New York Needs to Pause What It's Doing on Climate Right Now or Face Huge Consequences to Its Energy Security!

Guest Post by Roger Caiazza of Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York.

On December 18, 2024, the New York Assembly Committee on Energy held a public hearing to gather information about New York State Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) revenues, expenditures, and the effectiveness of NYSERDA’s programs. During questioning, members of the committee asked NYSERDA and New York Department of Public Service staff questions about implementation of the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act). This article discusses the response to the question can New York rely solely on wind and solar.

This is the 800^th post at this blog. I am convinced that implementation of the New York Climate Act net-zero mandates will do more harm than goodif the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks.

Overview

The New York Assembly Committee on Energy hearing was intended to gather information about NYSERDA’s revenues and expenditures in order to gain a broader perspective on effectiveness of NYSERDA’s programs. I submitted written testimony describing NYSERDA’s RGGI program effectiveness that included two documents: my public statement and an attachment that documented the analysis of the trends and cost-effectiveness. I also included a link to the spreadsheet that generated all the trends and graphs.

At the end of this article is a complete transcript of the questions and responses. The body of the article is not going to provide specific references. Assembly Member Philip Palmesano asked the question about renewables that is the subject of this article. Jessica Waldorf, Chief of Staff & Director of Policy Implementation, New York State Department of Public Service and John Williams, Executive Vice President, Policy and Regulatory Affairs, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority responded.

Why Renewables

I frequently make the point that New York GHG emissions are less than one half of one percent of global emissions and global emissions have been increasing on average by more than one half of one percent per year since 1990. Even if New York were to successfully eliminate its GHG emissions the increases elsewhere we supplant our efforts in less than a year.

Palmesano made the same point that New York emissions are not going to affect global warming and asked what impact the emission reduction programs are going to have. I think that is an obvious question and it appeared that Waldorf and Williams had prepared to respond to it.

Waldorf said that there are other reasons “to build renewable energy resources in New York that are not just related to emissions. She gave two reasons: energy security and price volatility. Palmesano followed up early in her response questioning whether the emphasis on wind and solar was putting all our eggs in one basket provided energy security.

Waldorf’s explanation of energy security mentioned “localizing energy production here”. She went on to state:

The other thing I would say about energy security is price volatility. Customers are beholden to the winds of the fossil fuel industry and the up and down markets that we see from fossil fuels. Localizing our energy production and renewables allows us for price stability. That is definitely a benefit of building resources here.

With regards to energy security, my interpretation is that the Agency position believes that if we develop the wind and solar resources called for in the Scoping Plan that we will not be dependent upon other jurisdictions for our electricity. That ignores the fact that the supply chain for the rare earth elements necessary for wind, solar, and energy storage has significant risks:

Despite their global importance, the production of rare earth elements has become increasingly concentrated in China over recent years. Not only does this present a geopolitical and economic risk to most of the developed world, but it is also indicative of possible future supply constraints which could interrupt progress toward a decarbonized future.

There is another flaw in this vision for New York electricity system independence using wind and solar – weather variability. In my commentson the Draft Scope of the Energy Plan I argued that this is an unresolved issue that must be addressed sooner rather than later. All solar goes away at night and wind lulls can affect all of New York and adjoining regional transmission organization (RTO) areas at the same time. Therefore, when a future electric grid relies on wind and solar those resources will correlate in time and space.

This issue is exacerbated by the fact that the wind lulls occur at the same time the highest load is expected. I do not believe we can ever trust a wind, solar, and energy storage grid because if we depend on energy-limited resources that are a function of the weather, then a system designed to meet the worst-case is likely impractical. For example.

I believe that in the last 70 years the worst-case weather lull occurred in 1961. I cannot imagine a business case for the deployment of enough of any Dispatchable Emissions Free Resources (DEFR) technology that will only be needed once in 63 years. For one thing, the life expectancy of the candidate technologies is much less than 63 years.

