{"id":317586,"date":"2024-04-14T08:04:37","date_gmt":"2024-04-14T06:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=317586"},"modified":"2024-04-14T08:04:39","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T06:04:39","slug":"illustrating-the-absurdity-of-new-yorks-energy-transition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=317586","title":{"rendered":"Illustrating The Absurdity Of New York’s Energy Transition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Manhattan Contrarian<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Francis Menton<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By its 2019 Climate Act, New York has officially embarked on a great energy transition to Net Zero by 2050, with statutorily-dictated interim mandates along the way. The first of those mandates is 70% \u201cemissions-free\u201d electricity by 2030, only 6 years from now. This is far and away the biggest government-directed project that the State of New York has ever undertaken. However, to date, relative to this project there exists no environmental impact statement, no feasibility study, no prototype, and no demonstration project to show how this can be done, let alone any detailed cost analysis to show how much it will cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Implementing the enforced energy transition is the responsibility of an alphabet soup of state agencies that makes the federal labyrinth of bureaucracies look simple and rational by comparison. Multiple overlapping departments, councils and authorities that have staffed themselves up with climate zealots take charge of pushing the transition forward \u2014 things like the Climate Action Council, the Department of Environmental Conservation, and the NY State Energy Research & Development Authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But meanwhile, there remain a couple of vestigial agencies tasked with keeping the lights on, notably the Department of Public Service and the NY Independent System Operator. Those two held something called the Zero Emissions by 2040 Technical Conference back on December 11-12, 2023. After all, somebody has to look over the minor \u201ctechnical\u201d issues along the way to our lofty climate goals for 2030 and 2040. Look as I might, I can\u2019t find any reporting on, or reference to, this conference in any of the local press at the time or in the months since. However, my friend and partner in crime Roger Caiazza (the Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York<\/a>), has tracked down information on the conference on various agency websites and on YouTube. On April 7, Roger posted a lengthy blog<\/a> reporting on the first panel at the Conference; a somewhat different version of that post also appeared on Watts Up With That<\/a> at about the same time. The slides for all the presentations at the Conference can be found as Item 72 on the public docket at this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll just elaborate here on a few of the absurdities that Roger has uncovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first panel at the Conference got the title \u201cGap Characterization.\u201d The \u201cgap\u201d in question is the potential difference between electricity demanded by consumers and the ability of the system to produce electricity at any given moment. Such \u201cgap\u201d is predicted to arise during the course of the energy transition because of the simultaneous shuttering of the natural gas power plants that currently form the backbone of our grid and the increased demand for electricity from the forced electrification of things like building heating and automobiles. And where will the electricity come from to fill this gap? From the magical \u201cDEFR,\u201d of course. The \u201cDEFR\u201d is the Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource \u2014 the \u201cresource\u201d with all the good characteristics of fossil fuels but without any of the carbon emissions. The current amount of DEFRs in existence and actual use to generate utility-scale electricity in the world is zero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A guy named Zach Smith gave the first presentation on the \u201cgap\u201d panel. Smith is the VP of System Resource Development at NYISO. Here is his first slide:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This thing warrants some careful study. The two graphs represent two different projection scenarios, for both resources and peak demand. The upward-sloping black line represents the peak demand. In the scenario in the left-hand graph, peak demand goes from the current level of about 32 GW up to about 60 GW in 2040, almost double. The right hand scenario has peak demand going only to about 40 GW by 2040, a far lower rate of increase. Frankly, with the proposed electrification of buildings and of automobiles, let alone the coming of AI, the projection of 60 GW is likely much more realistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we have the sources of the juice, shown in the bars. Natural gas is the big orange part in the middle. Currently, about 2\/3 of the power comes from natural gas, most of the rest from hydro and nuclear, and some little slivers from things like wind and solar. Then we see the projected changes. Supposedly, large amounts of wind and solar emerge by 2035, and natural gas goes down a little. Then in 2035, the DEFR (lavender) emerges, and by 2040 becomes dominant. In the left-hand scenario, the DEFR \u2014 something that currently doesn\u2019t exist at scale anywhere in the world \u2014 has supposedly been built to a capacity of about 50 GW, far more (indeed close to double) our entire current natural gas fleet, and far more than current peak demand. In the lower-demand scenario in the right-hand graph, the 2040 DEFR capacity is approximately equal to current natural gas capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And get this: In the ISO guy\u2019s view of resource adequacy, the sum of capacity from hydro, nuclear and the DEFR are almost equal to peak demand in both scenarios. Vast amounts of wind and solar capacity are built out, to more than 100% of peak demand in one scenario and closer to 200% of peak demand in the other scenario \u2014 but ISO doesn\u2019t count on any of that to be available when actually needed. The DEFR needs to be able to back up the intermittent renewables to the extent of the entirety of peak demand. So why again are the renewables going to be built at all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what exactly is this DEFR that doesn\u2019t even yet exist? Smith provides the following chart of the various possibilities that have been suggested:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Each column represents a criterion that the DEFR must meet to fulfill the role of replacing the natural gas. If you get a red mark, you are not up to the job. Well, hydro doesn\u2019t get any red marks \u2014 but we have already used up all of our hydro capacity, and we don\u2019t have another Niagara Falls. Wind and solar have obviously only been put on the list in order to reject them for multiple reasons. Really, there is only one possibility that is green all the way across: hydrogen combustion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that\u2019s it. Are we supposedly going to go from zero to 50 GW of capacity of hydrogen combustion power plants by 2040? Currently, no such power plants exist in New York (or anywhere else in the world), nor are any under construction, or in the planning process (unless you consider this slide of Smith to be \u201cplanning\u201d). Oh, and how about the capacity to produce the hydrogen? That doesn\u2019t exist either. Is the plan to make it from electrolysis from sea water, using electricity generated by wind and sun? Then you are going to need about four to five times the capacity of wind and solar generators than Mr. Smith has in his scenarios. He seems to have forgotten about that. (Or maybe the assumption is that we will buy the hydrogen from China, although they currently don\u2019t produce any either.). And how about the new network of pipelines to transport the hydrogen from the production sites to the power plants? None of that exists or has been planned for yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not a word about costs in Mr. Smith\u2019s presentation. You wouldn\u2019t want to concern the plebes with that kind of thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is impossible to believe that any of this is real. I\u2019ll bet you don\u2019t remember President George W. Bush\u2019s State of the Union address from 2003. Here is a White House press release<\/a> about it from the time. A few excerpts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hydrogen is the key to a cleaner energy future:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n