In New York State, the annual budget is due by April 1. Here we are on April 7, and no budget has yet emerged. Word is that the Governor and legislative leaders are hidden away behind closed doors hammering out the details. Word also is that somewhere in this “budget” process, the seemingly unrelated matter of the deadlines of the Climate Act (for starters, 70% of electricity from “renewables” by 2030) are about to get extended.
When the Climate Act (officially “Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act,” or CLCPA) was enacted back in 2019, the deadlines, beginning in 2030, seemed so very far away. The legislation was almost entirely activist-driven, with a willing audience of gullible and innumerate “progressive” useful idiots controlling the Legislature. Normal people generally paid no attention and had little idea what was about to hit them. However, as the deadlines have gotten a little closer, and as the costs of renewable generation have begun show up in utility bills, finally some of those are starting to wake up.
Meanwhile, what is happening over on the activist side? Have any of those dimwits taken the time and effort to examine the realities to see if their great plans might be starting to collapse? The answer is, not as far as I can tell. And there are plenty of examples of activists doubling down and digging in to oppose any wavering.
But first, a few examples of those belatedly joining the realist coalition. On January 9 I had a post titled “New York Business Community Starting To Wake Up About The Coming Energy Train Wreck.” That post reported that a group calling itself the Coalition for Safe and Reliable Energy — consisting of some 34 business and trade associations, one of them being the New York Business Council — had filed a Petition with the Public Service Commission, asking it to postpone the deadlines of the Climate Act with respect to the electricity system. This Coalition is a relatively small subset of New York’s large business community, but still a significant increase from the handful previously willing to speak up on this issue.
And in recent days, here are a couple of additional voices that have emerged:
- On March 30, something called the New York Energy Alliance published a piece titled “The Climate Bill Already Came Due in New York.” NYEA doesn’t say much about itself on its website, but Google AI identifies it as a “grassroots organization advocating for reliable, affordable energy including . . . natural gas, nuclear and hydropower.” The gist of the March 30 piece is a review of documents in recent rate cases of a utility called Central Hudson (one of New York’s upstate utilities) to identify causes of recent extraordinary rate increases. Conclusion: “The documents tell a story of how New York’s climate transition was deliberately financed through the utility rate case process. Politicians and organizations that championed that law, and even applauded the first wave of climate-driven rate increases in 2020, are now pointing at the bill they helped create and calling it evidence of corporate greed.”
- In the world of mainstream media, the Syracuse Post Standard has broken ranks. On April 5 it published an editorial titled “New York’s Climate Ambitions Need a Reality Check.” Brief excerpt: “In 2026, just four years before the first statutory deadline [in New York’s CLCPA], those ambitions are colliding with reality. . . . There is prudence in acknowledging these realities: New York can’t make significant gains while the federal government is pulling in the opposite direction. Nor can it solve the climate crisis on its own.” On the negative side, the Post Standard substantially blames the collapse of New York’s “climate” ambitions on the withdrawal of subsidies by the Trump administration. How could that make sense if the so-called “renewables” were supposed to be cheaper than the existing fossil fuel infrastructure? But whatever the excuses offered, welcome to reality.
Meanwhile, the climate activists are not about to back down. On March 31, the same Post Standard published an op-ed by two of the State’s leading climate activists, Anshul Gupta of New Yorkers for Clean Power and Carole Resnick of Alliance for a Green Economy (AGREE). The headline is “NY should implement its climate law, not dismantle it.” Excerpt:
The Hochul administration, facing legal challenges over its foot-dragging on implementing New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), is attempting to dismantle the law through the budget process. The administration’s stated rationale is untenable, its tactics are dubious, and if it succeeds even partially, the results will ultimately harm New York.
According to Gupta and Resnick, if New Yorkers’ energy costs are going up, the entities to blame are the evil fossil fuel companies. How do we know? From our “lived experience.”
New Yorkers’ own lived experience shows that fossil fuels like oil and gas are the problem, not a solution for affordability. . . . New York should learn from them. Extending the fossil-fuel status quo would only keep the state on its current path of ever escalating energy prices.
And finally, in the proceeding where the state Public Service Commission has asked for comments on the Petition by the Coalition of business associations to extend Climate Act deadlines, 18 progressive members of the State Assembly have weighed in with their thoughts. Politico reports on the legislators’ comment in its April 6 issue (behind paywall). The 18 include Deborah Glick (my own representative, and the Chair of the Environmental Conservation Committee), Chris Burdick (from some of the wealthiest parts of Westchester County) and, of course, all of the members who admit to being affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America. The leader of the group is Emily Gallagher of Brooklyn, herself one of the Democratic Socialists. One of my daughters lives in her district! Here is a picture of Ms. Gallagher from her Wikipedia page:
In its key quote, the Comment argues that the Public Service Commission cannot alter course on the state’s mandate for a zero emissions grid by 2040 until there is “evidence of current impediments to safe and adequate service, such as blackouts and outages.”
