Today I trekked out to Brooklyn to testify at a public hearing on New York’s plans to achieve “net zero” electricity by 2030 or so, and a “net zero” economy by 2050. Actually, it wasn’t much of a trek — the hearing took place at an auditorium in Brooklyn Heights, near the first subway stop on the other side of the East River.
The organization holding the hearing was the New York Climate Action Council. This body was created under New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019 (Climate Act), and is tasked with figuring out how to achieve the statutorily mandated net zero targets. The first statutory target is 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, which as a practical matter means that fossil fuels must be almost completely eliminated from the electricity sector by that date. The Council issued its Draft Scoping Plan for how to achieve the targets on December 30, 2021. The Draft Scoping Plan is some 300 pages of text plus 500 pages of appendices; but the gist comes down to, we will order the private sector to eliminate emissions by various dates certain, and then it is up to the little people to work out the details. Today’s hearing allowed for members of the public to comment on the Draft Scoping Plan, supposedly so that any appropriate adjustments can be made before the Plan becomes final later this year.
The Climate Action Council has some 21 members. A full list can be found here. Seven of the 21 attended today’s hearing. I’m going to give you a list of these people and their titles, to give an indication of the extent to which the Council is dominated by environmental activists and political functionaries with no background or interest in how a huge electrical grid might actually get converted to “net zero” as an engineering matter. The members present were: Doreen Harris, President and CEO of the New York Energy Research and Development Authority; Basil Seggos, Commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation; Roberta Reardon, Commissioner of the New York State Department of Labor; Robert Rodriguez, Acting Secretary of State of New York; RuthAnne Visnauskas, Commissioner and CEO, New York State Homes and Community Renewal; Peter Iwanowicz, Executive Director, Environmental Advocates NY; and Raya Salter, Lead Policy Organizer, NY Renews. Of these, maybe Ms. Harris of NYSERDA knows something about how the electrical grid works. Then again, maybe she doesn’t.
Speakers got two minutes each to address the members of the Council. The hearing was scheduled for 4 hours, from 4 – 8 PM. Some 200+ people had signed up, so clearly many did not get the chance to speak. My turn came about two hours in, shortly before 6 PM, by which time about 50 – 60 people had spoken before me. After I spoke, I stuck around for about 20 more minutes before leaving. So I heard a total of around 60 people give comments.
A summary of the 60 or so comments before me will give you readers an idea of what we are up against. Of the 60, exactly 4 were not fully on board with the crash program to replace all fossil fuels in New York with some combination of wind and solar “renewables,” storage, and/or the magical not-yet-invented “DEFR” (Dispatchable Emissions Free Resource) often mentioned in the Scoping Plan. The four who were not fully on board consisted of two advocates for nuclear power (note that New York just closed its last downstate nuclear plant last year, well before the end of its useful life — so nuclear is clearly going nowhere), plus one representative of each of the two large utilities, Con Edison and National Grid. In the case of the utilities, the message was, of course we’re on board, but we’ll just have to work together, and maybe you might need to go a little slower and maybe allow for some so-called “green” hydrogen in the mix, or something.
Then there were the other well-over-50 speakers. Some were politicians or their representatives (Public Advocate Jumaane Williams was there in person; Comptroller Brad Lander sent a sub; multiple City Council members were there in person, and many more sent subs; the Mayor’s office sent several, mostly from the Mayor’s “climate” office). Then there were many representatives of environmental activist organizations, including multiple from each of Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, plus well over a dozen more from various local groups. There were lots of pastors and others representing religious groups, a plurality of them Jewish (not surprising in Brooklyn). And there was a good number of private citizens speaking for themselves, although these were a clear minority.
The overriding message was an emotional plea to the Climate Council to please, please save us from these evil fossil fuels before it is too late for ourselves and our children and our planet. Several used the opening line, “I’m here today because I’m scared.” Multiple speakers choked back tears. Easily 20 speakers invoked Hurricanes Sandy (2012) and Ida (2021), as if reducing usage of natural gas could somehow end the risk of severe storms. An overlapping group of at least 20 went on about the increasing incidence of childhood asthma, as if atmospheric CO2 has something to do with that. Another overlapping group of at least 20 asserted that climate change was differentially harming what they called “justice communities” (when did that term come into vogue?); and therefore “justice demands” the elimination of fossil fuels. One lady focused specifically on the increasing rate of teen suicide, which she asserted was entirely attributable to fossil-fuel-induced climate change.
And no event like this could go without a critical mass of cynical hucksters looking to use the opportunity to make themselves a quick buck. At least four presenters styled themselves as “consultants” who would advise owners how to upgrade their buildings to comply with the new rules. Needless to say, all of these people argued for specific rules to advantage what they were selling, and also asked for state funding to help the building owners pay for it. Meanwhile, self-appointed representatives of the “justice communities” also unsurprisingly had their hands out for grants and taxpayer funding of various sorts, often with only the most tenuous relationship to carbon emissions or climate change.
