Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York Summary Update September 22, 2025 -October 5, 2025
Draft Energy Plan Comments, an Article 78 filing, and another NY agency messaging report
This is a summary update of posts at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York over the last two weeks. I have been writing about the pragmatic balance of the risks and benefits of environmental initiatives in New York since 2017 with a recent emphasis on New York’s Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act). A pdf copy of the following information and previous summaries are also available. The opinions expressed in these articles do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone.
Draft Energy Plan
Comments are due on the draft State Energy Plan on October 6 so my posts on this topic will be winding down after this summary. I use posts as drafts for eventual formal comments to the proceeding. All but two of the articles described in this summary covered comments on the plan. The New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) drafted the Draft Energy Plan and is responsible for the stakeholder participation process. Finally, note that I posted an article quoting comments by Richard Ellenbogen and David Dibbell that includes information how you can submit your own. Please consider submitting your own. Dennis Higgins notes that you can use WePlanet’s interface here Support a Nuclear New York | WePlanet https://act.weplanet.org/nuclear-new-york or email to nysenergyplan@nyserda.ny.gov
Draft Energy Plan Air Quality Health Benefits Analysis Shortcomings
I described some of the technical issues with the methodology in my last article describing shortcomings of the Health Benefits Analysis chapter. I am an air quality modeling expert and the analyses used in this analysis gets a failing grade.
Estimating air quality impacts of all the sources in the State down to level of census tracts is an enormous challenge. Just dealing with the large number of source-receptor relationships is a big deal. They tried to model primary and secondary pollution concentrations for five pollutants. The chemical reactions that create secondary pollutants vary by season, meteorological conditions, and distance/time from the emitting source which requires sophisticated analysis to do correctly.
The approach used simplifies the relationships using standard techniques. To get the resolution necessary to estimate disadvantaged community impacts they had to develop their own model. Because they only used four wind directions instead of the standard practice of using 16 wind directions, I think they over-simplified the analysis. To prove that their approach is sufficient it is necessary to validate their modeling comparing model predictions against the observed impacts. Because they did not do that, I think the health benefits results are not credible.
New York Draft Energy Plan Health Impacts Analysis Scientific Travesty
I think the Health Benefits Analysis chapter methodology is fatally flawed. This post is a revised version of an article posted at Watts Up With That. It summarizes all the posts covering specific shortcomings in the Health Benefits Analysis chapter published over the last month.
My recent posts address shortcomings of the NYSERDA analysis of health benefits in the Draft State Energy Plan. I believe that the air quality analysis used to predict health impacts was overly simplified. NYSERDA used a new procedure to estimate health impacts that needs to be validated but the alleged verification process was fatally flawed. Correlation does not indicate causation. Claiming causation when then is no correlation is tone-deaf agenda driven science. One of the key health concerns is the effect of inhalable particulates on asthma related emergency room visits but there is no observed relationship between annual average PM2.5 and emergency room visits related to asthma for the New York State monitoring stations used in the NYSERDA analysis. I also showed that the predicted impacts on emergency room visits, and inhalable particulate air quality reductions are within the range of observed variations.
My submitted comments should precipitate, at a minimum, a revision to NY-CHAPPA to include 16 wind directions and a valid verification analysis of the modeling. I don’t expect NYSERDA to respond. Instead, I expect that my comments will be ignored like all my previous submittals. It is clear to me that NYSERDA established the public relation slogans for the goals of the program and then perverted the science to get answers to support those claims. When I described this to one of my friends, he remarked that this is proof that science and NYSERDA cannot be used in the same sentence.
September 30 Draft Energy Plan Comments
I gave oral comments at the September 30 virtual meeting that argued that Draft Energy Plan was improperly ignoring the value of using natural gas until affordable in-kind replacement technologies are available.
This post explained that the rationale for emphasizing natural gas emission reductions is because the Global Warming Potential measured in a laboratory is greater than for CO2. This argument for eliminating natural gas is irrational because the purpose of emission reduction is to reduce the greenhouse gas effect. In the atmosphere where it matters, when the factors affecting this relationship are considered natural gas impacts on the greenhouse gas effect are considerably smaller than CO2.
I do not think that the Draft Energy Plan has adequately recognized the resiliency benefits of natural gas and its benefits during electric outages. On a personal level I have never had a natural gas outage and its availability during a couple of extended outages helped my family to survive.
I pointed out that the Draft Energy Plan does not acknowledge that Public Service Law (PSL) Section 66-P, Establishment of a renewable energy program, is a law. PSL 66-P requires the Public Service Commission (PSC) to establish a program to ensure the State meets the 2030 and 2040 Climate Act obligations. It includes provisions stating that the PSC is empowered to temporarily suspend or modify these obligations if, after conducting an appropriate hearing, it finds that PSL 66-P impedes the provision of safe and adequate electric service. I argued that if the affordability and reliability implied provisions of PSL 66-P are considered then it is very likely that the Climate Act schedule will be delayed. It is common sense to maintain and upgrade New York’s natural gas generating infrastructure until in-kind replacements are available.
Draft Energy Plan Additional Comments Regarding Natural Gas
There was a limit of two minutes for oral comments so I could not cover all the attributes of natural gas that I think should be considered by the Draft Energy Plan.
