New York mandates Bold Cuts in Greenhouse Gas Emissions to address Climate Change

Transition from Fossil Fuels to Renewable Energy 

will Cut Emissions and create New Jobs

By David Kowalski

On July 18, 2019, NY Gov. Cuomo signed into law the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). It is the most ambitious legal mandate in the nation for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

The CLCPA mandates:

- by 2030, 70% of electricity will be generated by emission-free, renewable energy sources such as wind and solar

- by 2040, electricity generation will have zero greenhouse gas emissions

- by 2050, 85% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels, and a goal of net-zero emissions in all sectors of the economy

The CLCPA has specific goals and timelines for different types of renewable energy and energy efficiency. Distributed solar is expected to have a capacity of six gigawatts by 2025. Offshore wind is expected to reach nine gigawatts of capacity by 2035. There's a target for energy efficiency improvements (a 185 trillion BTU reduction by 2025) and storage (3 gigawatts by 2030) as well.

When he signed the CLCPA, Cuomo announced some initial steps toward the goals, including contracts for two offshore wind power projects that will generate 1.7 gigawatts, enough electricity to power 1 million homes. These wind power projects will create 1,600 unionized jobs and over $3 billion of economic activity.

Cuomo said there would be nearly $280 million in new investments in infrastructure to distribute the power and a $20 million program at the state university system to train clean energy workers.

The CLCPA also focuses on adaptation mechanisms, including increasing the resilience of infrastructure to withstand disasters. The legislation also establishes a process ensuring that investments from clean energy and energy efficiency funds benefit frontline communities that have been historically burdened by pollution or are at high risk from the effects of climate change.

Achieving drastic emissions cuts will also require tackling transportation, the largest source of emissions in the state, and buildings where natural gas and other fuels are the primary source of heating.

A 22-member panel, which will include state agency commissioners and others appointed by Cuomo and legislative leaders, will be given broad authority and three years to come up with a "scoping plan" to recommend changes the state can make to reduce its emissions. Specific industries or areas, such as transportation, will be the focus of sub-panels.

The text of the CLCPA is here.

NY's Master Plan for Offshore Wind Power is here.

 BATTERY STORAGE

Grid-sized Battery Storage Facility under construction | NY Times photo

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UPDATE: 8.01.2019

$1.1B Niagara Power Project upgrade is NYPA's biggest investment ever

ALBANY – The New York Power Authority will invest $1.1 billion in a massive modernization effort at the Niagara Power Project, the state’s largest producer of electricity.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, in a statement announcing the investment Wednesday, said the project will help the state meet its ambitious plans to transition a carbon-free energy system throughout New York by 2040.

“The Niagara Power Project is New York’s largest source of clean electricity and this modernization project will allow it to continue operating for another 50 years," Cuomo said in a statement.

Read the article in The Buffalo News

Trump's Wrong-Headed Energy Plan Ignores Clean Energy Revolution and Climate Change

Trump’s “America First” Energy Plan Leaves America Behind

January 30, 2017 Roland Hwang   Kit Kennedy    
National Resources Defense Council 
 

On the eve of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources confirmation vote for Rick Perry to be Secretary of Energy, it’s important to take a close look at the Trump administration’s plans for America’s energy future. The administration’s new webpage on “An America First Energy Plan” is—like much of the president’s rhetoric—wrong-headed, short on details, and divorced from reality.

In fact, it’s most notable for what it doesn’t say — there’s not a word about the clean energy revolution, a boom in wind, solar, and energy efficiency that is creating millions of jobs, saving billions of dollars, and even saving lives by cutting pollution. This misleading plan not only fails to put America first — it threatens to pull America back to the 20^th century. NRDC will fight to make sure that the Trump administration doesn’t succeed at making America’s energy choices worse.

Here’s a look at a breakdown of the Trump plan [in italics] contrasted with the authors' comments on what that plan gets wrong [no italics]:

The Trump Administration is committed to energy policies that lower costs for hardworking Americans ...

One of the best tools at our disposal to slash energy bills is energy efficiency — but it isn’t mentioned anywhere in the Trump plan. Since 1987, federal energy efficiency standards on appliances and equipment have saved Americans a cumulative total of $2 trillion on energy costs. Standards set in 2016 alone will save $75 billion on utility bills. With such tremendous cost-cutting power, it’s no wonder that federal efficiency standards have long enjoyed bipartisan support. Leaving efficiency out of an energy plan is a major oversight.

Despite wild swings in fossil fuel prices, America’s electricity bills and the per-kilowatt-hour rates recorded on them have been relatively stable and affordable for decades, thanks in good part to leadership at the state level in support of energy efficiency and renewable resources. In fact, after adjusting for inflation, U.S. electricity is cheaper today than it was more than a quarter-century ago, in 1990. And in some regions, solar and wind energy are already cost-competitive with fossil fuels, helping to lower everyone’s utility bills.

