit comprised solely of new emission sources, may apply for a State facility permit pursuant to section 201-5.2 of this Part that will authorize construction and operation of the new emission unit upon issuance. A title V permit modification is required within one year of the commencement of operation of the new emission unit.

I did a Google Search for CPV Air State Facility Permits and found the pre-construction permit (CPV Valley Permit). It turns out the CPV Valley thought that were all right because their permit said “A Title V permit application must be submitted to the Department within one year of commencement of operation of this facility.” The rationale was that the application would include “start-up, shutdown, and fuel switching data to establish enforceable combustion turbine start-up, shutdown, and fuel switching emission rates for NOx, CO, and NH3, and confirm that such established rates would not result in a violation of applicable NAAQS.”

Back to the statement from the Middletown Times Herald-Record that “A department official explained that a change in federal regulations required CPV to get a so-called Title V permit from the Environmental Protection Agency before starting up the plant, something the company had not done.” I am no lawyer but as far as I can tell the change in the DEC regulations in response to the federal regulations came in 2013 before the CPV Air State Facility permit was issued that explicitly said the Title V application had to be submitted within one year of the commencement of operations and if it was after CPV Valley has a permit that shields them from this change. I don’t think that there is any chance that this won’t be headed to court.

New York State Air Pollution Emissions Status

I do not think that the general public understands how much improvement there has been to New York State’s air quality and how big the emissions reductions have been. This is a summary of the trend of SO2, NOx and CO2 since 1999 in New York State and it shows extraordinary improvements. Later, I will prepare a summary of the changes to the air quality measurements which also show big improvements.

I have to apologize for my inability to incorporate tables and graphs in the body of a WordPress blog post. If I had that ability then this post would be a heck of a lot easier to read. Instead I offer three alternatives. Each of the figures and tables is available by links in the following post. I also have prepared a version of this post and you can view NYS Air Pollution Emission Status Summary as a pdf document. Finally that document, three spreadsheets with the data, tables and graphs, and a detailed documentation summary of the data processing analysis are available at the NY Pragmatic Environmentalist dropbox.

The emissions and operating data used for this summary were downloaded from the EPA Clean Air Markets Division Air Markets Program Data website. The website includes a query tool that I have used for years to extract specific data from national emission monitoring programs. For this analysis I downloaded SO2, NOx and CO2 emissions data, operating time, heat input and load data as well as unit-specific information on fuel use and unit type so that I could show what changes caused the emissions reductions. Because this is a New York-centric blog I primarily focused on New York emissions.

Figure 1 NYS SO2 Emissions by Fuel Type documents the annual SO2 emissions from 1998 to 2017 by the primary fuel type reported to EPA. In 1998 SO2 emissions totaled 309,775 tons and in 2017 were only 2,561, a 99% reduction. Table 1 EPA CAMD Data New York State Air Pollution Emissions from All Program Units presents the emissions totals and includes the coal-firing totals. It turns out that reductions in coal-firing and residual-oil firing account for the reduction in SO2 mass. New York is unique in that there are five relatively new large residual oil-fired boiler units in the state. Although there were changes in the limit of sulfur in fuel the primary driver for the reductions was the cost of oil relative to natural gas coupled with the fact that there is essentially no SO2 emitted by natural gas firing. At this time these units survive because they can provide 1000s of MW when necessary and their operational costs are low enough that the payments to be able to provide that capacity are sufficient to be viable. Note, however, that they cannot reduce emissions much more because they still have to run a couple of times a year to prove that they can provide capacity. Coal-firing units in New York were older and were required to install extensive controls over this period to continue to operate. The cost differential between natural gas and coal was the final blow to viability and for all intents and purposes only one facility remains operating today. Governor Cuomo has proposed regulations to eliminate coal burning at even that unit by 2020. These data suggest the de minimus level of future SO2 emissions will be around 1,000 tons per year.

Figure 2 NYS NOx Emissions by Fuel Type documents the annual NOx emissions from 1998 to 2017 by the primary fuel type reported to EPA. In the peak year of 2000 NOx emissions totaled 101,635 tons and in 2017 were only 11,253, an 89% reduction. The coal and residual oil units were also the largest sources for NOx so they account for most of the reduction. On the other hand there still are significant NOx emissions from natural gas firing so the reductions are not as large. Eliminating coal firing will drop emissions another 2,770 tons from 2017 levels. Further reductions will come from replacing older, higher emitting units with new cleaner ones. If I had to guess on a future de minimus level it would be around 7,000 tons per year.

