At The New York Krazy Klimate Konference, 2025 Edition

From THE MANHATTAN CONTRARIAN

Francis Menton

Two years ago, in November 2023, my friend Roger Caiazza and I attended a conference put on by a local news source called City & State. They called their conference the “Clean Energy New York Summit: The Path to Sustainability.” I called it the Krazy Klimate Konference, and I wrote about it in a post on November 18, 2023 titled “At The New York Krazy Klimate Konference.”

Last year both Roger and I skipped the Konference, and this year Roger again wisely decided to stay home in Syracuse. But I was morbidly curious as to how this crowd of climate grifters and subsidy farmers would react to the rapid derailment of their gravy train during the first ten months of President Trump’s second term. And for me, the venue was only about a 10 minute subway ride away, at the southern tip of Manhattan. So I rounded up my daughter Jane (who had to trek in from Queens) to accompany me, and off we went.

This year they slightly re-titled the Konference to “Energy Infrastructure Summit: New York’s Path to Sustainability.” On the surface, it was remarkably similar to the program of two years ago, and to hear the words of the speakers, it was as if nothing was wrong. But with a little reading between the lines, the changes were big.

If you went to this Konference to learn anything about the subject matter at hand, you would have been sorely disappointed. All the presentations were essentially fluff, completely avoiding discussion of any serious issues. However, there was much to be learned from what was not said.

To start with, you might have noticed that the line-up of participants had greatly shifted. Two years ago, the main panelists and speakers fell into two categories: (1) promoters of expensive “green energy” projects, like solar arrays, wind farms, and transmission lines, talking about their great construction plans, and (2) high ranking political actors, including multiple members of both the State Legislature and City Council, there to take credit for bringing to bear the political will to make this all happen.

Emblematic of the speakers from two years ago were three whom I highlighted in my November 2023 post: Doreen Harris, the Co-Chair of New York’s “Climate Action Council,” Gregory Lampman, Director of Off-Shore Wind at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, and Luke Falk, COO of Clean Path New York, a company then developing an $11 billion new transmission line to bring wind and solar power from upstate into New York City.

Here is a reprise of my comments on Mr. Falk’s contribution to the 2023 Konference:

[A]n afternoon panel featur[ed] 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.

The reason that I burst out laughing during Mr. Falk’s 2023 presentation was that it was obvious to anyone with any math skills that his power line could not possibly be economic. The obvious reason was that intermittent wind and solar power could not fill the line full time, or even half time, and therefore the line would cost a multiple per unit of electricity delivered to transmit power compared to the cost of a line to transmit full-time generation. To the surprise of no one with critical thinking skills, the Clean Path transmission line project then got canceled in late 2024 precisely because it was found to be uneconomic. For the full story, see Utility Dive from December 3, 2024.

Needless to say, Mr. Falk did not show up to this year’s Konference.

And neither did Mr. Lampman. At the time of the 2023 Konference, Mr. Lampman’s (and NYSERDA’s) entire off-shore wind program, previously touted as the linchpin of the State’s renewable energy plans, had just been canceled, with no idea of any path forward. As I reported in my November 2023 post, Lampman had managed to give his whole presentation at the 2023 Konference without mentioning that his entire program had just been canceled; and when gently asked by the moderator to address the subject, Lampman said that he had discussed it with his then 6 year old son, who had said “Dad, you got this.”

Since the 2023 Konference, Lampman and his agency then put the off-shore wind program out for a re-bid in 2024, with the re-bids coming in about 50 – 70% higher than the originally-accepted bids. NYSERDA bit the bullet and accepted the new bids in late 2024 — only then to have President Trump sweep back into office in January 2025 and promptly announce that the federal government would not be issuing any permits for these developments. Since then, there have been rumors that the Trump administration would agree to grant a permit to one of the five off-shore wind projects if Governor Hochul would grant a permit to build a pipeline across New York Bay to transmit natural gas from Pennsylvania to Long Island and, potentially, to New England. The natural gas pipeline permit got issued last week, so maybe one of the off-shore wind projects may proceed. The rest are deader than dead. You can see why Lampman might want to stay away from anywhere where he might get asked a question.

Also staying away this year was Doreen Harris of the Climate Action Council. Her speech two years ago had been filled with cliches of false optimism (“We’re the leader. . . . We have a bias toward action. . . . long term sustainability . . . something we can be proud of”). I guess that stuff would be way too embarrassing to utter in public today.

Instead, we got as kick-off speaker a guy named Rory Christian, Chair of the Public Service Commission. Not that Christian said anything substantive, but he still proved to be a significant change of pace. While Harris’s full time job is to be a cheerleader for the energy transition, Christian, in addition to having some energy transition responsibilities, also is responsible to keep the electricity system “affordable,” “reliable,” and “safe.” You might think he would address how these various responsibilities are in irreconcilable conflict, but that would be way too much to expect. Of course his speech was the usual pile of cliches. Some excerpts: “Our expectations as to energy are evolving. . . . Uncertainty in the energy system is unacceptable. . . . We must assure safe and reliable service at just and reasonable rates. . . . We have the drive and focus to do the energy transition. . . . Federal uncertainties are having a chilling effect. . . .” Mention of “safety” and “reliability” are a big change from net zero cheerleading.

Unlike the previous conference where no audience questions were allowed, this time they had an app where you could submit questions in writing for the moderator to pose (or not). Here are two that I wrote for Mr. Christian: (1) Now that the Governor and Attorney General have publicly stated that the state’s energy transition under the CLCPA is “infeasible,” when is the PSC going to hold a hearing under Section 66-P(4) of the Public Service Law to postpone all the deadlines? and (2) Given that the CLCPA energy transition has been recognized as “infeasible,” how can the PSC give any consideration to the pending rate increase request from Con Edison that includes big spending for projects that do not enhance safety and reliability but only seek to advance the concededly “infeasible” emission-reduction mandates? (The State’s letter referred to is linked at my November 15 post here.)

It will not surprise you to learn that at the conclusion of his remarks, Mr. Christian promptly walked out of the Konference, taking no questions.

From the world of people running companies hoping to get big government money to build renewable energy projects, almost no one showed up to speak at this Konference. There were no wind or solar or transmission project developers that I spotted. The only representative of this category who uttered a word was a guy named Nick Lombardi, identified as a Senior VP of Project Development at something called NineDot, which is a grid-scale battery developer. But he was a panel moderator, rather than a speaker. We never got to learn of his great plans for battery storage.

Also missing were almost all of the elected politicians who showed up last time to preen and strut. One obscure City Council member showed up.

What we got instead were a bunch of dreamers and schemers with no attachment to the real world: e.g., Alexis Abramson, Dean of the Columbia Climate School (did you know they had that?) talking about how they are doing “teaching, research, and impact”; a representative of the New York DOT talking about how they were going to build more “resilient” highways (“integrating shade structures into the right of way” — I’m not making this up); multiple representatives of state agencies talking about “workforce development” to lure young people into “green energy” jobs (I would strongly advise any young person to stay away from this industry, which will disappear as soon as the subsidies dry up); a guy promoting “green and healthy schools” by retrofitting their energy systems (sounds to me like the lowest possible priority for the school system); and so forth.

And of course nearly every speaker worked into his or her presentation a few lines about the need to come up with “new funding streams” or some such formula, to make it all happen.

So even though there was no useful information and nothing to be learned about the energy system or how it will “transition,” the Konference was still a fascinating psychological study. There is a seemingly infinite supply of people living off “climate” grants and ready to blather on in cliches as if nothing has changed, when in fact their whole world has gone away. They just haven’t admitted it yet, even to themselves.