As I have written many times, with New York’s fantasy “net zero” energy plans, it is not a question of whether they will fail, but only when and how. The Democrats, who dominate state politics, and their environmentalist allies, are firmly committed to the impossible. Thus, they are caught in a trap of their own making, and from which there is no good escape. The fact that they are caught in this trap is obvious to anyone with basic arithmetic skills, but almost all of our politicians and environmentalists lack those. However, a small handful of them are starting to sense the impending crash. This makes for amusing interplay.
The state’s Climate Act of 2019 directs hostility to fossil fuels on all fronts. In the realm of electricity, the Act mandates 70% of electricity from “renewables” by 2030, and 100% from “zero emissions” sources by 2040. The official plan for achieving those mandates basically boils down to building lots of wind turbines and solar panels, and then lots more of same — principally off-shore wind turbines — until a flood of infinitely “free” wind and sun washes over us and brings us to energy nirvana. Meanwhile, also on the path to “net zero,” development of natural gas infrastructure is to be halted and reversed. More than half way to the 2030 deadline, the progress toward the 70% renewable electricity goal has actually been negative (due to the premature closure of two large nuclear power plants). On the natural gas front, two big pipeline projects have been blocked by the state environmental regulator (DEC) on phony grounds of “water quality.” And meanwhile there are plans for big new electricity consumers (chip plants and data centers) in the upstate area.
Time to crank up the wind turbines! And then President Trump swept back into office, and as one of his first acts pulled the plug on the off-shore wind projects.
So as of this past Spring, here’s where we were: lots of new electricity demand coming along, all new natural gas infrastructure (including two big new pipelines) blocked, and the planned future of wind turbines (which wouldn’t work in any event) also blocked. Does anyone see a potential problem here?
I have called our Governor Kathy Hochul an “airhead,” which may be unfair to air, but even an airhead could see that something here was not going to work. On May 29 the New York Times reported that the two blocked natural gas pipelines were going to get a “second chance.” Apparently, there had been some kind of informal, oral deal struck between Governor Hochul and President Trump, whereby Hochul would unblock the two natural gas pipelines, in return for Trump unblocking at least one of the big off-shore wind farms that Hochul wants to build. This subject was covered at Manhattan Contrarian here on June 4.
But was this apparent “agreement” real or not? In the intervening three months I have been keeping my eye open for any concrete developments. There have finally been some in the past few days.
Spectrum News reports here on September 4 that the Department of Environmental Conservation — an agency under the control of the Governor — after having rejected the two natural gas pipelines back in 2020, had instituted a “brief” re-opening of the “comment period” on the issue:
The Northeast Supply Enhancement Pipeline (NESE) and Constitution Pipelines have both faced repeated rejections from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, but have seen their applications revived after conversations between Hochul and President Donald Trump earlier this year. NESE is further along and recently saw the public comment period conclude after a brief extension. . . .
This looks like code that approval of the pipelines by the state regulator may be imminent. This immediately set off a frenzy of reactions from the crazy left in the legislature. Liz Krueger, the State Senator who represents the Upper East Side of Manhattan, led the charge. Here is a picture of Ms. Krueger:
“We can’t do this in New York,” state Sen. Liz Krueger said in a Thursday morning virtual news conference. “They are dangerous, they will do harm to people in any number of communities across the state. They are not necessary, they will put us backwards on our goals,” she said of the pipelines. “States need to stand up and say, ‘no, we’re not going to do these things,’” she said. “There is no better example for us than New York having to say, ‘no, we’re not going to approve pipelines we’ve already rejected on endless environmental grounds,’” she said.
And what exactly is Ms. Kreuger’s plan to provide electricity for our 21st century economy? She did not see fit to address that issue. She comes from the class of people who think that electricity comes from wall sockets.
Others from the loony left brigade of the state legislature also joined the fray. For example, Assemblymember Anna Kelles — the representative from ultra-crazy Ithaca — piped in:
Assemblymember Anna Kelles added that she expects the state will be sued for violating its own climate law if the pipelines are approved.
Here is a response from a representative of the Governor named Ken Lovett:
As the White House rejects any new permitting of offshore wind projects and Republicans in Congress cut billions in subsidies for renewable energy, we’d hope these legislators and advocates would join the Governor in pushing an all-of-the-above approach to ensure we keep the lights on for New Yorkers. . . .