…and maximize the use of American resources… 

In 2015, nearly 70 percent of new electric generation came from American wind and solar power. Yet these American energy resources aren’t mentioned at all in the Trump plan — even though many heartland states, both red and blue, want more, as clean energy is helping revive both rural and rust-belt economies. And let’s not forget that Rick Perry’s home state of Texas is a national leader in wind energy. Today, more than 2.5 million Americans work in clean energy, from skilled factory workers making batteries for hybrid vehicles to military veterans who now scale turbine towers as wind energy technicians. China plans to create 13 million jobs by 2020 by investing in clean power. Where are the clean energy jobs in the Trump plan?

...freeing us from dependence on foreign oil.

Thanks to strong clean car and fuel economy standards set under the Obama administration, we’re already loosening the grip of oil dependence. The standards, which will double mileage for cars and light trucks by 2025, will also cut oil consumption by 1.5 million barrels per day — equivalent to current U.S. imports from the Persian Gulf. Standards save money for consumers, too —  nearly $4,000 over the lifetime of a vehicle. According to the BlueGreen Alliance, clean car standards will also create more than half a million jobs nationwide.

For too long, we’ve been held back by burdensome regulations on our energy industry.

The data clearly shows that environmental safeguards, rather than being a burden, have drastically cut pollution over the past 40 years while the economy has enjoyed tremendous growth. As the U.S. Environmental Protection reports, from 1970 to 2015, the Clean Air Act helped cut 70 percent of the soot and smog from American skies while the economy grew 246 percent. More than double the growth, less than half the pollution. That’s progress. Meanwhile, due to energy efficiency progress accelerated by appliance and equipment standards and building energy codes, the historical link between economic growth and total energy use was broken four decades ago and has not reappeared. GDP increased by 30 percent between 2000 and 2015, while total energy consumption remained flat.

President Trump is committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies such as the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule. Lifting these restrictions will greatly help American workers, increasing wages by more than $30 billion over the next 7 years.

The 117 million people whose drinking water supplies depend on Waters of the U.S. protections would hardly call it unnecessary. And when climate change creates international instability, dries up crops and ranchland, swamps low-lying communities and drives extreme weather that cost taxpayers $100 billion in 2012 alone, an action plan is surely in order. The Clean Power Plan aims to cut carbon pollution from power plants by 40 percent. Efficiency standards for appliances and federal buildings will play a big role in this, with a goal of cutting 3 billion metric tons of carbon emissions by 2030. There’s no reference to back up the wage increase mentioned in the Trump plan, but studies on the Clean Power Plan have shown that it would create as many as 274,000 jobs and deliver climate and health benefits worth $53 to $93 billion every year — including saving thousands of lives.

Climate Activist, Bill McKibben, looks at Green Energy Solutions in relation to Electric Utility Practices

Power to the People

Why the rise of green energy makes utility companies nervous.

By Bill McKibben  | The New Yorker | June 29, 2015 Issue

Mark and Sara Borkowski live with their two young daughters in a century-old, fifteen-hundred-square-foot house in Rutland, Vermont. Mark drives a school bus, and Sara works as a special-ed teacher; the cost of heating and cooling their house through the year consumes a large fraction of their combined income. Last summer, however, persuaded by Green Mountain Power, the main electric utility in Vermont, the Borkowskis decided to give their home an energy makeover. In the course of several days, coordinated teams of contractors stuffed the house with new insulation, put in a heat pump for the hot water, and installed two air-source heat pumps to warm the home. They also switched all the light bulbs to L.E.D.s and put a small solar array on the slate roof of the garage.

The Borkowskis paid for the improvements, but the utility financed the charges through their electric bill, which fell the very first month. Before the makeover, from October of 2013 to January of 2014, the Borkowskis used thirty-four hundred and eleven kilowatt-hours [3411 kWh] of electricity and three hundred and twenty-five gallons of fuel oil [325 Gal.]. From October of 2014 to January of 2015, they used twenty-eight hundred and fifty-six kilowatt-hours [2856 kWh] of electricity and no oil [0 Gal.] at all. President Obama has announced that by 2025 he wants the United States to reduce its total carbon footprint by up to twenty-eight per cent [28%] of 2005 levels. The Borkowskis reduced the footprint of their house by eighty-eight per cent [88%] in a matter of days, and at no net cost.

