As New York approaches the Green Energy Cliff, developments are starting to come more quickly. When last I addressed the subject on March 6, there had just been “leaked” a three-page memo from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to the Governor’s office, revealing that implementation of what New York calls its “cap and invest” program — actually, an artificial scarcity program intentionally designed to drive prices up and impoverish the people — would cost every New York household thousands of dollars in increased energy costs. (I put the word “leaked” in quotes because most knowledgeable observers think that the Governor released the memo intentionally.).
Clearly the Governor was using this memo to provide cover for her next move. That move then occurred on March 20, in the form of an op-ed published by the Governor in something called the Empire Report. Several of my co-energy realist bloggers have already commented on this piece at Watts Up With That, including Robert Bradley (“Democrats Retreat From Climate Activism”) and Roger Caiazza (“Hochul Claims the Climate Act Can Be Affordable”).
The only proper response to Gov. Hochul’s piece is scorn and derision, and no matter how much of those you can muster, it’s not enough. The Governor and all of her staff and agencies have approached the subject of energy policy as morons, and they also treat the people as morons. They have never done any credible assessment of either feasibility or cost of the Climate Act mandates. Now that the mandates are approaching, it is obvious that they cannot be achieved at any remotely reasonable cost; but our leaders have no plan forward. Their only idea is to pretend that the Climate Act plan is real when it is not, and that it is moving forward when it is not, and then postpone the hard deadlines until after the current Governor is gone.
The spin in the Governor’s piece will leave you dizzy for weeks. I’ll give you a few choice quotes, with my translation into plain English:
All New Yorkers should be immensely proud that their home state is a national leader for clean energy and climate action. As Governor, I take that role very seriously, knowing it is our mission to leave our world better than we inherited it. . . . Since I have been Governor, more than $88.7 billion has been invested in clean energy through programs that have made us an example for the rest of the nation.
Translation: We have wasted $88.7 billion taxpayer dollars on wind and solar projects and related infrastructure that are completely useless. (She doesn’t give a breakdown of how much of the $88.7 billion is New York taxpayer money versus federal.). For a fraction of that money, we could have re-powered our natural gas power plants into much more efficient combined-cycle plants, but we didn’t do that because the enviro zealots were against it and we do whatever they say without ever considering whether it makes sense.
President Trump has denied the science, calling climate change a hoax. Just this week, he again vowed to block all new offshore wind projects and is actively attempting to dismantle those already under construction. At the same time, the federal government is also canceling grants and tax credits for solar and wind, electric vehicles, heat pumps, and other pollution-reduction initiatives while rolling back key scientific findings and regulations that would have helped the nation move toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Without a federal partner, there is only so much states can do on their own. . . . The fact is, we will be dealing with a White House outright hostile toward renewable energy for at least another three years, making it impossible for us to meet our targets without imposing higher costs on homeowners, renters, and businesses.
Translation: We claimed to be the “climate leader,” but in fact we never had any intention of spending much if any of our own money on this, and we were planning to stick almost all of the exorbitant cost to the federal taxpayers. Now that President Trump has nixed that scam, we realize that this is completely unaffordable. So we will call President Trump a bunch of nasty names, even though we have to admit that he is completely right on this issue.
[A]dvocates . . . took the extreme step of suing the state to force it to issue regulations to meet the Climate Act’s 2030 emission reductions targets. A judge agreed and ruled that the state must swiftly issue regulations to achieve what now would be costly and unattainable targets, unless the law is changed. . . . We need more time, and so I am proposing we amend the law to require regulations to reduce statewide greenhouse gas emissions to be issued at the end of 2030.
Translation: I’m running for another term, which will likely be my last. The final day of that term is December 31, 2030. So let’s make that the mandated date for Climate Act compliance regulations to take effect. I will do nothing, and the next guy will take office on January 1, 2031 and find him or herself immediately in default and under court injunction to do something. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
And meanwhile, what is this business about “we need more time.” Time for what? Nothing significant about this is going to be any different four years from now. Electricity generation from wind and sun will still be intermittent and in need of full backup to be useable on the grid. Cost of energy storage may fall a little, but nothing near the factor of a hundred or more that would be needed for a wind/solar/storage grid to be an economically viable replacement for a grid powered by dispatchable generators. The magical “dispatchable emissions-free resources” talked about by New York energy bureaucrats will be no closer to existence than they are today.
We are moving into a world of make-believe. At this point, nothing about the supposed green energy transition is real, except for the ongoing costs getting stuck to the taxpayers and ratepayers. The people in charge in New York — Kathy Hochul and all of her bureaucratic underlings — have no idea what they are doing, so they are closing their eyes and hoping the whole thing goes away.