Sorry, Ken, but I don’t think that there is any compromise with these people who think that energy is produced by magic. I’m looking forward to seeing the factions of the New York Democratic Party fight this out in coming months. I’m kind of hoping that the crazies win, at least initially, and we get a few good blackouts to educate us.
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I have net zero idea what any of this is about but it appears to be important to some-
Planning commission rejects bid to turn Redbank Power Station into bioenergy hub
In other first world news citizens of the good society interested in the survival of humanity and saving the planet should always leave such life and death matters to university qualified specialists and experts in the field as only they are qualified to judge-
Police charge man with assisting suicide while investigating 20 other deaths
In case you were wondering how the poor people are getting along.
Do they not use commas where you come from? Asking for a friend.
Commas are like chameleons; they come and go, they come and go
Ouch!
New Yorkers deserve this. Make stupid voting choices and get stupid results. HL Mencken said it best about a century ago. “Democracy is the notion that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
And it’s not the first time. A number of the largest cities in the United States have destroyed themselves over decades of demented Socialist rule: Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis and a host of others. LIke Detroit, sooner or later, nothing much will be left of these once great cities except gangs of thugs squabbling amid the ruins.
I think in many of these cities- the voter turnout is small for local and state elections. So, the policies don’t truly reflect the will of the people- or their interests.
If they don’t care enough to vote, then they have endorsed whatever the final results will be.
If you come from certain places, the only way you can make your vote count is to relocate.
“LIke Detroit, sooner or later, nothing much will be left of these once great cities except gangs of thugs squabbling amid the ruins.”
In some of these cities, that would be an improvement.
This reminds me of the Kurt Russel movie “Escape From New York.”
Call me Snake.
Have there been any successful wind or solar installations that didn’t rely on and need legacy power generation for backup? Rhetorical question I know, but worth asking those that believe increasing them will work.
The answer is highly dependent on your definition of “successful”.
. . . as well as “backup”.
… and who you ask.
And are there any installations that generate enough surplus electricity to produce their replacements, and the batteries that will be needed, as well as providing enough for today’s use
And are there any installations that generate enough surplus electricity to produce their replacements, and the batteries that will be needed, as well as providing enough for today’s use
Seems your question actually was worth repeating. 🙂
South Australia is showing the way with weather dependent generators. It now has the highest grid cost electricity in the world but the majority of households don’t care because they now make their own.
Rooftops can produce more than 100% of the lunchtime demand in the State and are displacing all grid generation by robbing their demand. This is the end game for the Australian grid. Rooftops produce their energy needs and energy intensive businesses just disappear because grid prices are astronomic.
Attached shows 24 hours in South Australia. The grid scale wind had the output to supply the entire state for the day but was heavily curtailed when the rooftops were pumping. There is a lot of grid solar that has lost most of its demand so is now useless. It is the tiny dark yellow wings in the rooftop duck curve – only able to serve a tiny portion of the demand from sunup to about 11am and 3pm till sundown . The only reason wind was able to keep going was due to exporting to Victoria. Just a decade ago the duck curve was barely detectable. In the next decade, the bright yellow of the rooftops will fill most of the chart =from August to May.
The only source of generation now able to grow in Australia is rooftops. They steal the demand from wind and solar. The wholesale market has been declining in volume since 2008. Batteries are now being rolled out to households and that extends the time that rooftops soak up the available demand.
A small amount of gas generation is still being used for stability reasons. However, overall, there has been no reduction in the need for dispatchable generation. It just has much less volume to recover its costs so charges very high prices when it can.
Grid scale W&S proponents are now beginning to see this end game and are much less inclined to throw their money at new wind and solar generation unless the government offers them a guaranteed capital return.
Rofftop solar and batteries is now such big business that the supermarket chains are offering systems from direct pipelines to China.
The Australian electricity grid is no longer an economic entity. Australia is now completely reliant on China for manufactured good.
If your wondering why the cost is so high they are building 8 more big batteries at Templers, Clements Gap, Hallett, Limestone Coast, Bungama, Solar River and Summerfield. They still need about another 20 more which they are planning to be able to hold the grid for a night.
Then all you have to hope is the sun and wind don’t stop for a day OR you can buy electricity from neighbour states 🙂
“buy electricity from neighbour states”
Does Aus have those sort of neighbours?