I’ve travelled the world writing about and organizing against climate change, but, standing in the Borkowskis’ kitchen and looking at their electric bill, I felt a fairly rare emotion: hope. The numbers reveal a sudden new truth—that innovative, energy-saving and energy-producing technology is now cheap enough for everyday use. The Borkowskis’ house is not an Aspen earth shelter made of adobe and old tires, built by a former software executive who converted to planetary consciousness at Burning Man. It’s an utterly plain house, with Frozen bedspreads and One Direction posters, inhabited by a working-class family of four, two rabbits, and a parakeet named Oliver. It sits in a less than picturesque neighborhood, in a town made famous in recent years for its heroin problem. Its significance lies in its ordinariness. The federal Energy Secretary, Ernest Moniz, has visited, along with the entire Vermont congressional delegation. If you can make a house like this affordably green, you should be able to do it anywhere.

Most of the technology isn’t particularly exotic—these days, you can buy a solar panel or an air-source heat pump at Lowe’s. But few people do, because the up-front costs are high and the options can be intimidating. If the makeover was coördinated by someone you trust, however, and financed through your electric bill, the change would be much more palatable. The energy revolution, instead of happening piecemeal, over decades, could take place fast enough to actually help an overheating planet. But all of this would require the utilities—the interface between people and power—to play a crucial role, or, at least, to get out of the way.

An electric utility is an odd beast, neither public nor exactly private. Utilities are often owned by investors, but they’re almost always government-regulated, and they are charged with delivering power reliably and at an affordable price. Utilities are monopolies: since it would make no sense to have six sets of power poles and lines, utilities are granted exclusive rights to a territory. When you buy or rent a house, you automatically become the customer of the local utility, assuming that you want electricity and you don’t plan to generate all of it yourself. To keep the nation’s utilities honest, they are typically regulated at the state level by a public-service commission that sets rates, evaluates performance, and enforces mandates, such as a requirement that a certain amount of power come from renewable sources.

Whereas most enterprises are about risk, utilities are about safety: safe power supply, safe dividends. No surprises. As a result, the industry “has not attracted the single greatest minds,” David Roberts, who has covered energy for various outlets for a decade and is now a reporter for Vox, told me. “If you’re in a business where the customer is the public-utility commission, and after that your profits are locked in by law, it’s the sleepiest business sector there is, if you could even call it a business sector. They build power plants, sit back, and the money comes in.” The entire realm is protected, he added, by “a huge force field of boringness.”

But what has been a virtue, by and large, is now almost certainly a vice. Scientists insist that in order to forestall global warming we need to quickly change the way we power our lives. That’s perhaps most easily done by giant companies with big budgets for new technology; Google, Apple, and Ikea have all announced major plans to switch to renewable energy. For average Americans, however, the biggest source of carbon emissions is their home, so the utilities’ help is crucial in making the transition. And, even without climate change, utilities face a combination of threat and opportunity from disruptive new technologies.

Consider the Borkowskis’ new air-source heat pumps, which use the latent heat in the air (down to about zero degrees) to heat their home and provide hot water. These devices have made it practical for electricity to be used for tasks traditionally performed by oil and gas. Smart thermostats, such as the Nest, allow you to make your home far more energy-efficient—and can even, when connected to the “smart meters” that are now appearing on many houses, permit the utility to turn your demand down for a few seconds in response to fluctuations in the supply of sun and wind. Electric vehicles provide a major new use for electricity and, perhaps soon, the opportunity for huge numbers of idle car batteries to serve as a storage system for reserve power. (Solar and wind power can be a challenge to incorporate into the grid, because they’re intermittent—cloudy days happen, the wind fails. Affordable batteries are essential to making renewable energy widely available.)

“Americans spend eight per cent of their disposable income on all forms of energy,” David Crane told me. Crane is the C.E.O. of NRG, the country’s biggest independent power provider; the company operates more than a hundred energy-generation facilities, selling electricity to utilities that, in turn, sell it to customers. Nobody wants that eight-per-cent figure to rise, Crane said, because when energy prices go up the country tends to trip into recession. But plenty of companies, including Crane’s, would like to see a larger slice of that eight per cent. “I’m interested in electric cars, for instance, not just because of the effect on air quality but because I want to take market share away from oil,” Crane said. “It’s a brutal fight for market share.”

Power utilities now face uncertainty of a kind that traditional phone companies faced when cellular technology emerged. A few utilities welcome the challenge; others are resisting it; and the rest are waiting for someone to tell them what to do.

Read the full article at The New Yorker online to learn about McKibben’s interview with the co-founder and C.E.O. of SolarCity. McKibben also interviewed the New York State chairman of energy and finance and learned about his initiative called REV - Reforming the Energy Vision - that is trying to change the rules so that the utilities can both shift direction and make money. 

Click here to go to The New Yorker online.