On Thursday (November 16) a publication called City & State (specializing in covering New York state and local government) put on a conference they called the “2023 Clean Energy in New York Summit: New York’s Path to Sustainability.” Let’s call this the New York Krazy Klimate Konference. I showed up to observe and report on the festivities, along with another prominent skeptic, Roger Caiazza of the Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York blog.
The Krazy Klimate Konference featured a gaggle of high-ranking New York bureaucrats and legislators, there to report on New York’s exciting progress toward Net Zero nirvana; plus an even larger gaggle of grifters and parasites looking to cash in on the big piles of government loot sure to get passed out along the way. The co-Chair of New York’s Climate Action Council — Doreen Harris — gave the Keynote address. Other presenters included several members of the State Assembly, as well as bureaucrats in charge of the so-called “energy transition” on the Governor’s staff, at the State Energy Research & Development Agency (NYSERDA), at the City Department of Environmental Protection, at the City Department of Buildings, and so forth. Wind and solar energy grifters were also prominently featured.
As readers here likely know, the first big step in New York’s transition to carbon-free energy is supposed to be the construction of some 9000 MW nameplate capacity of off-shore wind turbines in the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island. Contracts for about half of that have been issued after a competitive bidding process. Unfortunately, between July and October, nearly all of the contractors for the off-shore wind announced that they were walking away from the deals, absent massive price increases. The Public Service Commission thereupon rejected the price increases, but as of the time of the Konference nobody had figured out the next step. Thus, as we listened to the speakers, New York’s headline initiative to move toward carbon-free energy was literally dead in the water.
You might think that the focus of a Konference like this would be addressing the very serious obstacles that stand in the way of the hoped-for energy transition. These issues include not only the escalating costs of constructing wind turbines that had led to the contract cancellations, but also things like dealing with the intermittency of wind and solar electricity generation, and solving the energy storage problem. If you think that this Konference might have grappled in even a semi-serious way with any of those issues, you would be wrong.
Instead, it was essentially all mindless happy talk.
As mentioned, the first speaker was one Doreen Harris. Here is a picture I took as she began her address:
As I took the picture, Ms. Harris was uttering the words “I co-chaired our Climate Action Council.” That’s the Council that last December issued the so-called “Scoping Plan” telling us how to achieve carbon-free energy — a “Scoping Plan” that in 700 or so pages couldn’t even figure out that energy storage needs to be measured in watt-hours rather than watts. To an endeavor that cries out for hard-headed engineering expertise, Ms. Harris brings a head full of air. Here are a few scattered excerpts that give the flavor of her presentation: “We are leading the nation. . . . We see industry responding in an extraordinary way. . . . There are near term challenges [no mention of what those might be]. . . . We’re looking at a massive build-out of the grid. . . . We need lots of wind and solar. . . . We have a 10-point plan to see these challenges through. . . .” Harris’s speech was sprinkled with lines intended to draw applause (“Who doesn’t love heat pumps?!”), so I took those opportunities to boo loudly. In a speech of about 25 minutes, Ms. Harris managed barely a couple of lines on the subject of the recent cancellations of all the off-shore wind projects. Her contribution was that “we have issued two RFIs [requests for information]” to potential bidders, and “we expect responses soon.”
That puts Ms. Harris way ahead of Gregory Lampman, the Director of Offshore Wind at NYSERDA. NYSERDA is the state agency that is in charge of the off-shore wind endeavor, and that issued the contracts that all just got canceled. Somehow, Lampman managed to get through an entire presentation (“We’re the leader. . . . We have a bias toward action. . . . long term sustainability . . . something we can be proud of”) without ever mentioning that his whole program just got canceled without any idea of what the next step will be. To his credit, although in a very softball manner, the moderator asked Mr. Lampman to address the subject of the cancellations. Lampman responded that even as the Konference was going on, his staff back at the office was hard at work on figuring something out. He also said that he had discussed the subject with his 6 year old son, who had responded, “Dad, you got this.”
