Again, I’m not against “green” energy: I’m all for it, as long as it is affordable, dependable, and reliable. Oh, and that it doesn’t create an environmental (meaning, not climate scam) mess
States have big hopes for renewable energy. Get ready to pay for it.
A generational push to tackle climate change in New York is quickly becoming a pocketbook issue headed into 2024.
Some upstate New York electric customers are already paying 10 percent of their utility bill to support the state’s effort to move off fossil fuels and into renewable energy. In the coming years, people across the state can expect to give up even bigger chunks of their income to the programs — $48 billion in projects is set to be funded by consumers over the next two decades.
The scenario is creating a headache for New York Democrats grappling with the practical and political risk of the transition.
It’s an early sign of the dangers Democrats across the country will face as they press forward with similar policies at the state and federal level. New Jersey, Maryland and California are also wrestling with the issue and, in some cases, are reconsidering their ambitious plans.
“This is bad politics. This is politics that are going to hurt all New Yorkers,” said state Sen. Mario Mattera, a Long Island Republican who has repeatedly questioned the costs of the state’s climate law and who will pay for it.
Democrats, Mattera said, have been unable to explain effectively the costs for the state’s goals. “We need to transition into renewable energy at a certain rate, a certain pace,” he said.
Places like NYC, Albany, and Buffalo, among others, should be forced to implement these green energy sources: let’s see how well they do, and how well the mostly Democratic party voting residents enjoy it. Seriously, can you imagine NYC running on pure renewable? With all those skyscrapers? Good luck! What they really need is their own gen 5 or 6 nuclear power plant.
Proponents say the switch will ultimately lower energy bills by harnessing the sun and wind, result in significant health benefits and — critically — help stave off the most devastating climate change scenarios. And they hope federal money from the Inflation Reduction Act, celebrating its one-year anniversary, can limit costs to consumers.
When will it lower bills? Reporters almost never ask politicians this as mostly left-wing politicians mandate this stuff, a vast over-reach of their authority. Where’s that money for the IRA coming from?
Even Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who is fond of saying that “we’re the last generation to be able to do anything” about climate change, last spring balked at the potential price tag of a policy to achieve New York’s climate targets. And she’s not the only top member of her party to say so.
“If it’s all just going to be passed along to the ratepayers — at some point, there’s a breaking point, and we don’t want to lose public support for this agenda,” state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, a Democrat, warned in an interview. (snip)
New York City “supports efforts to transform our electric system away from fossil fuels to sustainable, carbon-free technologies,” a lawyer for Mayor Eric Adams’ administration wrote in recent comments on a potential new clean energy subsidy. “However, the City is very concerned that the cost of utility service is becoming unaffordable for many New Yorkers.”
Unaffordable, huh? Democrats are gung ho about this stuff in theory, but, as soon as it become practice, well, their tune tends to change.
Of course, the bigwigs will still push this stuff, and the bureaucrats won’t let them stop. And since New Yorkers, and other Blue state residents, will continue to vote Democrat, their power bills will continue to skyrocket. They’re getting what they voted for.
A study released by the state’s utility regulators last summer found Murphy’s clean energy policies could increase rates by 10 percent to 20 percent unless people use less energy, buy an electric car and rip out their natural gas appliances to install new electric appliances.
So, unless you are forced to do these things, reduce the standard of your life, you’ll pay through the nose. And, even if you do these things, you’ll pay through the nose since two of those things require the use of more electricity.
“Proponents say the switch will ultimately lower energy bills by harnessing the sun and wind, ”
What utter bull shit.
Photovoltaic Solar holds great promise, thermal to a lesser degree, but in either case the technology is just not ready for market, never has been. So far it’s been a complete boondoggle. The definition of a false economy. “Pennywise, pound foolish” and “robbing Peter to pay Paul” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
I have no problem with the responsible subsidizing of research but the truckloads of cash that have been pissed away on the current solar, EV, and battery technology so far has only made a few really rich assholes a little richer while creating more of a mess. That and plumped up the campaign coffers of the even worse assholes that created and administered the programs in the first place. These .gov programs, besides the obvious corruption, are actually stifling advances in the technology. Why make a product better when you can bribe some politicians to pay you to make a shitty one? And guess where all that cash comes from, you and me.
Solar panel and battery technology needs to get to a place where the raw materials can be obtained without creating ugly humanitarian and ecological disasters on every continent first. Wouldn’t that be a nice start? Jesus fucking Christ, we’ve got half the planet losing sleep over sustainable coffee production, but we can’t apply the same market forces to solve this little inconvenient snag in the green energy process? Apparently not while our elected “officials” are on the tit! All we see are a vapor trail of decrees and rulings, commanding utterly unattainable (ambitious, we’re told) shifts to “renewables” as though that sort of thing could be accomplished by fiat.
Let’s work on improving the efficiency such that the hardware will at least have a prayer of producing as much energy over its service life as it took to create it and figure out how to recycle the parts afterward without adding to the humanitarian & environmental troubles created by the mining disasters and manufacturing operations that it took to produce them.
Pretending that we’re on the right track with the current “green technology” is absolutely psychotic, and it’s not helping the citizenry, the consumer or the planet in the least. The collective “actions” by governments, as usual, have created a cure that’s way worse than the disease. Most of the globalists pushing this agenda are fully aware that it’s a waste of time, effort and money, the rest are simply delusional but they’re all just giddy about the process and agree that it’s nice to line their pockets while gaining social equity within their leftist circles.
Every time we’re told by our betters in authority that they have devised some wonderful new green ordinance, it just costs us more and makes everything just a little dirtier while they get richer. Meanwhile, if some actual genius were to come up with something that was genuinely a great advance in the field, someone (usually driving several black Tahoes) would purchase the patent and we’d never see it again. So it goes.
Oh, and large scale wind is a joke that never made sense even in theory and should be immediately abandoned altogether.
I did a little “back of the envelope” (literally in this case) calculation on solar power. At Earth orbit, the solar power density is about 1000 watts/m^2. Assuming the same at ground level, and going with a typical 20% efficiency PV panels, that gives 200 Watts/m^2. Figuring a 1000MW power plant, that’s 5 million square meters of PV panels, before figuring on space for interconnections and maintenance access. That comes out to 1,235 acres… enough for two nuclear plants.
SKYROCKETING PRICES !!!
You have been trumpeting that for more than a decade.
But nationwide the increase in electric prices has averages 3% per year.
Any one else getting this error message ??
“There has been a critical error on this website.”
It happens often especially when a bunch of commentors hit submit at around the same time.
Yep.
pay for it? thats not important. whats important is do the right people get rich off of it?
Yes, they do. It’s called “lying”.
They seem to be excessively stupid thinking that wind and solar are clean. Besides the really bad pollution from mining rare minerals, there is the issue of battery disposal that has never been addressed.