January 19, 2016
by Bob Ciesielski
In the last quarter of 2015, the Atlantic Chapter was busy monitoring, advocating and, in some cases, applauding a number of important energy developments in New York.
Here’s a roundup:
- The Atlantic Chapter, the Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign (BCC), and numerous environmental organizations have made formal comments to the Public Service Commission (PSC) on the New York Energy Plan and the Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) plan, and to NYSERDA on its Clean Energy Fund (CEF) and the Green Bank proposals.
- This summer, the release of the New York Energy Plan set goals of producing 50 percent of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 40 percent by 2030, and a 600 trillion Btu increase in energy efficiency. On October 8, Governor Cuomo restated the goal of reducing GHG emissions by 40 percent by 2030. In December, the governor directed the PSC to establish a Clean Energy Standard to mandate 50 percent renewable energy generation and the GHG reduction targets by 2030.
- The governor has also announced an initiative to work with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) to increase payments for the burning of carbon. In other actions, NYSERDA has pledged $1.5 billion over the next ten years towards development of utility-scale renewable energy solar and wind projects. The Chapter and BCC continue to advocate mechanisms to insure these goals are met. Goals must be mandatory, with interim targets to measure progress. Penalties could be imposed for failure to meet renewable energy installation targets. Variable contracts such as renewable energy power purchase agreements (PPAs), requests for proposals (RFPs) and the feed-in-tariff (FIT) can all be implemented to guarantee that production and installation goals are met.
- In the private sector, NRG, which owns the Huntley (Tonawanda) and the Dunkirk coal plants, has announced plans to close Huntley and mothball Dunkirk. Testimony given in PSC hearings concerning the Cayuga coal plant indicate that transmission line upgrades could eliminate the need for the plant. Studies have shown that all three plants could close without electricity reliability issues.
- Meanwhile, Entergy has announced the closure within the next several years of the FitzPatrick nuclear plant on Lake Ontario, which employs 600 workers. (See here for more info.) In this realm, the Chapter and the BCC have been working to promote a “just transition” strategy in the state, which would provide replacement jobs and/or job training for union workers employed at these plants, and reimburse municipalities and school districts for lost revenue from reduced property taxes.
- It is necessary to rapidly increase renewable energy facilities and energy efficiency to replace energy from closing coal, nuclear and oil plants. We must also prevent the buildout of a fracked methane gas infrastructure in the state. The artificially low price of methane gas is being used to promote the fuel. Yet the economic opportunities of renewable energy and energy efficiency are enormous.
- For example, the Solar City plant in Buffalo has already started hiring some of its initial 1,500 workers to manufacture one gigawatt of solar panels per year. The economics of increased onshore and offshore wind construction would also be a great boom to the state. The cost of solar and wind is now competitive with fossil fuels and nuclear in many areas.
- The momentum brought about by the Paris Climate Summit is noticeable. During the summit, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced a proposed increase of $3.5 billion in sustainable, low-carbon investments in the state pension fund. (See page 9.)
We applaud his announcement as trustee of the pension system, but will be monitoring investments to prevent “low-carbon” investments from going to nuclear power or fracked methane gas corporations.
While methane produces less carbon dioxide at combustion than coal or oil, the gas itself is 86 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in its first 20 years in the atmosphere. Nationwide leakage above 2% of fracked methane has proven the gas to be the most dangerous producer of greenhouse gases.
Bob Ciesielski chairs the Chapter’s Energy Committee.