Brace for skyrocketing electric bills and possible blackouts, New York: The state Climate Action Council voted 19-3 Monday to OK a reckless clean-energy scheme.
To carry out the state’s equally unreal 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, the plan aims to convert New York’s energy grid into an utterly unprecedented zero-emissions system, with 70% of electric power coming from clean-energy sources by 2030 and 100% by 2040. It’s now 50%, most of it nuclear and hydro-power that’s not set to expand significantly.
So it’ll take outright “magic” to make the plan work, as dissenting panel member Gavin Donohue puts it. The state simply won’t have enough zero-emission sources (solar, wind, hydroelectric power, etc.) in place to its meet growing demand for juice. And it’s choking investment in proven sources.
In September, the New York State Independent System Operator, which oversees the electricity market, reported that New Yorkers will need between 111 gigawatts and 124 GWs of power by 2040 — and even that “may not be sufficient” to ensure a “reliable” supply. Yet power plants in the state can now put out just 41 GW, and some of those plants will be shutting down.
So just how realistic is it to expect New York to build out the kind of infrastructure it will need in the next 18 years, especially when it was able to add just 12.9 GW over the past 23?
“Reliability is paramount,” yet it’s “not adequately addressed,” rails Donohue.
How will this mindbogglingly expensive shift to renewables be paid for — and whose pockets, specifically, will be picked? That’s not in the “plan.”
The blueprint cites a gross figure of $295 billion, surely a lowball, as far more power sources will be needed to cover for “renewable” plants that don’t work unless the wind blows and the sun shines. Nor does it include adequate energy-storage costs.
As for who pays: “There was no comprehensive ratepayer impact analysis,” notes Donohue. “Energy consumers” won’t be able “to fully understand” what the plan will do to their “energy bills and the economy,” nor how New Yorkers will be able to afford it.
It’s somehow become liberal dogma that lawmakers can simply order a green future into existence. So New York’s Legislature, along with ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his successor, Kathy Hochul, have duly dictated it, stacking the “independent” council with a majority to rubber-stamp the madness. The Empire State’s citizenry will pay a steep price because of it — often while sitting in the dark, freezing.