Figure 3 NYS Statewide SO2 and NOx Rates documents the changes in annual emission rates (lbs/mmBtu) over the same period. The reason for these changes is the same as the mass changes. Keep in mind that mass emissions are a function of these rates and the operating levels. If there is more demand on fossil-fired units then they will emit more. Of course, if renewable energy reduces the need for fossil-fired units or if demand for electrical energy goes down due to energy efficiency efforts then mass emissions will go down.

CO2 emissions are a bit complicated. There are two CO2 data sets included: one from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) program units and the other from all programs. In New York there are some small peaking turbines that are not presently included in RGGI. Unfortunately the annual emissions are not directly comparable because units that are not affected by RGGI do not have to report annual emissions only the ozone season (May through September). Also note that the RGGI CO2 Allowance Tracking System (COATS) data system also provides annual numbers for the RGGI only units and those numbers are the same as the RGGI only units from CAMD. Figure 4 NYS CO2 Emissions by Fuel Type lists the annual CO2 emissions from 1998 to 2017 by the primary fuel type reported to EPA. Table 2 EPA CAMD Data NYS Air Pollution Annual Emissions from RGGI Program Units lists the annual emissions from these units. These data show that CO2 emissions reductions to date have been caused by fuel switching but importantly there isn’t much left to switch. As a result, future CO2 emission reductions will be more difficult.

In addition to annual market trading programs there are trading programs that run from May 1 to September 30 for NOx emissions to reduce ozone. Figure 5 NYS Ozone Season NOx Emissions shows the Ozone Season NOx emissions from 1999 to 2017 by the primary fuel type reported to EPA. In 1999 NOx emissions totaled 47,314 tons and in 2017 were only 5,533 tons, an 88% reduction. Figure 6 NYS Ozone Season NOx Rate documents the changes in ozone season emission rates (lbs/mmBtu) over the same period. The state-wide NOx rate during the Ozone Season in 1999 was 0.202 lbs per mmBtu and was 0.053 in 2017, a 74% reduction. Similar to the annual numbers these reductions are primarily the result of fuel switching. Finally Table 3 New York State Ozone Season NOx Mass by Unit Type lists the Ozone Season NOx mass, heat input and NOx rate values sorted by major unit types: boilers, combined-cycle turbines and simple cycle turbines.

These trends show that New York State has done a superlative job reducing emissions. There also are implications for future air pollution control programs in these data. Any future reductions simply cannot be as effective because the current emissions are so low. In addition, any program that claims air pollution emission benefits for reducing CO2 must recognize the current low rates and mass emissions or those benefit estimates are higher than appropriate.

Unintended Ramification of the Finger Lakes LPG Storage Community Character Decision

On July 12, 2018, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) Commissioner Basil Seggos issued a decision for a proposal to construct and operate a new underground liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) storage facility for the storage and distribution of propane in the town of Reading in the Finger Lakes region of New York. The decision denied the permit applications for the proposed project on the grounds the facility would have a significant adverse impact on community character in the local area and the Finger Lakes region. This post compares the changes made to the proposed project by the Finger Lakes LPG project with an industrial wind complex, the Ball Hill Wind Energy Project between the initial environmental impact statement and the final environmental impact statement. It is not clear to me how any wind energy project can pass the bar set by this community character decision.

DEC Decision

I discussed the NYSDEC decision in an earlier post where I concluded that it values qualitative value judgements over any quantitative assessment and will establish “not in my backyard” arguments as an acceptable rationale for denying just about any project. I determined that based on the conclusion of the opening section of the decision by Basil Seggos that states:

Notwithstanding that certain issues can be identified as adjudicable, the record is more than sufficient at this stage for me to make a final determination based on the requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA). The record demonstrates that the impacts of this project on the character of the local and regional community, including but not limited to the environmental setting and sensitivity of the Finger Lakes area and the local and regional economic engines (e.g., wine, agricultural and tourism industries), are significant and adverse and the project does not avoid or minimize those impacts to the maximum extent practicable. Furthermore, the significant adverse impacts on community character are not outweighed or balanced by social, economic or other considerations, and cannot be avoided or minimized to the maximum extent practicable by the proposed mitigation measures.

My decision, together with the draft supplemental environmental impact statement (DSEIS) and the comprehensive record, hereby serves to finalize the DSEIS for this action. Based upon my review, I am not able to issue a findings statement in support of this project and, accordingly, the permit applications for this proposed project are to be denied.

