The New York Affordable Clean Power Alliance, the wind and solar industries’ mouthpiece, recently issued a warning about the dangers of Albany’s plan to phase out fossil fuels, while Gov. Kathy Hochul’s minions quietly kicked a costly Climate Plan can past her next election — two more indications that this madness must stop now.
Instead, state leaders intend to continue pretending, resulting in billions of dollars in unnecessary costs for utilities and taxpayers.
The Alliance’s most recent report warns that the state’s “ambitious renewables targets” pose clear threats to “maintaining reliability” — i.e., blackouts when electric demand surges.
Which could be in the dead of winter if the state is successful in forcing everyone to rely on electric heat.
The state’s insane Climate Action Plan is forcing the closure of dependable natural-gas power plants while failing to replace them with adequate (expensive and less reliable) solar and offshore wind installations.
The Alliance admits that renewables are intrinsically less reliable: “Renewables depend on weather conditions, making real-time supply and demand balancing more complex.”
Meanwhile, Hochul’s Department of Environmental Conservation has announced that it will not implement the “cap and invest” program, which would impose additional taxes on carbon fuels, before 2027.
When she will have won or lost her next, and possibly final, election.
However, New Yorkers are already paying for this plan with double-digit utility rate hikes.
Hochul claims it isn’t the climate mandates, ordering the Public Service Commission to look into executive pay and bonuses at Con Edison and utilities, but she knows the truth.
New York will not meet its “mandatory” goal of reducing gas emissions by 40% by 2030, let alone achieving 100% zero-carbon-emission electricity by 2040, but the state will incur unnecessary costs until it accepts this reality.
It’s beyond shameful that the state’s leaders are willing to inflict these ruinous expenses on the rest of us just to save face.