For me, the high point of the Konference came during an afternoon panel, featuring a presentation from a guy named Luke Falk, identified as COO of something called Clean Path NY, which appears to be developing transmission lines to shuttle wind and solar generated power around the state. Falk started talking about how great it would be when everybody converted their homes to electric heat, because that would provide a use for the vast amounts of wind and solar electricity that would soon be forthcoming. At that point I lost it and started laughing uncontrollably. After his panel, Falk came up to me and accused me of being rude. I responded that I thought the whole point of a comedy routine was to get audience members to laugh.
From the evidence of this Konference, it is completely clear that the people running New York’s supposed energy transition do not have the slightest hint of competence. I suppose that’s for the better, because people who were actually competent could keep the charade going for a much longer time. With this crowd, the collapse will come sooner, although not nearly soon enough.
New York City was never overrun with competence. It’s a city where “you gotta know a guy what knows a guy” if you want to get something. Who needs competence if you know the right people?
I left that city 50 years ago and never looked back. It seems that nothing has changed.
Reminds of way back in ’73- I graduated from forestry school. I called up the state’s forestry office in Boston and asked for an application so I could apply for a forester position. I’ll never forget the reply, “it doesn’t work that way- you GOTTA go through your state politician to get a state job!”
That was the beginning of my awakening of how government works- at least here in Wokeachusetts. My relationship with the state only went down hill from there with so many battles I’ve lost count.
She should have some idea but I suppose its better to talk nonsense when thats what the audiences want
“President Harris holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rochester and a Master of Business Administration from the University at Albany, State University of New York.
https://www.nyserda.ny.gov/About/Executive-Staff/Doreen-Harris
‘Prior to her career in public service, President Harris spent more than a decade in the private sector, serving in management and engineering roles at Alcoa Advanced Technologies, Optimation Technologies and Global Water Technologies, Inc.’
Am I the only one who shuddered upon reading those two words together? “President Harris”
No, but I barfed into my mouth.
I propose a “New York City Self Sustainable Day.” No consumption of resources from outside the city of any kind.
Oh, right- let’s go back to the Middle Ages when every Manor was self sufficient and all the serfs were happy. 🙂
I believe the only significant example in the US was George Vanderbilt’s Biltmore Estate in Asheville NC. Still going strong although now much of the income is from tourists.
Back in 2010, looking into UHI and found how UHI was minimized. If you look at New York City as an example.
Area, including water 468.9 sq mi ( 2,590,000 sq m) & Power used (2008) 54,869 GW-hr
Watts/sq m = 2,416 total.
The Mayor says 80 percent is used by buildings and therefore 100 percent ends up as heat loss. So the forcing is 1,933 W/Sq M. ( and that doesn’t include all the vehicle heat added.)
The file also remarks that the city has seen a 23 percent increase in the last 10 years, which is close to the increase showing up in the charts.
I heard later that Reliability concerns require that 80% of the City’s peak load be able to be met with in-City resources under a mandate from the New York State Reliability Council and the New York Independent System Operator.
Has that requirement been dropped, or are they going to have windmills on top of every high rise to meet the 80% load capacity?
New York seems to be in a virtue signaling contest with California.
A contest no one wins, except the purveyors of this farce
Remind me, how much money Al Gore has made since “An Inconvenient Truth” released its barrage of lies?
and Wokeachusetts- which I think is even crazier- a small state which is often forgotten in these discssions- but much of the “thinking” for this new religion comes from here
I think you may give them too much credit – it looks like the usual closed-off echo chamber reverberating around New York, Wokeachussets and California – ideas will just keep bouncing about inside with no rational thought behind them.
unfortunately, these 3 states are leading the national charge to “save the planet”
The entire goal of the whole enterprise is to shovel as much money as possible in the direction of the friends and allies of those in power. In turn, the friends and allies in question will kick back political contributions and other support (if not direct kickbacks, since at this point the Democrat Party is more or less accepting of corruption). In other words, what actually works or is a good idea for the general populace is not a concern in the least, so I’m unsurprised to hear they failed to discuss it.
You’re absolutely right. It sounds conspiratorial- but it’s true and I see it every day here in Wokeachusetts.
God save us from such bureaucrats, the fact that they can not and will not address the real issues involved underscores their lack of intelligence, and great incompetence on the issues. It points to what their true agenda is: large amounts of money from the green industrial complex and to eliminate the U.S. as the worlds main superpower which Madeleine Albright (Sec of State under Clinton) described as being dangerous.