Politico comments, “Show us the blackouts!”
The 18 signatories only constitute about 12% of the 150 members of the Assembly, so we can at least hope that some substantial group of Democrats declined to sign.
I say, keep fighting guys. The longer this goes on, the more ridiculous you will look when the final collapse comes.
Let them destroy themselves. Just stay out of Texas.
The Great Feminisation of the electricity grid by Ms Gallagher and Co. What could possibly go wrong throwing off the chains of the patriarchy?
it reminds one a bit of the collectivization of agriculture under Stalin. Wasn’t working, wasn’t going to work, so the answer was to keep on keeping on. Regardless of the visible consequences.
Same thing is happening in the UK, which is now covering large areas of scarce prime farmland with solar panels, despite the UK being the second worst country in the world for solar power generation [Ireland is the only worse one] and a significant food security problem. It obviously cannot work but Miliband dismisses all suggestions that he might revise his plans.
It seems to be characteristic of the left in all countries in the 20c and the present centuries, that they never replace a leader who does not go voluntarily, and they never change a policy which is failing. The policies were usually adopted in the first place on purely ideological grounds and neither grounds nor policies may be questioned..
People here often claim that the resulting messes are deliberate policy. Don’t think so. That is perhaps to underestimate the power of human stupidity, ignorance and incompetence. But I do agree that the actual results are bad enough to appear to be compatible with a planned destruction of economy and society.
Hanlon’s Law cautions to “Never ascribe to avarice that which can be explained by incompetence”.
However, Bonk’s Corollary reminds us that “Avarice & Incompetence are not mutually exclusive.”
Einstein is reputed to have said that “…the only thing in the universe that is infinite is human stupidity”.
It’s been some decades since I spent much time in the UK but then North Sea oil was considered the panacea for energy needs as well as an economic engine. Now, much of the North Sea UK allotment is not being actively produced nor even explored for oil. Norway, meanwhile, is actively using its allotment to produce enough petroleum production to export and to fund important social needs.
It’s very bizarre.
Good article. Francis Menton is doing important work on these issues.
Ultimately there are two major errors in thinking that cannot end well. Both are driven by misconceptions of physical systems.
The first is to have supposed that emissions of CO2 from using natural hydrocarbons as fuel, through the slow rise in concentration, drive “warming” and weather extremes. This is physically unsound, as I often post about. This error must be exposed to eventually resolve the feelings-based policies. Dynamic energy conversion within the general circulation is the proper context for evaluating the risk. It is imperceptible. Negligible. Vanishingly weak. Some skeptics of climate alarm, not many it seems, “get” this point about the dynamics of the atmosphere.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PDJP3F3rteoP99lR53YKp2fzuaza7Niz?usp=drive_link
The second error is the absurd promotion of “cheaper” intermittent wind and solar sources for electricity while at the same time pushing electrification and decarbonization of transport, production, and heating. It’s not “cheaper” at all on a system basis. Rather, it is catastrophically expensive and unrealistic as many have pointed out. The physically unrealistic requirements for storage, and for overbuilding to keep it charged, are plain to see. Many skeptics of climate alarm are effectively working to make this point. Good.
Fight BOTH of these errors.
That is all for now.
I think that delusion is a requirement to be a renewable believer.
Nick Stokes likes to claim South Australia has the cheapest power generation in Australia but then if you ask him to explain why they have the most expensive retail power in Australia he goes all quiet and slinks off.
The 2026 AER price determination was initially released for draft in March and South Australia was supposed to get 1.3% decrease while most other states got 2.4-10%
https://www.aer.gov.au/news/articles/news-releases/aer-releases-draft-default-market-offer-2026-27
Due to the little crisis and GAS prices rising which is required to backup the renewables that will not be happening. Current estimates are a rise for everyone of between 10-15% in 2026 the final offer price will be out in May watch the politicians trying to sell a story then 🙂
“I think that delusion is a requirement to be a renewable believer.”
True. I try to choose different words than “gullible” to describe those who have fallen for the false claims – but Francis Menton used it in this post. He’s not wrong.
NEW YORK STATE DYSFUNCTIONAL ENERGY POLICY
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/new-york-state-dysfunctional-energy-policy
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Offshore wind, owned/controlled by European governments and companies, would have serious disadvantages 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
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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.
Some people refuse to admit they got it wrong.
