New York’s goal of becoming nearly completely reliant on clean energy within the next 30 years is an economic disaster that could bleed citizens’ wallets dry, an economic analyst told The Daily Caller News Foundation Thursday.
Attempting to meet the state’s so-called 80 by 50 mandate is unrealistic and could cost consumers more than $1 trillion by 2050, according to Jonathan Lesser, the president of consulting firm Continental Economics. He does not have much faith in New York’s Clean Energy Standard, which seeks to reduce the state’s gas emission 80 percent by 2050.
“They might say ‘Oh. They’re just climate deniers,’” he said about environmentalist might criticize his findings, “but it has nothing to do with whether you believe in climate change or not. It’s simple economics.”
Meeting the standard requires electrifying the state’s entire economy on a massive scale, said Lesser, whose forthcoming Aug. 22 report for the Manhattan Institute highlights the costs associated with the policy. It’s nearly impossible for state officials to construct the number of wind turbines and solar panels necessary to eliminate the need for fossil fuels, he added.
Even with enormous gains in energy efficiency, the mandate would require installing at least 100,000 megawatts (MW) of offshore wind generation, or 300,000 MW of solar power capacity by 2050, which is enormous by today’s standards. The U.S. has only about 11,300 MW of new solar power capacity. Hitting that mark would require installing at least 200,000 MW of battery storage to compensate for the intermittency of solar and wind power.
New York state regulators have also not considered the costs associated with the 1,000 miles of new high-voltage transmission facilities needed to shuttle the electricity to consumers. Worse still, he said, such a large buildup of renewable infrastructure will surely have significant effects on the environment, which will come with a cost.
“It’s possible that battery tech could improve so quickly that it will be trivial,” Lesser said about those who suggest technology could render the cost projections moot. “But by 2050 we could be flying in cars fueled by anti-gravity pills. But taking into cost of new technologies, I still don’t see the cost falling.”
The policy’s advocates get the basic economics wrong because they use the social cost of carbon, which was developed by former President Barack Obama, Lesser said. But if New York reduced its carbon emission to zero by tomorrow, it would have almost no effect on temperature or climate.
Eliminating all of New York’s fossil fuel consumption would still not reduce climate change because China and India are among the top carbon emitters on the planet. China plans to increase its coal capacity up to 20 percent.
Chinese officials proposed a five-year plan last year that would “raise coal-fired power capacity from around 900 gigawatts last year to as high as 1,100 gigawatts by 2020,” which is “more than the total power capacity of Canada,” according to a report earlier this year from The Wall Street Journal.
China’s coal power generation hit a record 396.1 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in March, which is 8 percent above coal generation from the previous year. That month’s level of coal production came after the country generated a record-breaking 385.6 billion kWh in December 2016, according to recent reports from energy group Platts Top.
Read more at Daily Caller
Don’t Forget the State of new York is run by a Demac-RAT one Andrew Cuomo a arrogant old peacock in need of a good plucking
I am sick and tired of AGW Alarmists calling us “deniers”.
The real deniers are the Alarmists.
They steadfastly refuse to accept the fact that CO2 is NOT causing global warming. No matter how much proof the skeptics present to them, they “deny” either reading it, or trying to understand it.
Even highly educated people still keep harping about reducing our carbon footprint and reducing GHGs.
The GHG Theory has been debunked. CO2 has nothing to do with climate change.
There’s dreams….then there’s hallucinations.
The actual cost of New York’s 80 by 50 mandate will be 10 billion dollars. That is the cost it will be sold at. Then once the project is well on the way the real costs will come in.
This is what will happen if it follows the example of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. I lived there at the time but fortunately far enough to the south to avoid the taxes for it. This system was sold to the voters as costing 10 million. It ended up costing over a billion.
If we are lucky New York as well as California will have left the United States by the time the real costs of 80 by 50 hit.
Another example of blatant lies…..Ontario passed the “Green Energy and Green Economy act” . Closing the coal fired generating stations would save the government 4.4 Billion dollars in health care costs ( we have socialized health care).
Rick Smith PhD biology , head of Environmental Defence Canada promised that the Green initiative would be cost-free to Hydro customers.
“Ontarians won’t even notice any impact on their electricity rates” he said.
Our electricity costs have doubled. The Liberals have tried to fix the mess by subsidizing rates with tax breaks and borrowing money to pay the stupid supply contracts they signed with Samsung Group. You’re absolutely correct, they lie through their teeth to get the ball rolling. So what if they lose the next election? They won the battle for the Warmists.
NY energy rates are already some of the highest in the country .
Cuomo should already know that fuel poverty deaths will be caused by this foolish and avoidable policy . Anyone who loses a family member or friend due to this population pruning technique should personally sue the politicians who vote to eliminate poor people
via freezing and hypothermia . Europe already kills 30,000 people a year using the same social engineering technique .
Yes Amber, the impact is worse for the poor. But they create programs to help the poor pay their bills, looking like White Knights. Income redistribution disguised as kindness. Who screwed up our Hydro bills? The “white Knights”
The Useful Idiots Climate March and as these useful idiots march through the streets carrying stupid signs and banners with stupid slogans on them then they leave mountians of trash behind them and lead by hypotcrites like Al Bore Leonardo DiCaprio,Robert Kennedy Jr and their ilk