Another Non-reassuring Report On New York's Energy Future
April 22, 2023/ Francis Menton
As stated in my previous post of April 19, two separate Reports addressing the question of New York’s net zero electricity future have recently been brought to my attention. These two Reports are distinct from the so-called Scoping Plan, issued by the state’s Climate Action Council. The Scoping Plan is supposed to be the official word on how we are to achieve “net zero” electricity by some time in the 2030s. Unfortunately, this Scoping Plan is not a feasibility study, or anything close to that, and despite enormous length — 700+ pages between text and appendices — really comes down to no more than a direction to the low status people to figure out how to achieve the decarbonization mandates set by their superiors.
And thus we find that well-informed New Yorkers (a small number at this point), upon recognizing and inquiring about the rank inadequacy of the Scoping Plan, are being directed by their politicians to these other two Reports as supposedly containing the answer to how this is going to be done. One of the Reports, issued by the electric utility Con Edison in late 2022, was discussed in my April 19 post.
My subject today will be the other Report, titled “Initial Report on the New York Power Grid Study.” It has an issue date of January 21, 2021. Who wrote it? Under a heading “Prepared By” on the cover page, we find credit first given to unnamed “staff” of the New York Department of Public Service and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority; but then there is a list of some seven named authors, all of whom come from two consulting companies, the Brattle Group and Pterra Consulting.
Reader Bill Ponton has sent along several comments on this Report, and I’m going to feature those.
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2023-4-22-another-non-reassuring-report-on-new-yorks-energy-future