Mad Ed Miliband comes to mind.
They are absolutely convinced that their ideas are GRAND and the reason the ideas do not work is that the peasants did not try hard enough and sacrifice enough and believe enough.
Brief observations: London is the financial center of Europe. Financial centers will be major users of AI. AI data centers require substantial energy, 24x7x365. The UK doesn’t have the energy. Something’s got to give, but both France and Germany have their own serious energy problems.
The future of Europe is looking grim on a great many levels.
It is looking grim. Especially since the leadership is in denial and are not correcting the problems, but instead they are exacerbating the problems by failing to change course.
I am suprised that any AI data centres are being considered in the UK with our World leading electricity prices.
She looks AWFL
I thought it might be the hat but on reflection it makes no difference.
Climate activists never heed Scotty’s declaration to Kirk: “Cap’n, I canna change the laws of physics!”
There seems to be consensus on avoiding mention of the simplest way to meet the goal of “70% of electricity from “renewables” by 2030.”
Note that is doesn’t say how much energy should be generated, only that 70% must be from ‘renewables.’
All they have to do is shutter more power plants, and/or curtail more oil & gas imports into the state, and Voila! Goal met.
If you think that’s an insane approach, you’re absolutely right. But don’t lose sight of the fact that NY keeps electing Democrats, who have demonstrated that they don’t allow facts to interfere with policy.
The only hope is that the intellectual giants running the state and NYC/Albany governments (since all other ‘local’ governments in the state are dwarfed by NYC/Albany) won’t think of this approach.
“All they have to do is shutter more power plants, and/or curtail more oil & gas imports into the state, and Voila! Goal met.”
Here in Washington State, the legislature has passed a climate act which mandates steep reductions in the state’s carbon emissions on a schedule which becomes highly aggressive after 2030.
The reduction mandates are hard-wired into the act. The state’s governor and his administration are expected to do whatever is necessary to accomplish the reduction targets.
Washington’s climate act will eventually force the closure of 4,000 MW of gas-fired capacity which mostly serves the west-siders in Washington State. All of that lost capacity must be replaced by wind and solar backed by batteries.
A cap and invest scheme enforced by the WA Department of Commerce is being relied upon to get the job done. The scheme is essentially a carbon tax whose proceeds are being distributed to various lobbying constituencies which support the Democrats in the legislature and the current Democrat governor.
However, so far, very little if any carbon emission reduction has actually been accomplished in Washington State.
The state’s cap and invest scheme hasn’t got a prayer of working. The only means of reaching the state’s targets on the legislature’s mandated schedule is for the state to begin enforcing direct rationing of all carbon fuels; and eventually, to enforce direct rationing of electricity consumption.
Whatever happened to the hydroelectric power from the Columbia River? I grew up in Spokane and the dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers provided abundant cheap electricity. (Remember Woodie Guthrie’s song” The Grand Coulee Dam”).
Did you know that the Grand Coulee Dam was left 2/3 finished with plans to expand it for more energy and more irrigation for the Columbia basin? That, I am sure, will never happen in Greenie Land.
I remember “Roll on Columbia, Roll on” by Woody Guthrie, written specifically for the Bonneville Dam construction.
Here in the US Northwest, all additions to capacity are slated to be wind and solar backed by batteries. The hydroelectric capacity is still there, but has no pathway for further expansion.
We will have no new gas-fired capacity at all, no new coal capacity (naturally), and only 100 MW of new SMR nuclear, maybe by the year 2040 at the earliest.
It is imperative that if the NYS Climate Act boil is to be lanced, then New York’s citizens must feel the real world pain of the Net Zero transition. How could this be accomplished?
An Alternative Net Zero Plan of Action for New York State:
As an alternative to Governor Hochul’s retreat from the 2019 Climate Act, the downstate climate activists, mostly those in the New York City area, have enough money and enough academic and regulatory expertise available to them to craft their own plan of action for implementing the Climate Act.
They could then use this alternative plan of action as a basis for negotiation with the Hochul administration, and as a means of convincing New York state’s voters that a renewable energy future is both possible and in the voting public’s great interest.
Their proposed plan of action would create a new state agency to coordinate the implementation of the 2019 Climate Act. This new agency would have plenary power over all other New York state agencies in all regulatory and project approval matters associated with the Net Zero transition.
The proposed plan would also include an engineering analysis which describes in some detail a renewable energy power grid for the state — i.e., what specific wind systems, solar systems, battery systems, and power transmission/distribution systems are to be employed; plus a map where all these new components and systems are to be located.
