CFIF remains vigilant in sounding the alarm about a costly new crony capitalist “Clean Energy Standard” (CES) boondoggle in New York state, and a new report this week from the Empire Center for Public Policy further exposes the destructively high cost that state citizens and businesses will pay under the plan.
The CES is a global warming alarmist scheme unveiled last month by New York’s Public Service Commission (PSC), whose members were appointed by Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo. The plan imposes a draconian demand that at least 50% of the state’s energy will come from carbon-neutral plants like solar and wind by just 14 years from today. The CES plan would compel New York power generators to purchase “Zero Emission Credits” (ZECs) from carbon-neutral generators through a state government bureaucracy, which would in turn be handed to struggling upstate nuclear power plants.
Not only is the plan extremely costly – at least an additional $1 billion in the first two years alone, and an estimated $8 billion over the CES plan’s lifespan – but it amounts to yet another governmental example of crony capitalism because it benefits a single company named Exelon.
Matters only got worse this week for the CES boondoggle when the Empire Center released a report finding that the plan will cost New York consumers $3.4 billion over just the first five years. As summarized by Empire Center analyst Ken Girardin, existing carbon-neutral plants don’t generate nearly enough power to sustain the scheme, and it will also require costly new infrastructure:
The new standard’s goal for solar power would translate into roughly 200 times the capacity of New York’s largest existing utility-grade solar panel farm, which is at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island. It also calls for enough new land-based wind turbines to cover, at a minimum, an area the size of Putnam County.
Most of the added solar and land-based wind-generating capacity would have to be located upstate – but nearly two-thirds of the state’s electricity is consumed downstate, and power lines linking the regions aren’t up to the task. In fact, the transmission grid already required extensive upgrades before the new mandate was imposed, as Governor Cuomo acknowledged when he pushed during his first term for grid improvements called ‘the Energy Highway.’ But the highway is stalled, and the Clean Energy Standard doesn’t deal with the issue.
Another problem: solar panels and wind turbines generate power only intermittently, since the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow. But the new standard also makes no allowance for energy storage or standby generators powered by conventional sources, which would add further to the cost of a big shift to renewables.”
“It’s one of the biggest tax hikes in state history,” Mr. Girardin noted, “and it’s a hidden tax that they will never see on their bills.”
It’s bad enough that the CES constitutes yet another example of unnecessary crony capitalism perpetrated by the climate change-industrial complex. With the Empire Center exposing just how costly it will be for New York state citizens and businesses, there’s no excuse for failing to stop it before the damage is done.
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