The headline of this post is the same headline as appears in today’s New York Daily News as a big banner spanning pages 26 and 27 of the print edition, which are the main op-ed pages. Those two pages then contain two op-eds taking opposite positions on the future of New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019, which the Daily News refers to as the “Climate Statute.” The column on page 26 is by Emily Gallagher and Kim Fraczek, with the headline “Getting to affordable, clean energy solutions.” On page 27 the headline is “We have to rethink the state’s climate act”; the by-line is Jane Menton. Both pieces are behind the Daily News’s paywall, although it appears that you can get through it by paying them $1 for an introductory subscription. In my case, when I found out that Jane’s piece was running I went out and splurged $3.50 for the print version.
Comparison of the two pieces will provide a look into the quality of the debate going on in New York over the supposed energy transition.
Both op-eds start by noting the recent news in New York that State officials have publicly recognized that the upcoming 2030 deadlines set out in the Climate Act are not going to be met. The two articles then take opposite views as to what should happen next. As indicated by the headline, Jane’s piece argues that “we have to rethink” the Climate Act. The view of Gallagher and Fraczek is that we need to double down.
I’ll start by describing Jane’s piece. The arguments in the piece will be familiar to regular readers here. But first I should mention that despite the by-line Jane only had a small role in writing the piece. The main author was Roger Caiazza, the Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York. Roger and I (along with Richard Ellenbogen) have recently collaborated on a Report on the unworkability of the Climate Act, described in my post here, and we have also been working partly together and partly on our own, and partly with Jane, to get op-eds published discussing these ideas. Roger initially wrote and submitted this piece as an op-ed to the Daily News, but at first they declined to run it on the ground that they had recently published another piece by Roger. Then they asked if Roger could re-submit the piece over a different by-line. Jane volunteered, and Roger graciously agreed to forego the credit. (It’s a good thing that I did not volunteer. So far I have a 100% rejection rate for various op-eds that I have submitted to our local papers including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and New York Post.). So the piece ultimately ran with only minor changes from what Roger had written.
The basic point of the Jane/Roger piece is that New York is not meeting the mandates of the Climate Act because providing the required electricity from renewable sources simply cannot be done. The piece cites three recent Reports from the Public Service Commission, from the New York Independent System Operator, and from the New York State Comptroller, all setting forth the insurmountable obstacles.
- The Public Service Commission Report sets forth the quantity of electricity that would be needed to achieve the 2030 mandate, and finds that the rate of approval and construction of facilities is not nearly sufficient to supply the needed quantities of power. (The PSC Report does not even get to the question of whether, if somehow infinite amounts of wind and solar facilities could be built, the electricity would come at times where it could be matched to demand.)
- The Comptroller’s Report points out that the whole Climate Act energy transition thing is going on without anyone ever having done a study of how much this is going to cost.
- And finally, there is the NYISO Report, which does address the issue of whether intermittent wind and sun generation can match demand, and concludes that there is a need for a large amount of what they call the “DEFR” (Dispatchable Emissions Free Resource). The DEFR is a magical source of generation that does not exist in the real world.
From the Jane/Roger op-ed:
The glaring problem here? These [DEFR] technologies simply do not exist yet on a commercial scale, and certainly will not be available to fulfill the purpose of substituting for slow to implement renewable energy sources.
And the conclusion:
Taken as a whole, these reports, from three official and credible sources, suggest that there will be insurmountable reliability risks for the Climate Act transition. It is time for a reevaluation.
Now let’s look at the other side. The people writing for the other side are Emily Gallagher and Kim Fraczek. Ms. Gallagher is a State Assemblymember from the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn (a relatively affluent area just across the river from Manhattan), while Ms. Fraczek is Director of a climate/energy advocacy group called the Sane Energy Project.
If you think that these two might actually address the question of how the proposed energy transition is supposed to work from an engineering standpoint, don’t kid yourself. Instead, the gist is to accuse the existing utilities of “racism” in operation of their system and of spewing toxicity to poison the people. Excerpt:
The governor must act now to regain New York’s position as a climate leader. . . . Our climate law was passed to ensure inclusivity in a historically racist energy system. National Grid [the gas utility in Brooklyn], thus, has admittedly left disadvantaged communities out of its equation. . . . The governor must debunk National Grid’s explanation for outsized utility bill hikes and act to forestall the company’s proposed rate increases.
Where will the power come from for the energy transition? Here is the proposal of Gallagher and Fraczek:
[S]ince the private market is failing us, the governor . . . has an opportunity to direct the New York Power Authority, the largest state public power utility in America providing some of the lowest-cost electricity in the nation, to build 15 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030 and shutting down the peaker power plants that run on toxic fracked gas.
But how about the problem that wind and solar only provide part-time power that does not match customer demand? How about the need for a DEFR? No mention of those things here. The conclusion:
[W]e should invest in cost-effective, energy-efficient upgrades. By transitioning away from expensive and potentially dangerous gas systems rooted in 19th-century technology, we can create healthier, more comfortable living spaces for all.
This is the quality of the thinking that we are dealing with.
I guess I give the Daily News — generally a left-wing paper — credit for publishing the Jane/Caiazza piece. But so far, the Gallagher/Fraczek argument is what gets you elected in Brooklyn. The question is whether those people can be awakened before the blackouts hit.
“should invest in cost-effective, energy-efficient upgrades”
So, NOT wind or solar. !
That leaves COAL, GAS, NUCLEAR…. I doubt a lot of hydro is possible.
