Every time I write about this subject, it has gotten a little more ridiculous.
The background is that back in 2019, New York—both State and City—set themselves targets for “emissions” reductions and energy transformation that are quite literally impossible as a matter of physics, thermodynamics, and cost. [some emphasis, links added]
And then, just to show who is the boss here, they made the impossible targets mandatory by statute.
In the case of New York State, the statute in question is the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA or Climate Act).
Among the many requirements of that statute, the most immediate are a mandate for 70% of electricity from “renewables” by 2030 (known as “70×30”), and another mandate for 100% of electricity from “zero emissions” sources by 2040 (“100×40”).
I should also mention that the CLCPA also contains a deadline of January 1, 2024, for the State Department of Environmental Conservation to issue regulations informing us peasants how these various impossible mandates of the CLCPA were/are going to be achieved.
That latter deadline, you will note, has long passed.
So here we are, seven years into the CLCPA morass. The 2024 deadline for regulations got completely blown off without any attempt at compliance.
With four years to go toward the “70×30” mandate, it would be a gross exaggeration to describe progress toward that target as “negligible.”
The wind and solar facilities that were supposed to be generating our electricity by now have mostly not been built, and the few that have been built generate very little and at inconvenient times.
The natural gas plants that are the backbone of the current system and were thought to be obsolete and ready for closure have gotten seven years older without any useful upgrades or replacements under construction.
And our lightweight governor, running for reelection, can’t afford to offend the climate activists who are a key part of her base.
So what is the strategy? As far as I can tell, Hochul’s strategy is to pretend that there is no Climate Act and hope nobody will call her on it.
To use an analogy that I have used before, she is like Wile E. Coyote, having run off the edge of the cliff, and just beginning to notice that he is about to fall to the bottom of the canyon.
There was Governor Hochul on January 13, just a few days ago, delivering her annual “State of the State” address. Here is the full text. Somehow, all mention of the Climate Act and its mandates has magically disappeared.
You’ll need to scroll about 80% of the way through the blather of this speech to find any mention of energy policy at all. And when you get there, it’s about nuclear:
“And speaking of preparing for the future, we must plan for the energy that industries require. Last summer, I took the bold step of greenlighting the first nuclear power project in a generation, a vital part of our all-of-the-above approach to energy.
“At the time, we set a goal of building one gigawatt of nuclear power. But if there’s one thing I believe, it’s this: Go big or go home. So I’ve decided to raise the bar to five gigawatts.
“That’s more nuclear energy than has been built anywhere in the United States in the last 30 years!”
“Bold!”
Readers may remember that back last June, Hochul shocked the world by announcing that she had commissioned a state agency, the New York Power Authority, to go out and build one new 1 GW nuclear plant.
At the time, this was no more than a raw concept. There was not so much as a selected site, let alone a proposed design or a vendor. Now, seven months later, there is still no selected site. The State is out inquiring among upstate communities as to which ones might be interested.
The last nuclear plants to be built in the U.S. (the Vogtle plants in Georgia) were 14 years from shovels in the ground to commercial operation. Here we are, easily three years, and probably five, before shovels in the ground. This is not happening in any relevant time frame.
And I like that line about “our all-of-the-above approach to energy.” You have to wonder if Governor Hochul has even read the CLCPA. Its approach to energy is the opposite of “all-of-the-above.”
Some might call the statute’s approach “ban everything that works.”
Over at the Gothamist today, they sought out some environmentalists who are not fooled by Hochul’s pretending not to know about the CLCPA. The headline is “Climate activists find little comfort in Gov. Hochul’s State of the State message.”
For example, there is this from a cofounder of the Seneca Lake Guardian:
“Governor Hochul has betrayed New Yorkers. She’s not following the law, plain and simple, and all of us are deeply disappointed in her failure to lead and represent the people when it comes to public health and affordability in this state,” said Yvonne Taylor, co-founder of Seneca Lake Guardian.
And what’s up with that January 2024 deadline for regulations that Hochul just completely blew off? Readers may remember that back in October, a State Supreme Court Justice ordered the state to publish the missing regulations by February.
He gave the State several months, from October to February, so that the administration could go to the Legislature to seek a modification of the statute if they thought the mandates were infeasible. Now we are in mid-January.
So what has the State done? It has appealed the Supreme Court’s ruling. If you are the State of New York in state court, filing an appeal gives you an automatic stay of the court’s order. (Private litigants get no such consideration.)
Given the pace at which the appeals court (known as the Appellate Division) moves, that will likely put any decision on whether the State must publish the CLCPA regulations well past November’s election.
Thus, as far as we can tell, Kathy Hochul, along with the citizens of New York State, will live like Wile E. Coyote, suspended in mid-air over the energy canyon, at least through the Fall.
Read more at Manhattan Contrarian