“the fact that they can not and will not address the real issues involved underscores their lack of intelligence”. Sorry, but you have that backwards. The fact that they will not address the real issues simply shows that they understand them only too well. They are on a quest, and they are not going to let mere facts get in the way. Especially the fact that their quest will visit destruction on the general population – and is already doing so.
That would seem to be the current modus operandi for off-shore wind tenderers when they think they have governments ‘over a barrel’ as happened recently in the UK:
“As work by numerous researchers has shown, the renewables industry in general and the offshore wind industry in particular has been less than candid about its true capital and operating costs, and the earlier low bids in the CfD auctions were a market positioning and PR gesture that did not reflect the true cost of generation. We have long predicted that the wind industry would be back with its begging bowl. It is disappointing in the extreme that government has betrayed consumers by giving in to this blackmail” (Net Zero Watch).
“We see industry responding in a remarkable way…” You certainly do – remarkably, but predictably, demanding more money or they walk away from the table.
Yeah, nice energy grid you got there.
Be a real shame if anything happened to it.
Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of youse.
More virtue signaling to accomplish goals that are not viable today, nor within the time span they are planned for.
I don’t really enjoy being ruled by totalitarians. However, if they truly were the best and the brightest and always produced optimal solutions, then I could painfully stomach it.
However, we are being ruled by morons with ZERO subject matter expertise! How the heck did we reach this point?
I imagine there must be “engineers” behind the scenes saying “sure, we can build enough windmills to make this work as long as the money keeps coming”..
Mechanical engineers design weapons, civil engineers design targets. Generally, politicians and military folks are the ones telling them what they want built.
…and chemical engineers design stills with geologists finding water to cool the worm.
Dumbing down inevitably leads to dumber leadership. The ‘fair and equitable’ society will mean everybody needs to be dumber so the less mentally able won’t feel left out – levelling down intelligence as a leftist, socialist ideology.
Regular folks should pack up and leave the State.
Many are, including some not so regular rich folks.
Those coming in are not so regular.
Still the outflow is bigger than the inflow.
I’d leave if I lived there.
“As readers here likely know, the first big step in New York’s transition to carbon-free energy is supposed to be the construction of some 9000 MW nameplate capacity of off-shore wind turbines in the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island.”
Off-shore?
I did a little online checking of maps of whale habitats. From what I can tell, just about ALL territorial waters of the U.S. (including Alaska and Hawaii) are home to various species of whales, including the waters off of Long Island. I imagine that not a word was said about the whales during this conference — at least not out loud.
The Climate Council’s inability to distinguish the difference between a watt and a watt-hour in their Scoping Plan is only the tip of the iceberg.
And BTW, do they even know what capacity factor is? Do they expect to actually get anything close to 9000 MW from those proposed off-shore turbines?
My take on the summit is available here: City & State’s Clean Energy Summit
In my article I did not mention that one of the sponsors of the summit (I explain in my article that all the sponsors got a chance to speak and spiel) want off on a rant about all the misinformation associated with whale mortality. That concern has them worried as well it should.
There have been several studies on the deleterious effects of low frequency sound waves on nearby humans and animals. Don’t several whale species communicate long distances using low frequency sound?
Virtue signaling theater at its finest! I enjoyed comedy much more when it was ruled by acts like Cheech and Chong, Monty Python and Firesign Theater. These modern troupes, that consist of all straight men and no real comedians, are so bad that they are almost funny!
I’ll vote for “The Cheech & Chong Party” any day. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Firesign Theater: How Can You Be Two Places At Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All
The NY offshore wind stuff is far from dead:
https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/11/17/new-york-unveils-plans-about-upcoming-offshore-wind-solicitation/?%3Futm_source=offshorewind&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_2023-11-20
They are likely to eat the new high costs.
er… uh.. I think it’s we who’ll eat those high costs
Exactly, unless we protest the new numbers.
Several months ago, I predicted that the New York offshore wind projects cancelled earlier this year would be rebid at higher prices using a theoretically competitive process thus giving the Public Service Commission cover to justify the next wave of higher costs.
This is what is now happening.