So basically that left me and the two nuclear guys as the only ones out of about 60 advocating for anything approaching sanity. What follows is an approximate text of my presentation (I had to leave a few lines out here and there while speaking in order to meet the two minute cutoff):
My name is Francis Menton. I live in Manhattan. I am testifying as a private citizen.
I feel like I am in the crowd that has come to observe the grand procession where the Emperor unveils his new clothes. The Emperor has no clothes on. He is completely naked. Am I the only one who can see this?
100% carbon free electricity or energy for New York, at least unless based substantially on nuclear, is not different from the Emperor’s new clothes. It is a ridiculous and dangerous fantasy. It will not and cannot happen. It will shortly run into the wall off physical reality.
I will briefly address three aspects:
- Energy storage
- Hydrogen
- The global context
Energy storage.
Supposedly, we are replacing our fossil fuel generation (mostly natural gas) with wind and sun. Sun does not work at night, and there is little in the winter. Wind does not work when it is calm. Neither works on a calm night.
How do you plan to back this up when we have no more coal or natural gas? The treatment of this subject in the Scoping Plan is breathtakingly incompetent. Where is the calculation of how much storage you will need to get through a full year? The Scoping Plan doesn’t even make that calculation in the correct units, which are gigawatt hours.
You’re going to need at least 10,000 GWH of storage to back up just current usage if you replace a fossil fuel generation with wind and solar. At the price of Tesla batteries, that will run you about $1.5 trillion, which is approximately the entire GDP of New York State. If you triple electricity consumption by electrifying vehicles and homes, then you must triple the storage, and it will cost at least 3 times GDP. And by the way, you need a battery that can store electricity all the way from summer to winter without all the energy dissipating and then discharge over the course of months. No existing battery can do that.
This can’t be done. How could you commit us to this without any feasibility study, any detailed cost workup, let alone a demonstration project showing that it can be done?
Hydrogen.
Hydrogen is not the answer to this. To generate hydrogen from water is enormously costly. And then you promptly lose about three-quarters of the energy you expended, because one-quarter is all you get back when you burn the hydrogen. And then, the H2 is inferior in every way to natural gas:
- H2 is only about one-fourth as energy dense by volume as natural gas. Are you planning to quadruple all the pipeline capacity?
- H2 is much more a danger to explode than is natural gas.
- H2 is a tiny molecule that is very difficult to keep from leaking. And very corrosive to metal pipes. Do all homeowners have to replace their internal pipes?
- How much more does H2 cost than natural gas? 5 times? 10 times? Where is the detailed cost study? Where is the demonstration project?
Nobody currently does hydrogen at large scale and there are very good reasons for that.
The Global Context
New York’s average electricity usage is around 20 GW. You’re talking about building a “massive” 9 GW of new offshore wind turbines in the effort to go carbon free.
Meanwhile, do you know what China is doing? Just this year, they are building 47 GW of new coal plants. Those will produce all the time, versus only one-third of the time for our wind turbines, so China is building just this year in coal plants some 15 times our planned massive wind turbine development.
And then they have another 100+ GW of coal plants in the works for just the next couple of years.
And then there’s India. They have about the same population as China (1.4 billion, which is 70x our population). India is way behind China on electrification. They explicitly say they are going to do it with coal. That will be well over 1000 GW of coal capacity by the time they are done.
And then there’s Africa. They have about 1 billion people — and 2 billion projected by 2100. And most of those people have no electricity at all. They’re also going to do it with coal.
Who are we trying to kid here? To the extent that New York is able to reduce emissions somewhat, it will be completely insignificant in the global context.
The whole project for New York is completely unworkable, wildly expensive, and utterly meaningless in the global context. People, this emperor has no clothes.
Thank you.
I’m not fooling myself into thinking that this will have any immediate impact. I will say that among all the other speakers, not a one addressed or attempted to refute any of my points.
Speaking of grid energy storage that’s got serious competition from their EV wet dream-
More Details On EV Battery Production Forecasts For The Future (msn.com)
Just build the battery gigafactories and all will be a happening-
VW’s 2022 supply of EVs is ‘basically sold out’ in the US and Europe (msn.com)
They can’t even satisfy the well to do carbuyer set now with lithium battery production and they’re simply driving up battery resource prices with supply problems. Is it any wonder industry is pursuing expensive hydrogen with these Gummint idiots and their ICE mandates as batteries will never cut it for transport.
Thanks for sharing physical laws and realities vs impossible, manufactured realities using anti environmental, diffuse and not dependable solar and wind power.
I’m sure many mouths were agape after your presentation. 😉
Just wondering if anyone attending the public meeting happened to reference Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr.’s science-based analysis conclusion:
“. . . to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, the world would need to deploy 3 Turkey Point nuclear plants worth of carbon-free energy every two days, starting tomorrow and continuing to 2050. At the same time, a Turkey Point nuclear plant worth of fossil fuels would need to be decommissioned every day, starting tomorrow and continuing to 2050.”
— source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpielke/2019/09/30/net-zero-carbon-dioxide-emissions-by-2050-requires-a-new-nuclear-power-plant-every-day/?sh=3e5d774d35f7 , my underlining emphasis added.