They do until the coal power stations close or need maintenance 🙂
‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’
Arthur Conan Doyle
If even an airhead could see that something here was not going to work and assuming Hochul is not an airhead, then the truth is that this is intentional, and the failure of Net Zero is a feature, not a bug.
‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’
Arthur Conan Doyle
Ah yes, the man who fell for the garden fairies hoax. My response to the statement: “or you don’t have all the information.”
Not sure the Sherlock Holmes quote applies. Something has happen in order for there to be a reason for it to happen. It is totally possible that a politician (any party) advocates an impossible plan.
I guess it depends on whether they are really stupid (don’t and can’t understand it’s an impossible plan) or are nefarious and evil (completely understand it’s an impossible plan but advocating for it for the intended consequences). I’m sorry, but given the history and current policies and actions of the far left progressives I believe they absolutely understand what they are advocating for and the results are intentional.
Then the logic goes:
‘When you have eliminated’ [net zero] ‘, whatever remains, ‘ [communist brand authoritarianism] ‘, must be the truth.’
I think you said in a nutshell what I was trying to convey. I still like the quote, though.
Hochul just endorsed Mamdani who promises free food (among other Communist pipe dreams). Nobody knows what they’re both smoking, but their mad fantasies abound. My fear is that the rest of the nation will have to bail out NY after the Loony Left wrecks it. As compassionate conservatives we can’t let the residents huddle in the cold and dark while they starve to death, even if that’s what they voted for.
“bail out” has a second meaning of trying to remove water from a sinking ship.
Building pipelines and power facilities (gas, coal, nuclear) takes months and/or years. If there is a deep January freeze and the power stops, what happens? Will trains, buses, and autos be used like plastic buckets to rush people south to a warmer place?
“bail out” also implies providing money to someone with needs but no dollars. Managing and paying for the exodus, relocating, housing, and feeding does not bring good feelings. Who pays?
The last sentence from the post: “I’m kind of hoping that the crazies win, at least initially, and we get a few good blackouts to educate us.”
I’m kind of hoping we don’t find out what such would entail.
Perhaps “good” means a couple of city blocks with only a few hundred people. Would that do?
A couple of city blocks will be covered up. It has to be massive in order for it to be too big to hide.
Bail out also has the meaning of abandoning an crashing aircraft by jumping (with a parachute). Not sure where the parachute is in the NY context and certainly unclear if there are enough to go araound.
But they can huddle in the cold dark munching stale saltine crackers that we offer, no? They need to get it good and hard.
Yep – no pain, no gain (in understanding of your own stupidity).
If they want to leave, we will help them find work. But only if they can tell us what they did wrong and why they won’t repeat that error.
Just helping them out without any strings, is like giving an addict an unlimited supply of drugs and thinking you are helping him.
Sounds like you are also talking about illegal aliens in sanctuary cities.
Oh, yes we can. NY is discovering FAFO and if it wasn’t for the fact that when they finally wreck the grid me and mine will suffer I could care less.
The mob is also clamoring for free healthcare.
Very nice Francis, thanks for all of your hard work. Low information politicians like Senator Krueger should be made to publicly defend the mindless crap they say. My guess is she knows nothing about climate, nothing about energy and nothing about science. My guess is she doesn’t know a damn thing.
You wouldn’t want to get between her and an “all you can eat” buffet.
Canada is just a larger version of New York when it comes to unattainable Net Zero and renewable targets. Even though the country generates nearly 60% of its electricity from hydro, whatever other renewables it has brought into the mix has left it nowhere near to achieving its emissions reduction targets for 2030 despite a much-reviled carbon tax that both contending political parties promised to eliminate after the most recent federal election. And since carbon emissions have continued to rise globally during the past 35 years, becomes increasingly obvious that Net Zero is an unattainable goal for at least the next half-century and likely beyond.
You need to keep up with current events. Former PM Justin Trudeau fled from office rather than face the wrath of the voters. New PM Mark Carney revoked the carbon tax without replacement.
Renewables? There are no new renewables on line, as that is the jurisdiction of the provinces, not the federal government.
Story Tip
Here we go again folks. The Trump administration is being sued by a group of “climate kids”, and the suit is again being heard in Montana….
‘A Better Future Is Possible’: Youths Sue Trump Over Climate Change | Newsmax.com
“Smoke-choked air that fills their lungs, floods threatening their homes and debilitating heat: a group of young Americans testified Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s fossil-fuel push is trampling their inalienable rights.
