{"id":196864,"date":"2025-09-03T12:59:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T12:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/196864\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T12:59:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T12:59:11","slug":"new-yorks-green-energy-fantasy-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/196864\/","title":{"rendered":"New York\u2019s Green Energy Fantasy Continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York\u2019s recently released Draft 2025 Energy Plan<\/a> is rooted in fantasy. The plan asserts that the Empire State\u2019s electrification and zero-emissions obsession will reduce energy costs, fight climate change, and create over 60,000 net new jobs by 2035. In reality, while the plan won\u2019t meaningfully affect the climate, it will devastate consumers and New York\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

The plan asks New Yorkers to ignore the realities before their eyes\u2014including surging energy costs. ConEd, the state\u2019s largest electric and gas utility, has requested<\/a> double-digit rate increases for its provision of electricity and natural gas, which will cost consumers an additional $2 billion<\/a> annually. National Grid has filed<\/a> for similar rate increases upstate.<\/p>\n

Those requested hikes are solely for natural gas and electricity delivery. As more fossil-fuel-generating plants close in response to the state\u2019s net-zero Climate Action Plan<\/a>, wholesale electricity costs will continue to soar, as growing demand, driven by the state\u2019s building- and vehicle-electrification mandates, outstrips supply.<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s climate plan also contains a litany of dubious targets and assumptions. For example, it commits the state to former Governor Cuomo\u2019s goal of deploying 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2035, despite that industry\u2019s having sunk under its own bloated costs.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, the plan assumes that someone will somehow develop, commercialize, and install currently nonexistent electric generating technologies over the next 15 years. Specifically, it claims that someone will retrofit 17,000 megawatts of existing natural gas-fired generators\u2014the equivalent of eight Indian Point nuclear plants\u2014to burn pure hydrogen by 2040. The plan also assumes that the state will somehow manufacture enough \u201cgreen\u201d hydrogen using surplus wind and solar generation to fuel those plants and build an entirely new pipeline infrastructure to deliver hydrogen to them.<\/p>\n

Even if developers created generators capable of burning pure hydrogen, the quantity of surplus wind and solar power generation needed to manufacture sufficient hydrogen to power those 17,000 megawatts is staggering. Producing enough energy to fuel even just the 10 percent of hours when electricity demand is highest would require building 13,000 megawatts of offshore wind capacity, which would require an investment of between $25 billion and $65 billion. That doesn\u2019t include financing costs. Nor does it include the cost of the hydrogen manufacturing facilities themselves.<\/p>\n

The plan also recommends that New York expand alternative methods for mass-producing hydrogen, such as gasifying garbage and other waste products. But gasification requires significant energy, and the plan\u2019s authors never identify where that energy will come from. Indeed, it\u2019s a thermodynamic fact that it takes much more energy to manufacture hydrogen than the hydrogen itself contains.<\/p>\n

Finally, the plan assumes that the state will implement Governor Kathy Hochul\u2019s recent order<\/a> for the New York Power Authority to develop an advanced nuclear plant upstate. Given the state\u2019s sordid history of political patronage, the costs of constructing such a plant will likely make former governor Cuomo\u2019s ill-fated Buffalo Billion<\/a> seem like pocket change.<\/p>\n

While the plan\u2019s authors plainly detail their ambitions for \u201ca cleaner energy system,\u201d they are less forthcoming about the overall costs. They list annual costs for only three years\u20142030, 2035, and 2040. They admit, however, that achieving the plan\u2019s net-zero scenarios would require New Yorkers to spend an additional $270 billion, before accounting for inflation, between now and 2040.<\/p>\n

The plan\u2019s authors seem to believe that consumers and businesses will welcome these changes. Consumers, they assume, will embrace higher electricity prices; happily trade gas furnaces and water heaters for costlier electric heat pumps; grow to love electric vehicles, despite slowing sales and the vehicles\u2019 poor performance in cold winters; and support electric utilities\u2019 ability to shut off large appliances remotely. None of those assumptions is realistic.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s more likely that the plan will break the bank. \u201cNew York\u2019s energy transition needs to be on a sustainable financial footing to secure wide benefits,\u201d the authors maintain. \u201cFederal funding and permitting is essential to this objective.\u201d In other words, they expect U.S. taxpayers to foot the bill for New York\u2019s energy illusions.<\/p>\n

These expenditures will hardly make a dent in global emissions. The plan projects that by 2040, pursuing net-zero policies would reduce New York\u2019s annual carbon emissions to about 125 million metric tons\u201466 percent lower than the state\u2019s emissions in 2022. But even under the \u201cNo Action\u201d alternative, the plan projects that annual emissions would decrease by 23 percent, thanks to existing state policies.<\/p>\n

If New York follows the net-zero plan, it will reduce emissions by about 1.5 billion metric tons by 2040. This may sound like a lot, but global emissions eclipsed 35 billion metric tons in 2016<\/a> and have, on average, increased 265 million metric tons annually over the last decade. New York\u2019s efforts will amount to just over two weeks of current annual world emissions.<\/p>\n

Instead of wasting taxpayer money on boondoggles, the state should enact policies that would actually reduce emissions and benefit the economy. For one, it should eliminate Cuomo\u2019s ban on fracking<\/a>, which would create thousands of new jobs and lower heating and electricity costs. It should also abandon policies that promote high-cost offshore wind and reopen Indian Point, which provided one-fourth of New York City\u2019s electricity at a low cost.<\/p>\n

With rising costs and growing demand, the Empire State cannot afford bureaucratic make-believe. It needs real energy solutions\u2014and policymakers committed to pursuing them.<\/p>\n

Photo: Emily K \/ 500px \/ 500px Prime via Getty Images<\/strong><\/p>\n

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