At first glance, the price volatility argument is persuasive because we have all experienced the impact of increased fuel costs in recent memory. However, in the last two months the European electric market has shown what happens when an electric system becomes overly dependent upon wind and solar:

From November 2 to November 8 and from December 10 to December 13, Germany’s electricity supply from renewable energies collapsed as a typical winter weather situation with a lull in the wind and minimal solar irradiation led to supply shortages, high electricity imports and skyrocketing electricity prices.

The electric transmission connections to other countries raised prices elsewhere. Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt says they went up so much in Norway that the energy minister “wants to cut the power cable to Denmark and renegotiate the electricity contracts with Germany”. Swedish Energy Minister Ebba Busch stated: “It is difficult for an industrial economy to rely on the benevolence of the weather gods for its prosperity.” He went on to respond directly to Habeck’s green policy: “No political will is strong enough to override the laws of physics – not even Mr. Habeck’s.”

Finally, note that the DEFR technologies are proposed as backup with expected operations of under ten percent per year. Those resources will have to be paid very high rates during those hours when needed to be economically viable. That makes price volatility of a wind and solar electric system inevitable.

Waldorf also responded to Palmesano’s question about over-reliance on wind and solar:

The other thing I would say is we’re not putting all our eggs in one basket when it comes to generation resources. The points that were discussed earlier and in the zero by forty proceeding, we are looking at other zero emission resources and the value that they can bring into the grid. So, it’s not the case that we’re just looking at solar and wind. We are looking at energy storage, at nuclear, and at other resources and how they fit into the picture.

At other times during their response to questions Waldorf and Williams touched on the need for DEFR to back up wind and solar resources during extended periods of calm winds and low solar availability. In that context, they said the state was looking at these other resources. They are trying to make the need for DEFR resources a feature not a flaw.

Responsible New York agencies all agree that new DEFR technologies are needed to make a solar and wind-reliant electric energy system work reliably. No one knows what those technologies are. I believe the only likely viable DEFR backup technology is nuclear generation because it is the only candidate resource that is technologically ready, can be expanded as needed, and does not suffer from limitations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I do concede that there are financial issues that need to be resolved for nuclear, but this is an issue for any of the DEFR options.

Waldorf and Williams ignore the following point. If the only viable DEFR solution is nuclear, then the wind, solar, and energy storage approach they are advocating cannot be implemented without nuclear. I estimate that 24 GW of nuclear can replace 178 GW of wind, water, battery storage. Developing nuclear eliminates the need for a huge DEFR backup resource and massive buildout of wind turbines and solar panels sprawling over the state’s lands and water.

If I had the opportunity to ask them a question I would have asked if it would be prudent to pause renewable development until a DEFR technology is proven feasible because the choice and even the viability of any DEFR technology will affect the entire design of the future electric structure necessary to meet the Climate Act net-zero energy system. Throwing money at renewable energy without knowing that there is a viable backup resource is the last thing we should do because New York cannot afford to invest in “false solutions”.

One last point, Waldorf and Williams did not mention the effect of global warming conceding the fact that New York emission reductions are not going to make any difference.

Conclusion

I have always wondered how state agencies would respond to the point that New York GHG emissions are smaller than the observed increase in global emissions thus making our efforts inconsequential. The energy security and price volatility response given at this hearing was rehearsed and flawed.

The “localized” energy security advantage for the wind, solar, and energy storage approach is easily rebutted. Deployment of the resources is dependent upon supply chains that are anything but secure. Because all New York wind and solar resource availability is correlated, that means we will be reliant upon resources outside of New York for support. Finally, it is hardly secure that we must develop and deploy new DEFR technologies that are not currently commercially available on an ambitious schedule.

The intermittency of wind and solar has two impacts on price volatility. During peak demands and likely low renewable resource availability we need DEFR technologies that will likely be expensive. Even in the absence of DEFR, European experience shows that extreme price volatility occurs during these periods.

There are so many unanswered questions and unresolved issues that the only logical next step is a pause in Climate Act implementation until we truly understand how to decarbonize our electric system without adversely affecting affordability and current reliability standards.