Lighthiser v Trump is emblematic of a growing global trend of legal action as a tool to push action on planetary warming amid political inertia or outright hostility.
At issue are three executive orders that together seek to “unleash” fossil fuel development at the expense of renewable energy.”
The socialist motto:
This time it’s going to work.
One definition of insanity is repeating something over and over again and expecting a different result.
Yes, carbon emissions is smoke, but CO2 is not.
Carbon emissions have been substantially eliminated over the past 50 years.
Someone should make that point.
Someone should also explain to those kids that CO2 emissions in the US has declined 20% over the past 2 decades, while global emissions keep going up. Let them decide who is to “blame.”
“Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.”
Edmund Burke, Letter i. On a Regicide Peace. Vol. v. p. 331.
http://www.bartleby.com/100/276.41.html
From the above article, it seems like the day will come—sooner rather than later—when the “grids” serving the whole of NY state will suffer a combined blackout, but to the surprise of most legislators and bureaucrats all will actually not be back online until at least few weeks have passed.
The “lesson yet learned” is that for intermittent, therefore unreliable, power sources (primarily wind and solar) one needs to have a dispatchable RESERVE of one megawatt ready-to-bring-online for each megawatt of “renewable” power the grid is currently consuming. Otherwise expect “rolling brownouts”.
South Australia is learning this lesson the slow and hard way. New York state: what, me worry?
A 1 MW reserve won’t help if it can only run for 10 minutes.
The grid must have an equal megawatt of dispatchable capacity available—and enough energy reserves (in MWh) to sustain supply during extended shortfalls.
The real point is MW versus MW-hour.
Funny how oversimplifications can create such confusion.
There are two separate-but-simultaneous requirements:
1) Support the peak power demand (in power units of MW),
2) Support the energy demand as averaged over some predicted interval where renewable sources feeding the grid might be absent—predictions ranging from minutes to weeks depending on the reviewer/planner/politician/bureaucrat (in energy units of MWh)
This is not “oversimplication” . . . it is reality.
It is when you use MW in place of MW-hour.
Whoosh . . . ruffled hair.
I have 50 years experience in Electrical Engineering.
Too many go with the MW in lieu of MWh, which is the oversimplification to which I was referring.
And yes, I made a spelling error/typo. Good catch. Oh wait. Your “oversimplication” is the spelling error. My bad. 😉
His comment was:”…dispatchable RESERVE of one megawatt ready-to-bring-online for each megawatt of “renewable” power the grid is currently consuming.”
I believe he meant, by saying dispatchable, gas generators and you seem to have thought he meant batteries.
Interesting . . . because that was MY comment, so I’m not sure who you’re directing your comment to.
BTW, I consider the following commercial-scale power/energy sources to all merit classification as “dispatchable”:
— fossil fuel (coal, natural gas, petroleum) power plants
— nuclear power plants
— hydroelectric power plants
— geothermal power plants (admittedly a bit player).
I have no idea what you mean when you refer to “gas generators”.
By commonly-accepted definition, “dispatchable” power sources can reliably adjust their output to turn on, turn off, or scale up or down as required by the grid, ensuring a constant and reliable power supply when it’s needed most.
Batteries do not currently qualify as “dispatchable” since (a) they are only storage devices, not generators of electrical power, and (b) they have very limited duration for which they can provide power at commercial scale and also require a very long time to recharge, unlike the above-listed sources.
“…a few good blackouts…”
Well that should help the declining birth rate.
Yes. Go back to that 26 hour blackout a number of years ago. There was a mini baby boom.
What else is there to do in the cold and dark?
Humor – a difficult concept.
— Lt. Saavik
The zero emission plan only works with Green mathematic skills, explained by a joke:
A Green mathematician, a physicist and a technician are sitting in a room. They shall calculate how many windturbines are necessary to run an AI center with 100 MW connected capacity.
The Green mathematician calculates 100*24*365 = 876 GWh and concludes: We need 876 GWh, the biggest windturbines habe 15 MW connected capacity, so if we install more than 10 of them, we are on the safe side, since they can produce 1314 GWh in a year.
Meanwhile the physicist and the technician where just having a private chat, running jokes, not caring about what the Green mathematician calculated. So the mathematician turns on them:
“What’s you result?”