True, the State of New York is not “the world” (even if New Yorkers think it may be, hah!), but they are obligated to do their fair share toward this end. Based on just the population ratio NY-versus-world at end of 2021 (20 million/7.9 billion), the State of New York should plan on building about 37 Turkey Point-size nuclear power plants between now and beginning of 2050.
What about the contribution from future hydro, wind, solar and biomass? . . . pfftphttttp!
Here in the US Northwest, the engineers who work deep inside the regional utilities doing real world technical analysis know full well that wind and solar will never live up to the promises now being made by the region’s politicians and by many of the region’s senior utility executives. Or even to come close. But to say so publicly in an open forum is to risk being fired.
I tell my friends and relatives that the future of electric power in the US Northwest is for a doubling or even a tripling of the price of electricity, and for less of it to be available. The retirement of coal-fired and gas-fired generation capacity in our region will accelerate under the Biden administration’s expanded environmental rules, and new-build solar and wind won’t come anywhere near closing the gap between generation capacity and demand.
Advocates for nuclear power say that with the oncoming small modular reactor (SMR) technologies, zero-carbon dispatchable electricity will be readily available at an affordable price. The problem with that opinion is that at least two decades of hard work is needed to initially field the SMR technology and to create an SMR manufacturing and construction industrial base which can deliver larger numbers of these SMR’s on cost and on schedule.
Over the course of the next decade, as more coal plants are retired without replacement and as wind and solar begins taking an ever-larger slice of the power generation pie, the reliability of the western US power grid will begin to degrade. Portable diesel-fired and LNG-fired peaker units will be brought in to deal with a growing power generation shortfall.
As a matter of practical necessity, these ‘temporary’ fossil fueled peakers will eventually become what is effectively permanent baseload capacity. As has been seen in other nations, maintaining a business environment for industries which require cheap power to remain competitive will become increasingly difficult.
In any case, the wind and solar juggernaut is now so deeply embedded in the region’s politics that even slowing it down is a difficult proposition, let alone stopping it altogether.
Surely we have all noticed that activist supporters of CAGW and EVs are always using the prediction of nearby future developments to bolster their arguments, despite the fact that such developments have been “under way” for decades with little chance of success? Whether it is batteries, hydrogen, or nuclear power, their arguments always rely on such things. Maybe that indicates their trust that we engineers will always come up with a solution, even if they don’t understand technical matters!
Mr. Menton,
I want to thank you for publicly holding the sanity flag high. In the current political climate I consider that incredibly brave and generous.
Sadly, we’re told that 81 million people voted for misery and death in 2020. I expect no US course correction on power generation until large numbers of people, at least in the thousands, freeze to death. Even that may not be sufficient, but I fear we will inevitably find out.
Thankfully, Germany is well on the way to demonstrating the value of fossil fuels. Next winter should do it!
The fact that only 1/3 of the council showed up for the public comments tells you everything you need to know: they don’t care what the public has to say. Either they are going to plow ahead regardless, or they knew from the beginning that the entire enterprise is a fools errand and are only going through the motions as they climb up the political ladder. Hopefully it’s the latter, otherwise the people of NY are in big trouble.
Francis Menton you are a brave brave man, I couldn’t have done what you did. I salute you. The only thing in my view that will wake these dummies up would be for every fossil fuel plant to plan for maintenance at the same time. Announce it well in advance and tell all state, county and city officials and citizens what to expect and when to expect it. These people are breathtakingly stupid, if they are so stupid, so boneheaded as to let that happen then they deserve the consequences.
It is no real surprise that NYC residents, who are so far removed from the source of their energy, food and goods manufacturing, would think net zero is feasible. They actually believe the nonsense fed to them by enviro organizations….we have the technology…..it is currently working.
IMHO, they should be forced to try it out for a week in the winter before they commit the rest of us to such stupidity.
It is a competition of beliefs. Climate Change is the new kid on the block and gaining massive momentum. Other religions simply want a fair slice of the pie and need to work out how they can weave the new religion into their historic belief system.
Another excellent piece from The Contrarian. Focuses on the most important issue for policy.
Which is that it doesn’t matter for policy purposes whether there really is a climate crisis due to global warming. If there is or if there isn’t, either way, the present policies of moving power generation to wind and solar are both impractical and unaffordable.
It simply cannot be done and it will not happen. There is no way to provide enough storage to make the intermittent generation reliable enough to run the grid.
This is truly terrible amateur engineering and system design. Its defects have nothing to do with the arguments about climate, they are that the grid as they propose it will not work.
The points about China are also well taken. That is, what the alarmists are intending to do is futile. It will not reduce global emissions by an measurable or effect amount.
In addition to being impractical and unaffordable in itself!
Additionally, if this continues much longer our progeny will speak Mandarin. The always-practical world does not wait on Western mental masturbators.
Francis Menton,
Very good words. Comprehensive but succinct, factual, basic quantities plus reality in the big wide world – Asia and Africa.
The egotists on the left think they control the entire population of the earth plus the planet’s climate. They have no concept of global .reality