I did, but that doesn’t mean by 2030 as their goals have now shifted.
DB2
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Governor Hochul is trying to make a workable plan to meet the legislated goals. The efforts taken so far have done little make much progress, and they are way behind in meeting the 70% renewable energy goal. They should instead have something like a “zero-carbon electricity” goal. That way, nuclear power could be allowed to contribute.
From January…
From the link:
A policy book released alongside Hochul’s speech says the governor plans to direct state agencies to “establish a clear pathway for additional advanced nuclear generation to support grid reliability.” A nuclear reliability “backbone” will be developed through a new Department of Public Service process “to consider, review, and facilitate a cost-effective pathway to 4 gigawatts of new nuclear energy.”
If successful, the buildout would bring New York’s total nuclear fleet to more than 8 GW. The state currently has three plants with four operating reactors totaling 3.4 GW of capacity, all owned by Constellation Energy. Nuclear power supplies about 21% of New York’s electricity.
_ Pete
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I’m still shocked that being 15% below the 1990 levels is not being considered a win. Yeah it wasn’t as much as the original unrealistic goal. But it’s 15% lower than 36 years ago. For crying out loud, THIS IS A GOOD THING.
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If I understand the program correctly, the 2030 goal is for renewable energy. There is a carbon-free goal in 2040 that includes nuclear.
Unfortunately New York (like the UK) codified their unrealistic goals into law. Now they have to figure a way out “without imposing new and additional crushing costs”.
DB2
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Your suggestion of “a “zero-carbon electricity” goal. That way, nuclear power could be allowed to contribute.” But your suggestion will only deal with 17% of their GHG emissions. How is NYS going to deal with the other 83% of their GHG emissions?
Electrical power generation is only 17% of the total NY state GHG emissions in 2024:
And going with nuclear is risky. The large nuclear power plants are too expensive and they take 10 years to generate any electricity. The small nuclear plants (SMR) are not yet commercial and NY needs firm cost and schedule.
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A very good question. Their scoping plan (from 2022 IIRC) has a lot of pending and TBD entries. Which is probably why they never wrote up the required regulations and ended up in court.
Here is one regulation that was to take effect at the beginning of this year…
Hochul signed the bill into law in 2023. It requires new construction buildings that are below seven stories tall have electric heat and appliances. The law also applied to commercial buildings with 100,000 square feet or more. The law would then expand to include taller residential buildings and commercial building in 2029.
DB2
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The latest New York State budget has shifted things around a bit. Here’s a summary of the changes by a law firm (GreenbergTraurig).
1] The 2024 deadline for promulgating “cap and trade” regulations gets moved from 2024 to 2028.
2] The mandate for 40% reduction in GHG emissions in 2030 is eliminated. In its stead, we get non-binding target of a 60% reduction in GHG emissions by 2040.
3] The “70% of electricity from renewables” mandate seems to remain in place.
The regulations in 1 are not more likely to be more feasible in 2028 than in 2024.
A 60% reduction in emissions by 2040 is as unlikely as 40% by 2030. With 16 years to go, it is likely to be ignored for a decade. Note that it is no longer a mandate.
The 70% renewable electricity in just four years remains highly unrealistic.
DB2
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Just to put some numbers on this…
Remember that the 70% goal is supposed to be achieved by 2030.
In 2015, New York produced 24.3% of its electricity from renewable sources. This includes hydro, biomass, wind, utility scale solar, and small scale solar.
By 2025, this had gone up to 32.6% renewables. Over 10 years, New York increased the renewables percentage by 8.3%. But, they need to go from 32.6% to 70% renewables in only 5 more years. Obviously, this isn’t going to happen with the current effort.
It gets even worse. In 2015, the percentage of clean, zero-carbon electricity generated in New York was 56.1%. By 2025, this had gone down to 53.3%! Despite some modest increases in renewable electricity, the state actually produced less clean electricity last year compared to 10 years previous.
But it was more important to shut down a perfectly safe nuclear power plant than to reduce CO2 emissions.
Data for 2015 and 2025 from here and here.
_ Pete
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