“It doesn’t work.”
“But, don’t you want to calculate it?”
“No.”
I am reminded of some definitions within my personal philosophy.
I love advocates. An advocate will talk and listen. And exchange of ideas increases the understanding of both parties on the nuances of an issue and sometimes a shift towards the middle is the result.
In comparison, I hate activists. With an activist it is you are either my friend or my enemy. Totally pointless to attempt conversation as the activist devolves into rhetoric and insults, refuses to listen, refuses to consider any points contrary to their absolute view of the issue.
NT State Senator Liz Krueger fits the definition of an activist.
Wasn’t Krueger immortalized in The Nightmare on Elm Street? 🙂
The Proposed 6600 MW Expansion of Renewable Energy in the US Pacific Northwest
Here in the US Pacific Northwest, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NWPCC) has updated its long-range power adequacy plan by doubling the proposed future expansion of wind and solar from 3300 MW in the previous plan to 6600 MW in the most recent plan.
Wind and solar comprise the great bulk of the proposed power capacity expansion for the US Northwest region.
Several months ago, I asked the NWPCC’s public outreach spokesman for information concerning how many megawatt-hours annually that additional 6600 MW of nameplate capacity is expected to produce, and at what annual capacity factor. (The seasonal average annual CF for existing wind and solar in the US Northwest is roughly 25%.)
As I might have expected, there has been no response so far from the NWPCC concerning my inquiry.
As was the case in the previous NWPCC long-term plan, the proposed expansion of firming capacity remains at 720 MW nameplate. The NWPCC calls it ‘firming capacity’ but does not specifically state how that capacity is to be supplied.
As a practical matter, the 720 MW of load-following ‘firming’ could be supplied by one or more gas-fired plants or by one of the oncoming SMR nuclear designs with fully-enabled load following features such as are present in the NuScale SMR design.
Neither Oregon nor Washington State will allow another gas-fired power plant to be constructed in their state. Oregon will not allow a nuclear plant to be constructed in that state.
If a gas-fired plant is constructed to serve the Pacific Northwest, it would have to be located in either Montana, Idaho, or possibly Wyoming. However, neither Oregon nor Washington State would allow electricity being produced by a new gas-fired plant to be sold inside their state.
Moreover, at some point before the year 2045, neither Oregon nor Washington will allow electricity from any fossil fuel power plant to be sold in their state, regardless of where that plant is located.
Inside the BPA’s area of load balancing authority, a total of 1180 MW of nameplate fossil/biomass capacity is present. Roughly half of that 1180 MW fossil nameplate capacity is a gas-fired plant located at the Gray’s Harbor Energy Center on the Olympic Peninsula. By law, this facility must be shuttered at some point within the next twenty years, possibly sooner.
And so 600 MW of gas-fired capacity will be shut down in Washington State, but 720 MW of likely gas-fired capacity will be constructed elsewhere as firming capacity for a quick and massive wind and solar build-out in the US Northwest. (Such a deal. We should all be so lucky.)
Wind Power Slowdown, August 22nd 2025 through September 5th 2025
Here in the US Pacific Northwest, a fifteen-day wind power slowdown occurred between August 22nd, 2025, and September 5th, 2025.
As illustrated in this graph, hydropower did most of the heavy lifting during that fifteen-day period, with assistance from fossil/biomass and from nuclear.
Wind comprises most all of the renewable energy generation capacity currently installed within the BPA’s area of load balancing authority, roughly 2800 megawatts total nameplate. Fossil/biomass is roughly 1180 MW total nameplate, nuclear in the form of the Columbia Generating Station is 1150 MW nameplate.
Wind’s capacity factor during that period was 13%, fossil/biomass was 94%, and nuclear was 97%. Wind power generated roughly 131,000 megawatt-hours during that period, fossil/biomass roughly 400,000 megawatt-hours, and nuclear roughly 402,000 megawatt-hours.
It is no surprise that in proposing a 6600 MW expansion of renewable energy in the US Pacific Northwest, the NWPCC does not disclose either the expected capacity factors for that 6600 MW expansion nor the annual megawatt-hours of electrical energy that expansion is expected to produce.
“People whose lives are going well tend to mind their own business. People whose lives are a mess tend to mind other peoples’ business.” Eric Hoffer (more or less). LIz Krüger seems to be the poster child for the second group.