If the extension of Climate Act deadlines were a stand-alone piece of legislation, it would likely need to go through public hearings at the Capitol, and it would attract substantial attention. So watch for this to treated as part of the “budget” negotiations, and emerge as one piece in a massive omnibus budget bill with little or no further mention.
Meanwhile, tens of billions of taxpayer and ratepayer dollars continue to be wasted on useless wind turbines and solar panels and grid-scale batteries and additional transmission and delivery infrastructure. I guess we can be thankful that it’s only tens of billions, versus the hundreds of billions that would have been wasted if the federal taxpayers remained on the hook.
It’s amazing the numbers of people that believe in the Green dream and will not be dissuaded by facts or logic.
They just need other people’s money locally and federally in order to not question the march over the cliff. Hint, they are very good at that in NYC.
We are moving into a world of make-believe.
Yep that’s the Great Feminisation for you. It’s all about the feels and money grows on trees or that misogynistic patriarchy or some such but we simply need so much more of it to do good deeds with empathy.
Its not that we are “moving to a world of make believe”.
In many Western countries, particularly in the English speaking ones, we are already knee-deep in it. The wholesale denial of physics, engineering, history, biology, even of basic accounting.
I don’t know if its ‘feminization’.
Whatever it is though it comes in waves, and is most dangerous, as today, when the delusions come to dominate the political media and business establishment. Some manias are confined to small private minorities, But the current wave is at government level, local and national, and at the level of senior corporate management, and its on a host of cultural and policy matters.
Only the like minded get appointed, and pretty soon you have Parliament waving through insanities like Net Zero without even taking a formal vote, applauded by the BBC and the Guardian, neither of whom even make a pretense of critical analysis, and the UK National Health Service banning talk of mothers and replacing the term with birthing parents, and chest feeding to describe breast feeding, and an SNP government in Scotland sending a convicted male rapist to a women’s prison because he says he is trans, the UK National Trust trying to make its volunteers all wear LGBT+ badges….the tiny town of Thetford, Norfolk declaring a climate emergency and trying to get itself to Net Zero and going broke in the process….
Though the Girl Guides in the UK now seem to have suddenly woken up and are confining their membership to, guess what, girls….
Wonder when they noticed there are such creatures?
We have a severe case of feminisation here in Wokeachusetts too. A female governor (nothing wrong with that) but all state agencies are totally dominated by women and most of the next tier down. The energy policies here are very similar to NY. This state also has a plague of TDS.
All those women there are apparently too dumb to know how to get an ID or change it to their married name either. Or believe that the peon women are too dumb. Should they be asked if THEY are women? . This pissed off woman wants to know. Senator Tammy Duckworth believes ICE will shoot people in airports per her moroonic tweets. Loaded water bottles? Since she gets preferred treatment at said airports to avoid TSA and the rabble, she and the other bugs bunny maroons in congress hop away to their seats in First Class or Congress Class. Same thing.
Yuh- our congress which gets the best medical insurance on the planet- for free. But they can’t be bothered fixing our corrupted medical system for the rest of us.
We have a politician campaigning in Virginia who is stating that Trump is sending ICE agents to cities across the country to murder people.
And the worst thing, Sparta, is that so many people actually believe that BS.
Women who refuse to use their husband’s name are merely accepting the use of their grandfather’s name
NEW YORK STATE DYSFUNCTIONAL ENERGY POLICY
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/new-york-state-dysfunctional-energy-policy
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People are brainwashed to love wind and solar. They do not know by how much they screw themselves by voting for the woke folks who push them onto everyone. Their ignorance is exploited by the woke folks
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If owned/controlled by European governments and companies, would be a serious disadvantage for the US regarding environmental impact, national security, economic competitiveness, and sovereignty
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Western countries cajoling Third World countries into Wind/Solar and loaning them high-interest money to do so, will forever re-establish a colonial-style bondage on those recently free countries.
What is generally not known, the more weather-dependent W/S systems, the less efficient the traditional generators, as they inefficiently (more CO2/kWh) counteract the increasingly larger ups and downs of W/S output. See URL
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reductions-due-to-wind-energy-less-than-claimed
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W/S systems add great cost to the overall delivery of electricity to users; the more W/S systems, the higher the cost/kWh, as proven by the UK and Germany, with the highest electricity rates in Europe, and near-zero, real-growth GDP.
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At about 30% W/S, the entire system hits an increasingly thicker concrete wall, operationally and cost wise.
The UK and Germany are hitting the wall, more and more hours each day.