---

Transcript of the Why Renewables Question

There is a video of the entire presentation available at the NYS Assembly website. The question and response is in the video available in the sub-listing of questions in Assemblyman Palmesano’s second link. The following is a transcript of the entire exchange that I captured using the Dictate application in Microsoft Word and then edited for clarity.

Palmesano Question during second round of questions at 2:05:32

New York contributes 0.4% of total global missions. China contributes 30%, has 1000 coal plants and is building more every week. In fact they expanded their coal generating capacity actually by 70 gigawatts, double our total generating capacity including wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, and natural gas. What true impact are we really making with this process? Are we just driving out more families, farmers, small businesses, and manufacturers because this only affects New York. It doesn’t affect China, India, or Russia which is 42% of total emissions. It doesn’t affect Pennsylvania. What impact are we truly going to make?

Waldorf response at 2:06:11

I’ll respond to that first and say that there are other reasons to build renewable energy resources in New York that are not just related to emissions. Some of them relate to things like energy security so localizing energy production here. Some of them also relate to a point that one of my colleagues made earlier which is a lot of the different fuel sources that provide our energy today are ….

Palmesano interrupted her here.

Palmesano follow up question at 2:06:32

You mentioned energy security. I’m supportive of wind and solar and support wind and solar as part of the energy portfolio but you’re putting all your eggs in one basket of full electrification. We don’t have the technology out there for 2040. Natural gas is used by 60% percent of New York homes for heating. Natural gas should be a part of the portfolio just like the diversified 401K. That’s what we should be doing with her energy portfolio if you want to stabilize prices and have energy security in New York You’re going away from that. It’s not gonna work. It’s not very successful. It’s gonna be very costly.

Waldorf response at 2:07:10

The other thing I would say about energy security is price volatility. Customers are beholden to the winds of the fossil fuel industry and the up and down markets that we see from fossil fuels. Localizing our energy production and renewables allows us for price stability. That is definitely a benefit of building resources here. The other thing I would say is we’re not putting all our eggs in one basket when it comes to generation resources. The points that were discussed earlier and in the zero by forty proceeding we are looking at other zero emission resources and the value that they can bring into the grid. So, it’s not the case that we’re just looking at solar and wind we looking at energy storage, at nuclear, and at other resources and how they fit into the picture.

On electrification we’re certainly mindful of the breakdown of how customers get their heating and electricity services today. In things like gas transitioning and our gas policy planning proceeding we are looking at the best way to make an equitable transition and what that looks like for the current customers that rely on those fuels today. It is not the case that we’re asking everybody to make the switch tomorrow. We see this as a transition that’s going to span several years, several decades in terms of meaningful returns transitioning away those customers that currently rely on natural gas to a cleaner source. It’s not the case that it is an overnight switch. We are really looking at the long term and trying to achieve those objectives.

Williams response at 2:08:35

If I could just add on the long-term objectives, focusing particularly on the generation aspects. We are in the midst of an energy plan process. We recently launched that and we had a meeting of the planning committee last week where we brought in a representative of the North American electric reliability council and representatives from the New York independent system operator. What we were asking them to really inform us about was how we should be approaching planning, over the next 15 years that’s our energy plan horizon. We asked what the nature of the resources that we should be bringing in. They responded that we must look at all the attributes that various resources can bring into the system. The emissions aspect is one thing, but we have to understand the varying different contributions to all of the engineering that’s necessary to run a secure and reliable electricity system. It’s not just a question of just the energy but we need to look at all of those other aspects of electricity whether it’s frequency or voltage. What are the nature of the resources that are necessary to do that. We are going to be taking a look at that through our energy plans.

#Caiazza #Climate #Renewables #GlobalWarming #Pause #ClimateAct

Roger Caiazza blogs on New York energy and environmental issues at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York.  This post represents his opinion alone and not the opinion of his previous employers or any other company with which he has been associated. Roger has followed the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and has written over 480 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.