After the 2024 rebid process is complete, and after a few more years have passed and project costs have grown sufficiently beyond 2024’s estimates, the PRC and the wind energy suppliers will rinse and repeat the cancellation-rebid cycle, doing so roughly every three years indefinitely into the future.
The current trend of New York politics suggests that no one will ever be held to account for the rising cost of electricity, and the energy shortages, which are certain to occur in that state over the course of the next decade.
I described the Hochul work around to get the old contracts re-negotiated in a recent post concluding that allowing the contact costs to be revised guarantees that the costs will be increased substantially.
“… the Konference…” 🙂
STORY TIP:
yup they are Krazy
BUT
try this for even Krazier;-)
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/reduce-your-emissions-within-two-months-or-face-consequences-brussels-tells-12-member
Eek. So with Germany set to sink below the ‘net EU contributor’ threshold, Brussels are busy driving bigger wedges between the countries in their ‘net-zero’ insanity? This will likely push the eastern states into a seperate collective and splinter the western states – Germany, France and Belgium might end up as the future EU at this rate.
Demanding that people be competent at what they do is sexist and racist.
And pretty futile at this point – we’re several years too late to protest this dumbing down!
From the article: “After his panel, Falk came up to me and accused me of being rude. I responded that I thought the whole point of a comedy routine was to get audience members to laugh.”
That’s funny!
I assume he didn’t take your comment very well, either.
He was ticked. I watched him walk away muttering to himself. It was the highlight of my day.
Back in the 80’s I lived in a small western mass town. I worked in the next town over at a 500,00 sq ft computer manufacturing facility.
The town had horrible infrastructure. Billing was a nightmare as everything was done by little green visored ladies well past retirement.
Being good hearted, I finagled an offer of new computer system. My company was going to donate the whole thing; hardware, software, and even custom programming.
The project never got off the ground. At first I was dumbfounded, then I realized politicians don’t take kindly to free stuff. They want a line item budget that can form the basis of a grift. They want money flowing through the books so that they can wet their beak.
You can’t skim free stuff.
I imagine that at some point in New York’s transition to carbon-free energy description are the words “And then a miracle occurs”. No?
Not completely true because they should be saying it multiple times
“Falk started talking about how great it would be when everybody converted their homes to electric heat, because that would provide a use for the vast amounts of wind and solar electricity that would soon be forthcoming.”
Electric heat is extremely inefficient when compared to using natural gas or heating oil to heat water to be circulated through radiators. It’s even worse when plugged into a wind turbine that may never be built.
People who follow Falk’s advice will have no alternative on a cold, calm morning than the Jimmy Carter solution–wear a sweater indoors.
One heat pump related aspect of the keynote presentation by Harris annoyed me but also led to the only positive aspect of any the panelist’s remarks. The keynote presentation threw in the line “Who doesn’t love heat pumps” which drew applause and, to his ever-lasting credit, boos from Francis Menton. I was encouraged later in the program when Carrie Woerner, an assemblywoman from Glens Falls, managed to respond to the implication that heat pumps are a universal solution with no down sides. She basically quoted material from a James Hanley heat pump article about costs and the likelihood that people will switch to resistance furnaces instead of heat pumps because of the cost. Falk’s remark was completely clueless.
It’s the same Green deal all over as fairy dust meets reality-
‘Another one bites the dust’: EV sales likely to be less than expected by 2030 (msn.com)
PS: The flip side with the Reserve Bank jacking up interest rates to curb inflation is Federal Labor needing to build all their pet renewables and massive transmissioning they’re cutting infrastructure funding for the States that are crowding that out. That goes down really well with the Labor State Premiers naturally-
NSW won’t accept cuts to key infrastructure funding (msn.com)
Promises promises attempting the impossible as the tradeoffs come thick and fast.
I do believe I’ve spotted Manhattan Contrarian blog host Francis Menton sitting at a table near the podium.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cityandstateny/53345517395/in/album-72177720312811922/
He has a bemused look on his face which indicates an attitude of “This is all such complete BS.”
Apparently with the closure of many traditional circuses due to interference by a variety of progressive interest groups, there is a surplus of unemployed clowns. NY state has now launched one of the most aggressive publicly funded programs to find sustainable employment for those displaced from the center ring.