The cost of electricity delivered to users increased with each additional W/S/B system
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Nuclear, gas, coal and reservoir hydro plants are the only rational way forward.
Ignore CO2, because greater CO2 ppm in atmosphere is essential for: 1) increased green flora to increase fauna all over the world, and 2) increased crop yields to better feed 8 billion people.
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Net-zero by 2050 to-reduce CO2 is a super-expensive suicide pact, to:
1) increase command/control by governments, and
2) enable the moneyed elites to become more powerful and richer, at the expense of all others, by using the foghorn of the government-subsidized/controlled Corporate Media to spread scare-mongering slogans and brainwash people, already for at least 50 years, extremely biased CNN, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, NBC ABC, CBS come to mind.
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Empire Wind
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Owned by Norway, 810 MW; turnkey capital cost $5 Billion; Bank loans $3 Billion; Investors stake $2 Billion; Cost/kW = $5 Billion/810 MW = $6170/kW
New York State Utilities will pay foreign Owners 15.5 c/kWh for 20 to 25 years
New York State Utilities will mark this up before averaging it into their cost of purchased electricity.
Ratepayers and taxpayers are being screwed
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Per various laws, the federal and state government will pay enough subsidies, so the foreign Owners can sell for 15.5 c/kWh, for 20 to 25 years, instead of 31 c/kWh, without any subsidies, such as:
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1) Federal and state tax credits, up to 50% (Community tax credit of up to 10% – Federal tax credit of 30% – State tax credit and other incentives of up to 10%),
2) 5-y Accelerated Depreciation write off the entire project,
3) Loan interest deduction to reduce any taxable profits from whatever source.
Subsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt
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In general, utilities are forced to pay at least:
15 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from fixed offshore wind systems
18 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from floating offshore wind
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Excluded costs, at a future 30% W/S annual penetration on the grid, based on UK and German experience:
– Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement to connect far-flung W/S systems, about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to quickly counteract W/S variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, which means more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to provide electricity during 1) low-wind periods, 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar periods during mornings, evenings, at night, snow/ice on panels, which means more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– Pay W/S system Owners for electricity they could have produced, if not curtailed, about 1 c/kWh
– Importing electricity at high prices, when W/S output is low, 1 c/kWh
– Exporting electricity at low prices, when W/S output is high, 1 c/kWh
– Disassembly on land and at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh
Total ADDER 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 = 11 c/kWh
Some of these values exponentially increase as more W/S systems are added to the grid
Here is the rest of above comment
Offshore wind full cost of electricity FCOE = 30 c/kWh + 11 c/kWh = 41 c/kWh, no subsidies
Offshore wind full cost of electricity FCOE = 15 c/kWh + 11 c/kWh = 26 c/kWh, 50% subsidies
The 11 c/kWh is for various measures required by wind and solar. Power plant to landfill cost basis.
This compares with 7 c/kWh + 3 c/kWh = 10 c/kWh from gas, coal, nuclear, large reservoir hydro plants.
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The economic/financial insanity and environmental damage of it all is off the charts.
No wonder Europe’s near-zero, real-growth economy is in de-growth mode.
That economy has been tied into knots by inane people.
YOUR tax dollars are building these projects so YOU will have much higher electric bills.
Remove YOUR tax dollars using your vote, and none of these projects would be built, and YOUR electric bills would be lower.
In STP MN we have a female Mayor and all female City Council. Even my lefty friends are tiring of them.
The Green Energy Cliff With
MoronsMaroons In ChargeGotta keep the colors in order.
Unfortunately they have their own facts and logic, mostly from models and false news reports.
” to be issued at the end of 2030.”
I’ll fix that for her: . . . to be issued at the end of 2535, or maybe later.
[Thanks to Denny Zager & Rick Evans.]
I just listened to audio from Governor Hochul saying how she laments losing her high-earning taxpayers to Florida, and how they used to be “captive”. These people are communists. They would restrict your ability to travel, just like in the Soviet times. As for their energy situation, you would think that after a winter like New York just had, they’d be working full-stop to up their oil and coal production.
“As of April 13, 2026, the U.S. Department of State is reducing the fee for renouncing U.S. citizenship to $450, down from the previous fee of $2,350. This brings the fee back to the 2010 level. Note that there are additional costs, including potential “exit taxes” and professional tax advice, to ensure compliance with U.S. tax laws”
Exit taxes… I get why, but it’s still deflating to think my country charges people to leave.
I left South Africa 40 years ago and the government of the time took a fat chunk out of the little that I had.
It should pay for some to leave.