Frankly, I was not familiar with community character impacts so I relied on the description in the decision. Community character is described in the decision as follows:

Community character is specifically referenced by the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA). SEQRA defines “environment” to include “the physical conditions which will be affected by a proposed action, including . . . existing patterns of population concentration, distribution, or growth, and existing community or neighborhood character” (ECL 8-0105[6]; see also 6 NYCRR 617.2[l]). Unique to each case is the “community” to be evaluated – it will relate to the type of action that is being proposed, the factual circumstances and the nature of the impacts. For some projects, the “community” may be only the municipality in which the proposed action would occur. Here, the interests of a range of communities within the vicinity of Seneca Lake, as in part reflected by the submissions of the Seneca Lake Communities in this proceeding, are clearly relevant to the analysis. The evaluation of community character in this specific matter is not solely limited to the communities (Town of Reading and County of Schuyler) in which the proposed facility would be sited but entails an evaluation of communities in and around Seneca Lake and the Finger Lakes region whose economies and environmental interests are directly intertwined.

One community character rationale is particularly apt for this comparison. The decision noted that “impacts to noise and aesthetic resources as revealed on the current record are essential components in the evaluation of impacts on community character in the context of this proposed project”.

The Finger Lakes LPG Storage Project as Described in the Decision

Finger Lakes LPG Storage, LLC originally proposed to build a facility that would store propane and butane in existing solution-mined underground caverns in the Syracuse salt formation. As originally proposed, a maximum of 2.10 million barrels (88.20 million gallons) of LPG in the form of liquid propane and butane was to be stored in the caverns seasonally, displacing some of the brine currently filling them. The stored LPG was to be withdrawn by displacement of propane with brine when demand occurred during the heating season, and displacement of butane with brine during the gasoline blending season.

During storage operations, the brine displaced by LPG or butane was proposed to be stored and contained in two double-lined brine ponds. One 2.25 acre pond would have had a capacity of approximately 0.17 million barrels (7.14 million gallons). The second pond was 6.35 acres, and would have a capacity of approximately 0.80 to 0.81 million barrels (33.6 to 33.9 million gallons)

The facility would connect to an existing interstate pipeline for shipment of LPG into and out of the facility. As originally proposed, LPG was also to be shipped out by truck, and by rail. The original project included the construction of a new rail and truck LPG transfer facility, consisting of a six-rail siding capable of allowing loading and unloading of 24 rail cars within 12 hours, and a truck loading station capable of loading four trucks per hour.

During the application process modifications were proposed to reduce the scale and environmental impacts of the project in response to local stakeholder concerns. The modifications eliminated the proposal to store liquid butane at the facility and reduced propane storage capacity from 2.1 million barrels to 1.5 million barrels; eliminated the project’s rail and truck loading facilities so all deliveries of liquefied petroleum gas would be by pipeline; eliminated one of the brine ponds; and, for lack of a better term offered bribes as they proposed to “provide resources ranging from financial resources to technical resources (mining data) to support community initiatives for the preservation and improvement of water quality in the area, including Seneca Lake”.

Ball Hill Windpark as Described on the Project Website

Noble Ball Hill Windpark, LLC originally proposed to construct and operate an approximately 94.5 megawatt (MW) wind energy facility in Chautauqua County, New York in 2008 and submitted an Environmental Assessment Form. According to Appendix F – 2008 Environmental Assessment Form and 2015 Board Resolution the project consisted of the following:

60 wind turbines;
16 miles of access roads;
An electrical collection system along the same right-of-way corridor as the access roads with 23.8 miles buried and 6 miles of overhead.
A new substation with a footprint of approximately 200 by 300 feet;
A new switchyard with a footprint of approximately 300 by 500 feet; and
An operations and maintenance building site of 5 acres

In November 2016, Ball Hill Wind Energy, LLC submitted a Final Environmental Impact Statement with changes to the project:

29 instead of 60 wind turbines;
13 instead of 16 miles of access roads;
An electrical collection system along the same right-of-way corridor as the access roads with 19.8 miles instead of 23.8 miles buried and 5.7 miles instead of 6 miles of overhead.
A new substation with a footprint of approximately 175 by 190 instead of 200 by 300 feet;
A new switchyard with a footprint of approximately 225 by 611 instead of 300 by 500 feet; and
An operations and maintenance building site of 2.8 acres

I was unable to find a description of the turbines originally proposed but in 2008 the local township wind law limited the maximum height to 420’. In 2011 the developer submitted an amended application using a new turbine design. In September 2016 the developer requested that be changed to 495’ to allow for the use of “newer, more efficient turbine technology. The 2016 Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement states that there will be 34 3.45MW Vestas wind turbines with a hub height of 72.5m and a 51.2 blades. I understand that the current developer recently requested another change to the maximum height restriction to 600’ but do not know if that is for these Vestas turbines or another, and presumably, higher design.

