Feb 27, 2023 – Richard Ellenbogen at the podium in the New York State Capitol in Albany addressing Smart Energy Solutions.
Dedicated to ensuring that New York State’s lights stay on despite the best efforts of our politicians to do otherwise.
The Dark Future Of
New York Energy
Richard Ellenbogen 1-12-2022
About the Author
This is the unabridged version of the article that recently appeared in print.
In December, after two years of planning, New York State released its long-awaited Climate Blueprint for transitioning off of fossil fuels.
There are two major problems with it. First, within its 861 pages it does not provide for a way to pay for it. More importantly, it does not provide for a viable plan to execute the transition. In the interim, NY State is decertifying existing generating plants without a viable plan B. This is going to end badly. I write this as a father who has a twenty-three-year history of decarbonizing my business and my home with my children’s futures in mind. Along the way, I have fought with utilities, zoning boards, designed many of the systems myself and ultimately realized my goals of cleaner and more cost-effective energy. It is from that perspective that I am pointing out the significant shortcomings of the state’s plans that will dramatically delay carbon reductions and proposing cost effective alternatives that will accelerate carbon reductions.
Nothing on this website is intended to be used to support any effort against the installation of renewable generation or carbon free generation on the supply side.
It should be installed as quickly and with as much capacity as logistics, economics, and local public sentiment will allow. Climate change is real.
Electric vehicles that can easily replace fossil fuel driven cars and trucks that account for over 50% of the state’s carbon emissions should also be adopted as quickly as possible. However, adding other equipment that will greatly increase the electric utility system load with much less improvement in rapid Greenhouse Gas Reduction should be avoided.
Those that are pushing the policy to electrify onsite heating and shutter or refuse permitting of high efficiency gas generating plants are sending the state down a dangerous and fatal path for its citizenry. The utility system will simply not be able to handle it and ignoring math, physics, economics, and the embedded NIMBY sentiments will not change the reality.