The Plan of Action’s estimated cost and schedule for the Net Zero transition:
A well-known principle in the world of project management is that he who controls the project’s baseline assumptions controls the project world, including the estimated project costs and the estimated time to complete.
Pick the right baseline assumptions up front and you can manipulate the project plan to produce the costs and schedules you want to sell to your customer.
The downstate climate activists could pencil whip a cost analysis which closely fits their ‘wind and solar is cheaper’ narrative simply by choosing an appropriate set of highly optimistic assumptions about what their wind, solar, and battery systems will cost — i.e., how much these systems will cost to purchase; how much these systems will cost to site and install; and how long it will take to install those systems.
If these downstate activists are so sure it can be done more cheaply and more quickly than what Hochul’s people are now saying, then they should be strongly pressured to demonstrate their claim using a professionally-developed engineering feasibility analysis, one which they themselves can well afford to pay for.
New York City to the Rescue:
New York City easily has enough room in its own city budget to fund an alternative Climate Act implementation plan, including a pencil-whipped engineering feasibility analysis which covers the entire state, an analysis which concludes that wind and solar is less expensive than gas-fired and nuclear.
My suggestion to Francis is that he find someone on the New York City Council willing to promote an alternative Net Zero plan of action for New York state as a whole, and to pay for the work needed to develop that alternative plan.
Thirty million dollars or so could pay for the work, especially since pencil whipping a cost analysis is much faster and cheaper than figuring out what the Net Zero transition would actually cost using real-world baseline assumptions.
The stupid leading the stupid, imagine that being an ignorant weak minded American who are highly allergic to facts/data that doesn’t support their delusional fantasies they dream in,
“Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out” —David Horowitz
Stupid is stupid does…..
“Corporate greed”.
Translation: Profits.
Show me a business not making a profit, and I’ll show you one that is on the way to the dumpster.
The adage, be careful what you wish for has never been so poignant. It seems these political environmentalists will get what they wish for, and then wished they hadn’t. They will probably be first to rob their neighbours because they are used to getting what they want without thinking of the consequences. More money has been spent on brainwashing the western public than was ever spent on improving the planet.
Western gov’t seem to forget all about the climate when they want to drop bombs and destroy stuff.
Good. AI data centers are being planned and built, and they’re being built in states friendly to fossil fuel energy. PA is poaching data centers that should be in NY. WV is poaching data centers from VA. Maryland is off the radar, completely. Tech is slowly moving out of the west coast. The cost of this will be lost tax revenues of hundreds of millions and billion of dollars per year. And once those data centers are built, they’ll never be relocated.
Here in the West AI data centers will require more coal power plants or small nuclear reactors. A small nuclear reactor is being built near Kemmerer, WY. Wyoming has abundant clean burning, low sulphur coal that can be produced cheaply by strip mining (without the black lung problems for miners). In fact much of northeast Wyoming is coal just under a few feet of topsoil.
The problem is that the power grid or system is interstate. Here in the West, how much of my Wyoming energy bill (Rocky Mountain Power is located in Portland) is due to the climate nonsense going on in WA, OR, and CA? It is frankly difficult to determine.
Washington State’s published strategy for replacing coal-fired and gas-fired generation in the Pacific Northwest includes building thousands of megawatts of dedicated wind and solar generation in Montana and Wyoming, and to construct a major transmission corridor across Idaho to bring all those dedicated megawatts of power to the west coast.
As for how much of your Wyoming energy bill is due to the climate nonsense going on in WA, OR, and CA, that’s a question you should be asking your Wyoming regulatory authorities. Not that they have any practical means of determining what the true answer is.
My understanding is the Bridger coal fired power plant is owned by Pacific Corp., and sends all of its output to California over the mountains.
Ms. Starzmom, you are a WA west-sider, are you not? This article goes into depth concerning the power issues facing the Pacific Northwest:
The Dirty Business of Clean Energy (Rick Dunn, CEO, Benton PUD. March 22nd 2026)
“Washington State legislators must come to terms with their fatally flawed Energy Strategy and detached from reality promise of ‘energy equity’
The comment section of this Rick Dunn substack article includes my comparison of what it will take to install 3,000 megawatts of 24/7/365 baseload wind and solar backed by batteries for the Pacific Northwest — an integrated renewable energy system which could match the baseload performance of four new-build 1,100 megawatt nuclear reactors.
The upfront capital cost of the 3,000 megawatt 24/7/365 baseload wind-solar-battery option is twenty-five times the upfront capital cost of four new-build 1,100 megawatt reactors.
It goes without saying energy is not the business of government, they suck at it. No better example than what is happening in New York.
If you wait for the blackout, then once the black outs start, you will have to live with the black outs for years while the energy system is rebuilt.