What, like the UK government is proposing to do with illegal immigrants? I can see a sort of revolving-door effect building up…
Maybe if we took everything they had on arrival (call it an “administrative fee”) and then deported them, they wouldn’t be so keen to come here in the first place.
put a tattoo on their hands- and with that, they can’t come back unless they bring a ton of money with them- I think America actually has some policy like that- you get expedited entrance and citizenship if you bring the $$$
JZ, no. I get your point, but no tattoos.
I was joking of course. Didn’t the Nazis do that to people? Now with high tech, they’ll just do an retina scan or whatever.
Then you have my apology JZ – I guess I’ve just seen too much craziness that I took it as a serious suggestion. I thought that seemed rather out of character for you!
They tax people to leave but hand out free stuff to illegals who come in?
The beatings will continue until moral improves!
The insanity will continue until sufficient damage is accrued.
I suspect it would not be difficult to mount a damages claim against Bloomberg for their perpetuating the concept of LCOE. It is still often quoted by those trying to make a case for weather dependent generators.
The biggest growth category for WDGs in Australia is now curtailment. Australia is very close to curtailment being more than additional capacity. So someone installs new 300MW wind farm that has a native CF of 33% so effectively 100MW of generating capacity added and curtailment goes up by 100MW.
None of the existing wind farms will be replaced unless the proponent gets taxpayer funding to do it. The demand has disappeared. The Australian economy is in collapse. POTUS Trump warned of this but the UN stooges implement globalist policy in Australia did not listen to his warnings.
Funding of curtailment will be the ultimate self destruct button in the wind and solar renewable electricity generation movement.
Because wind is only 30% effective and solar is less that 20% effective, when measured against installed capacity, an unexpected feedback loop of destruction was introduced. The builders of these systems are paid grants to over build capacity in a vain attempt to reach 100% potential load carrying ability.
This means solar generation continues to increase its installed capacity with ever more land covered in panels but still can only ever reach 20% efficiency at best. The periods on the sunny days when their overbuilt capacity can’t be accommodated on the grid, they are paid not to supply. They have built in contract compensation payment from day one and is why contracts for more and more solar are signed and built. That payment structure which is the same for wind, will become so big it will be unpayable because more and more renewables are constructed but unable to be accommodated on the grid. This feedback payment for not supplying at times of maximum generation is what will stop the madness.
We are close already to paying more for not producing energy than we pay for actual usable power.
This is beyond stupid contract obligation.
LCOE is just a means of rent seeking devised by Lazard.
According to the US Energy Administration (last updated: February 19, 2026) New York State relies on natural gas (50%) nuclear (20%) and hydro (20%) for electricity generation with wind solar and bio at ~10%.
About 20% of the total comes from other states and Canada.
But electricity accounts for only about 20% of total energy consumption, renewables including hydro supply just 3% of the state’s total energy consumption.
It is all fantasy, while the NYSERDA are kept busy with their CLCPA, ‘scoping plans’ and ‘dispatchable emissions-free resources’ in future like everywhere else the state is going to need all the existing reliable energy sources plus much more.
Correction: renewables
including hydroexcluding hydro supply just 3% of the state’s total energy consumption.There were cheers when the CO2 Endangerment Finding recission was announced. However, as some of us suspected, such a mere technicality, if it stands through all the lawsuits, we are seeing that it won’t deter the true believers,. They will ignore the recission just as they ignore thermodynamics and energy engineering.
The recision was less about saving NY, California and Massachusetts than about saving places like the Carolinas – purplish states where a little evidence might matter to the marginal voter.
“…where a little evidence might matter to the marginal voter.”
This highlights the importance of effective use of communication channels to get the message across. I credit the CO2 Coalition, for example, for increasing its presence on Facebook and other platforms.
USA is not experiencing the pain being felt in Australia with fuel shortages. Australia’s fishing and farming is almost shut down due to lack of diesel. Three weeks ago, the run was on fuel. Now the super market shelves are being raided.
Net Zero does not look so warm and fuzzy when it is viewed in the supermarket shelves.
Other countries may learn some much tougher lessons than what the USA is currently experiencing.
https://7news.com.au/sunrise/shoppers-warned-of-higher-prices-and-empty-shelves-as-transport-firms-park-trucks-amid-fuel-crisis-c-22030432
Australian shoppers are being warned to prepare for higher grocery prices and potential shortages within weeks as the nation’s deepening fuel crisis begins to ripple through supply chains.
Your greenies must be thrilled watching your economy collapsing- ’cause it’s helping save the planet!
