Watching The End Game Of New York's Climate Madness Begin To Play Out

As I have written many times, with New York’s fantasy “net zero” energy plans, it is not a question of whether they will fail, but only when and how.  The Democrats, who dominate state politics, and their environmentalist allies, are firmly committed to the impossible.  Thus, they are caught in a trap of their own making, and from which there is no good escape.  The fact that they are caught in this trap is obvious to anyone with basic arithmetic skills, but almost all of our politicians and environmentalists lack those.  However, a small handful of them are starting to sense the impending crash.  This makes for amusing interplay.

The state’s Climate Act of 2019 directs hostility to fossil fuels on all fronts.  In the realm of electricity, the Act mandates 70% of electricity from “renewables” by 2030, and 100% from “zero emissions” sources by 2040.  The official plan for achieving those mandates basically boils down to building lots of wind turbines and solar panels, and then lots more of same — principally off-shore wind turbines — until a flood of infinitely “free” wind and sun washes over us and brings us to energy nirvana.  Meanwhile, also on the path to “net zero,” development of natural gas infrastructure is to be halted and reversed.  More than half way to the 2030 deadline, the progress toward the 70% renewable electricity goal has actually been negative (due to the premature closure of two large nuclear power plants).  On the natural gas front, two big pipeline projects have been blocked by the state environmental regulator (DEC) on phony grounds of “water quality.”  And meanwhile there are plans for big new electricity consumers (chip plants and data centers) in the upstate area.  

Time to crank up the wind turbines!  And then President Trump swept back into office, and as one of his first acts pulled the plug on the off-shore wind projects.

So as of this past Spring, here’s where we were:  lots of new electricity demand coming along, all new natural gas infrastructure (including two big new pipelines) blocked, and the planned future of wind turbines (which wouldn’t work in any event) also blocked.  Does anyone see a potential problem here?