“What?” You may ask, is CLCPA, and why does it matter?

CLCPA is the atrociously misnamed New York state “Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.” It is how the state Government will sacrifice taxpayers on the “Green” altar, while the rest of the world laughs at our stupidity. CLCPA has nothing to do with “Climate Leadership”, because its mandates will have no measurable outcome with respect to climate (IPCC).

The only community that will be “protected” by CLCPA is the Corporate Welfare sucking Fat-Cats of Wall St. in the biggest state-level wealth transfer from working people to Fat-Cats ever devised. But let’s investigate exactly why CLCPA is such a threat to the people of New York state. Among other impossible mandates in CLCPA is full conversion to “Emissions Free” electrical power generation by 2040. CLCPA prescribes that all future power must come from Wind, Solar, Legacy Hydro, and a couple other meaningless sources. Anything with an “emission” will be illegal, including clean burning natural gas, which is the only technology available for scaled backup when wind and solar fails (and it fails often). CLCPA also mandates elimination of Nuclear Power, which is the cleanest and cheapest long-term power solution on Earth.

When NYS closed Indian Point, and took away 25% of NYC power, the State had to replace that power with fossil fuel power from Pennsylvania. The rest of the world is moving back to Nuclear, while the state kills it. Go figure. Why is the 2040 emissions-free mandate so dangerous?

Let’s examine the facts. Right now 75% of all the energy sources used to electrify the state will be illegal by 2040 (see NYISO Dashboard). So where will our future power come from when this 75% is illegal? Germany tried this, and it worked so well they had to add 27 new coal-fired plants, and still managed to destroy their economy. Far cry from the 500,000 “Green Jobs” the German “Green New Deal” promised. Even if we could build enough wind and solar infrastructure to power us into the future (we can’t because of resource limitations), we still have the problem of Dunkelflaute (German for “ain’t no wind or sun”).

To believe that battery backup could power the state is a mere fantasy that any first year physics or engineering student could debunk. We simply do not have the resources to build enough battery storage to protect us from even a single day of Dunkelflaute. The problem of providing backup power is recognized by NYISO (they manage our Grid), and they are subtly trying to warn us of the upcoming human catastrophe. NYISO invented the term “Dispatchable Emission Free Resource” (DEFR) to describe the magical technology that will provide baseload power during Dunkelflaute, which can commonly last for a week or more.

However, there is (and will be) no such technology that can do this at scale. DEFR is mere fantasy. According to NYISO, you should be prepared for major blackouts within the next 5 years if CLCPA remains the law. And if DEFR was available, why would we need wind and solar, which are the most expensive alternatives over the long haul? Meanwhile, other more realistic countries are putting the brakes on Wind and Solar because they have learned it does not work. Many are now planning to bring back Nuclear, particularly Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), like the ones the Chinese are now licensing. Meanwhile we continue to pay top dollar for silly Chinese Wind and Solar junk. Interestingly, the U.S. provides SMRs to Eastern Europe, but won’t license them in the US. (Why?) So our Government not only wasted our time and money pushing Wind and Solar, but they crippled our domestic (and formerly world-leading) nuclear industry.

How can we thank you, Washington and Albany? And how about those “Green” mavens of Big Tech, like Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple, who filled us with their bluster about their drives to Net Zero Emissions? It turns out their carbon footprints increased by about 30% over the last 5 years. Now they are making plans for their own private Nuclear Plants. So, fellow state citizens, your energy future looks pretty bleak because the politicians running Albany are either ignorant of the Scientific/Engineering/Economic reality, or they are too busy counting their “green” investments, while they take you for a ride. And still, people leave New York.

Skip Axelson is a Frewsburg resident.