Rick, I hope people see the real problem is the lack of reliable domestic energy production, not the use of fossil fuels per se. The envronmental NGOs do a good job of drawing attention to high fossil fuel costs spiking during the current war, and then explaining to their audiences that this is proof that relying on fossil fuels is what causes war, and why renewables are the only safe and affordable power source. It’s an easy misdirection for people who aren’t paying attention.
If it is any consolation, this appears to be typical the world over … it’s a diabolical shambles in Australia.
No worries and don’t soil yourselves with plant food done dirt cheap-
The secret to tackling the climate crisis could be right under our feet. Here’s why
Most of the recommendations for protecting the soil are standard agricultural practices, as least in the US.
The take away lesson from New York’s energy policies is, anything is affordable so long as someone else is paying. Even then achieving that anything does not make it effective or useful.
If you are able to achieve an outcome in energy provision that is reliable and affordable at a fraction of the renewable cost in both economic and environmental damage, why would anyone choose to not do that?
We must thank New York for being the test rabbit. They will be the first (ignoring California for now) to realise the energy policy they are trying to introduce males them poorer financially and more vulnerable in times of need.
The Governor’s attempt to blame the federal funders for not paying for her exercise is self destruction won’t wash with anyone.
This is New York you are talking about.
Roughly half of New York goes blue and the other half red.
Now what this is about is rallying the blue on an anti-Trump campaign. After all, everything is Trump’s fault, dontchaknow (/s).
We can only hope…
won’t wash with anyone.
If only that were true.
This is another good update about where we are here in NY on the crazy-train trip toward the inevitable crash.
“We are moving into a world of make-believe.”
As others have already noted, the make-believe scene has been apparent for decades now to the clear-eyed skeptic of climate alarm.
But to the committed “climate” activist, it doesn’t matter that the atmosphere does not, in fact, “force” absorbed energy to accumulate down here as sensible heat gain from the slightly improved IR absorption due to incremental CO2. As long as the misconception drives votes, it will continue.
Even many honest skeptics will concede the “forcing” + “feedback” framing of the scientific assessment of climate system response to emissions. There never was a good physical reason for expecting a perceptible “warming” as an end result when dynamic energy conversion within the general circulation so completely overwhelms such a tendency.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1knv0YdUyIgyR9Mwk3jGJwccIGHv38J33/view?usp=drive_link
Patience. It may take a few more years to fully expose the make-believe nature of the “climate” issue. But we have to keep on working at it.
The “climate” issues have been growing and evolving for half a century in modern times, 150 years +/- historically.
Point: a few more years may expose the make-believe, but it will take generations to get people to alter their mindsets.
“Without a federal partner, there is only so much states can do on their own.”
Where do they think that the “federal partner” gets its money? Santa Clause?
Fossil energy costs continue to soar. Terrible trump policies make it even worse. Green energy is the most stable, cost effective energy on the market. It’s why investment in Green energy continues to increase.
Do you really believe that or is a /sarc missing?
Washington State’s governor and our state legislators are similarly moronic:
The Dirty Business of Clean Energy (Rick Dunn, March 22nd, 2026)
“Washington State legislators must come to terms with their fatally flawed Energy Strategy and detached from reality promise of ‘energy equity’ “
I don’t think there is any credible evidence that offshore windmills can control the weather.
In certain aspects, they destabilize the local weather.
NY, NJ, and most of the NE are aligning with the West Coast in creating dystopias with sky high energy costs and taxes.
One part of the article is false: “…taxpayer and ratepayer dollars continue to be wasted…” From the perspective of the lobbyists and companies that have mobilized to rake in the subsidies and contracts with no discernible deliveries those dollars are a previously bottomless source of wealth. That the statement is true from the viewpoint of those who actually are paying the piper, since all that “free” energy will continue to cost taxpayers – and not just the ones in New York – billions for the foreseeable future will have no impact on that cost as long as the climate hoaxsters hold sway in every NY state government bureaucracy.
Your opening sentences require a concise definition of “wasted.”
Wasted can mean the money was spent gaining something of zero value, for example.
Very nice Francis, thank you. There is nothing new here clueless government making clueless proclamations. If wind and solar truly worked we wouldn’t need money from Washington or New York. Pitiful government.
I literally would like to slap this plastic faced governor across the chops. I don’t care if it is a women.
Meanwhile at the Department of Aluminium-
Billions for Rio smelter rescue hailed as ‘slam dunk’
The mayor is all smiles along with Rio shareholders.
“Since I have been Governor, more than $88.7 billion has been invested in clean energy through programs that have made us an example for the rest of the nation.”
The example NY sets is what to NOT do.