New York will confront an increasingly serious energy-supply problem of its own making within the next decade. A series of policy initiatives culminating in 2019’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act have committed the state to unrealistic goals that will increase electricity demand while making supply less reliable.
Among these policies are the state’s plans to electrify transportation and space heating, a peaker-plant rule that will shut down reliable fossil-fuel power generators and a de facto ban on natural-gas-pipeline expansion.
The overarching goal is to reduce the state’s total greenhouse-gas emissions by 85% by 2050. Along the way, the state aims for 70% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% emissions-free electricity production by 2040.
Read the full commentary in the New York Post. Adapted from “The Next New York: Renewing and Reforming the Empire State,” a project of the Empire Center at NextNewYork.net.
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