Noise Comparison of Projects

I am guessing at the noise impacts of the final Finger Lakes LPG Storage proposal. It proposed to use two electric 75 horse power pumps to pump product from the tanks into the pipeline to the electronically driven injection pumps where those pumps will then be used to inject the product into the caverns. I expect that insulated walls and advanced fan technology would have been used to dampen sound. Moreover, because the proposed plant area is adjacent to a NYSE&G building complex and NYS Route 14 there was a certain amount of ambient noise in the area anyways.

According to the Ball Hill Windpark 2018 Proposed Modifications Summary of Environmental Impacts:

The new proposed turbine is quieter or the same at 750 out of 769 receptor points studied. At the remaining 19 points, the sound level would increase imperceptibly by 1-2 dBA. The Project remains fully compliant with Town and NYSDEC noise standards.

In summary, I conclude that the noise impacts from the two projects are essentially the same. Without more research I am not sure why the opponents of Finger Lakes LPG Storage were so upset about noise because the revised plan eliminated truck and rail transport which would have affected noise levels.

Aesthetic considerations Compared

The primary aesthetic issue is visibility and Ball Hill Windpark will have 29 highly visible wind turbines. The project will use a VI26 class turbine which is a three-bladed horizontal-axis wind turbine with a rotor diameter of approximately 413 feet. The turbine rotor and the nacelle are mounted on top of a tubular tower giving a rotor hub height of approximately 285 feet. The maximum height for the turbine is below 500 feet when a rotor blade is at the top of its rotation. Once installed, the wind turbine would occupy a round base approximately 60 feet in diameter.

According to the 2018 Proposed Modifications Summary of Environmental Impacts wind turbines will be visible in 33.9% of the area within the 5-mile viewshed. According to the 2008 Environmental Assessment Form the smaller turbines originally proposed would be visible from greater than 5 miles from a parcel of land which is “dedicated to and available to the public for the use, enjoyment and appreciation of natural or man-made scenic qualities” and “an overlook or parcel of land dedicated to public observation, enjoyment and appreciation of natural or man-made scenic qualities”, and a “site or structure listed on the National or State Registers of Historic Places” and between ½ and 3 miles to a State Wildlife Management Area.

In addition, there are the access roads, overhead electric lines, switchyard, substation and operations and maintenance building site that all have an aesthetic effect.

The final proposal for the Finger Lake LPG Storage facility was a brine pond, a compressor station, and a support building. The more visible (and eventually eliminated) brine pond was proposed to be a maximum height of 50 feet above its down slope toe on a site with variable slopes in the 8 to 12 percent range. The slope tends to steepen downhill in the area under the proposed impoundment structure. When full, the pond surface will be approximately 400 feet above Seneca Lake elevation, at a horizontal distance from the lake of approximately 2400 feet.

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement noted:

The brine pond embankment and portions of site clearing will be visible or partially visible from NYS Route 414 and Seneca Lake. Once the brine pond is constructed and the side slopes of the embankment are vegetated, the view from Seneca Lake and NYS Route 414 is anticipated to be similar to the current view. The proposed brine pond site will be visible from NYS Route 14 and NYS Route 14A. The truck transfer facility will also be visible from NYS Route 14A. Potential visual impacts along NYS Route 14 and NYS Route 14A will be mitigated during site development activities through strategic native plantings and seeding at both the brine pond site and the truck transfer facility site. It is not anticipated that the proposed project will result in any significant adverse visual impacts.

Because this describes the more visible brine pond and even this pond’s visibility could be mitigated by planting native trees I conclude that the pond has a negligible impact on visibility.

In summary, the Ball Hill Windpark will be visible from 1/3 of the area within 5 miles whereas the most visible component for Finger Lake LPG Storage can be screened such that there is no longer visible. The compressor station and support building aesthetics impacts cannot be considered to have a greater effect than the access roads, overhead electric lines, switchyard, substation and operations and maintenance building site for Ball Hill Windpark. Nonetheless Commissioner Seggos claims that the gas storage facility has significant adverse impacts on community character.

But it is worse. According to the Ball Hill Windpark 2018 Proposed Modifications Summary of Environmental Impacts:

The new turbine increases by 3 the number of homes that would experience 10-20 hours per year of shadow flicker, and by 23 the number of homes that would experience 40+ hours per year. Of these homes, 11 are project participants. The remaining 215 homes would experience the same or fewer hours of shadow flicker annually as in the 2016 Permit.

There is no equivalent impact for Finger Lakes LPG Storage.

Conclusion

I can only conclude that if the Finger Lakes LPG Storage project has sufficient adverse impacts on community character associated with noise and aesthetics then every wind development project must have a similar adverse impact. The precedent set by this case would seem to preclude wind energy.