And they don’t have the farmland available for unicorn fart harvesting.
The Gallagher/Fraczek op-ed is wonderfully delusional. They think that if a goal is set, it will magically happen. They have no understanding of how the world (or anything) actually works. Unfortunately, this mindset is increasingly common among the elite who like to tell we peasants what to do and think. We are doomed.
Combined cycle gas turbines are most definitely NOT “19th century solutions”
My only offering is to make certain you have plenty of blankets.
Australia has the distinct advantage that there are very few places where people actually live getting so cold that people will die unless there is some heating appliance.
Much of the inhabited northern hemisphere gets cold enough to kill people unless they have means of heating their abode. New York is possibly on the margin if you rug up when the chill comes.
The high population density works against making you own power like those living in rural areas can easily do.
When New York runs out of quayside space and gas lines to moor and fuel power barges you know the end of the insanity is in sight.
Power barges are relatively easy and fast to deploy. New York already relies on them so a few more will not be an issue unless there is not enough space or gas to fuel them. Of course there may be other jurisdictions seeking the same solution and China can only build so much stuff to keep the rest of thee world pursuing their fantasies.
Maybe it would be better for all to be given a trial run of the Gallagher/Fraczek treatment so that there is no doubt about the right way forward.
Australia Post catches the Air NZ disease-
Australia Post dumps commitment to carbon neutral deliveries (msn.com)
The lefty woke elites aren’t getting nervous about the deplorables in the streets are they? Or is it just the realization that struggletown can’t keep wearing the inflationary outcomes?
I just have to say KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK to Francis Menton, Jane Menton, Roger Caiazza, and others who know how to take down the CLCPA lunacy with data and good reasoning.
“The Comptroller’s Report points out that the whole Climate Act energy transition thing is going on without anyone ever having done a study of how much this is going to cost.”
For that, somebody should be held criminally responsible. Same going on here in Wokeachusetts where nobody wants ANY wind turbines on land- and now the most radical climatistas don’t want solar “farms” except on “brown fields”. They think wind at sea and covering every building in the state with solar panels and every parking lot will bring us to net zero nirvana and then we’ll have super cheap, clean and green energy.
“historically racist energy system”
utterly absurd! No electricity in Harlem?
The hardest they will hit the wall of reality the better they will learn.
The expectation that some people will “wake up” is based on the assumption they are sleeping. It could be they are simply “brain dead”.
Be it politics, social construct, or climate change the Liberal approach is always bash the other guy and never offer real solutions.
The Daily News should indeed be congratulated and celebrated for publishing side-by-side editorials featuring both sides of the NY Climate Statute issue. The Daily News appears to have bent over backwards to make it possible to publish the contrarian view, even asking for a different “by line” ….. What other NY City newspaper would do as much?
The readers are then treated to a reasoned, factual viewpoint against which to compare the unicorns-and-rainbows viewpoint of Gallagher/Fraczek argument.
Don’t sell the general public short — some percentage of them will see the difference and have their viewpoints moved, if even a little bit, in the direction of energy sanity.
And, of course, heaps of credit to Roger and Francis for their terrific and continuing work!
From article:”… gas systems rooted in 19th-century technology,…”.
Gallagher/Fraczek want do away with 19th century tech and put in 15th century tech.
S
Let’s look at some data. Here’s a plot of NY wind, commercial solar and natural gas generation. There are four major things to notice:
Solar and gas generation sources are increasing, but gas is increasing faster, not as a percentage, but in terms of total generation.
Peak gas power generation in July 2023 was 8 GWh/month which is 51% higher than the peak winter (Jan 2024) consumption of 5.3 GWh/month.
Solar and Wind are nicely out of phase with solar peaking at 0.286 GWh/month in July 2023.
The trends do not suggest that renewables are likely to intercept fossil fuels anytime soon. This is true even when including non-commercial solar (not shown).
In California, where solar irradiance is at least 50% higher than in NY, a typical solar plant produces about 0.26 GWh/year/acre. In NY then one might expect less than 0.15 GWh/year/acre.
Total NY electricity generation from gas in 2023 was 59,914 GWh. Without considering the peaks, to replace this with solar would require 400,000 acres (625 square miles) of commercial solar generation, or an area twice the size of NYC and its five boroughs, or about 6% of New York’s 6.65 million acres of farmland. This doesn’t include land required for new transmission lines.
Since energy plants are often described by their nameplate rating, and the solar capacity factor is about 25% (in CA). 60,000 GWh/year would imply a total new capacity of 27,400 MW — 60,000 / (365 day/year) / (24 hours/day) / (0.25 capacity factor).
For comparison, offshore wind projects were planning for 9,000MW by 2035. Offshore wind capacity factors are closer to 40%, at least in the UK. So if these projects succeed, then production could reach 30,000 GWh/year. However, three of the contracts (4000 MW) were recently canceled leaving only 17,000 GWh/year of potential production.
Like anything this large and sweeping we need a small scale proof of concept. I suggest switching New York Transit to entirely and only Climate Act compliance practices. In about 5 years we can expect them to have a viable transition plan and a price tag about 1/4th the final eventual true cost. Subway shutdowns should a regular occurance shortly thereafter.
We can’t wait for them to wake up, we need to wake them up. Them waking up is the wrong terminology, these monsters know exactly what they are doing. They need to be told we know they are lying to us. We know who they are and if their actions cause harm they are going to be held personally responsible. The time for giving them a pass is past.
The good news is massive price increases are likely to come before blackouts.