I believe that natural gas use for transportation, particularly heavy-duty trucks and buses, would improve inhalable particulate impacts decades before zero-emission alternatives could be deployed because the technologies involved are mature proven technologies. Another Perplexity AI query described the benefits of adopting CNG trucks. CNG trucks have up to 90% lower nitrogen oxide emissions and similar reductions of inhalable particulate matter mass emissions. There are fuel cost savings, a strong return on investment, and reduced maintenance costs while at the same time providing comparable power and performance and enhanced vehicle longevity. Also note that diesel trucks can be converted to run on CNG which is a claim that electric trucks will never make.
I described a couple of electric grid benefits of natural gas. Natural gas generators are not subject to curtailment which “involves deliberately reducing renewable energy output below maximum potential, resulting in significant economic losses and underutilization of clean energy resources”. Because natural gas units can be dispatched as needed curtailment is not an issue. I have repeatedly described the new Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource (DEFR) needed for an electric generating system that relies on wind and solar. It is common sense to replace aging natural gas-fired generating units that are nearing the end of their expected lifetime now rather than investing enormous money in renewables until a viable DEFR has been identified, tested and deployed as necessary.
I explained that New York’s Energy Plan should demand unbiased permitting decisions. If the same arguments used to deny the Constitution and Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) gas pipeline were applied to the transmission lines permitted to supply renewable power to New York City, then they would have been revoked too.
The Draft Energy Plan must acknowledge that natural gas peaking power plants provide necessary reliability support. Environmental justice advocates like the Peak Coalition, have convinced state politicians that New York City peaking power plants are “perhaps the most egregious energy-related example of what environmental injustice means today.” The enacting law for the New York Power Authority (NYPA) Draft Renewables Strategic Plan specifically directed NYPA to publish a plan by May 3, 2025, to end generating electricity with fossil fuel at its 11 small natural gas power units in New York City and on Long Island by the end of 2030 if reliability and environmental requirements are met. I have documented that the presumption of egregious harm driving this law is based on selective choice of metrics, poor understanding of air quality health impacts, and ignorance of air quality trends. In brief, the continued operation of these facilities will have no discernable impact on local neighborhood air quality and shutting them down is solely political virtue-signaling. On the other hand, these facilities serve specific reliability needs that are not easily replaced. The Draft Energy Plan must be based on science and not emotion.
Draft Energy Plan Comments Made by Richard Ellenbogen and David Dibbell
This post quotes comments on the Draft Energy Plan from Richard Ellenbogen who I collaborate with frequently and reader David Dibbell.
Ellenbogen argues that technical and economic considerations are not receiving adequate attention in the Draft Energy Plan. He referenced several filings made that argued that installing Combined Cycle Natural Gas generation now and phasing to nuclear over time is a far more cost effective and secure way to power the state and reduce GHG emissions than what the Climate Act is mandating. He also explained why he is concerned about the push to electrify home heating using heat pumps across the board. He shows that because heat pumps downstate get their electricity from older, inefficient power plants that means that the overall system efficiency is less than direct natural gas combustion. Currently, the costs to convert are unaffordable to most. He asks how the mandates to convert can be sustained.
Ellenbogen also addresses the fundamental overlooked physics of the Climate Act. The naïve presumptions of the authors of the Climate Act are creating a reliability crisis. He also argues that the emphasis on methane reductions ignore field studies that show natural sources are the major contributors. This means that control efforts will not be very effective.
Dibbell submitted a short comment concentrating on the alleged benefits in the Draft Energy Plan. He makes the point that the costs are real, but the benefits are speculative and “do not produce a hard money stream of receipts to justify the expenditures”. He points out that changes in observed air quality should be accompanied by changes in the health effects, but we don’t have enough information to confirm the predictions because of confounding factors. He concludes that the current path which promotes non-emitting but intermittent wind and solar sources with massive battery support should be ditched in favor of a focus on “affordability, reliability, and an ample supply of electricity and fuels for industrial development, transportation, and for the general well-being and safety of the citizens of our State.”
Enough is enough. I have submitted over 250 filings and comments to the New York Department of Public Service (DPS) Document and Matter Management (DMM) system. There has never been any acknowledgment of any submittal much less any sign that DPS staff have considered my concerns about New York’s transition away from fossil fuels. I recently reached the breaking point and with Richard Ellenbogen, CEO of Allied Converters, decided to file an Article 78 judicial review of the May 16, 2025 decision of the New York Public Service Commission (“PSC”) in its Case No. 15-E-0302 approval of a Clean Energy Standard (“CES”) Tier 4 Implementation Plan.
This article describes the Article 78 process. These lawsuits are “used mainly to challenge an action (or inaction) by agencies of New York State and local governments.” This step is the direct result of the lack of a transparent and open Climate Act implementation process. Both Rich and I have been making our arguments for years. There never has been any substantive responses, and we agreed that we needed to go to court to be heard. Stay tuned to this one.
Department of Public Service Second Informational Report on the Climate Act
On September 18, 2025 the Public Service Commission (PSC) announced that they “received an update from Department of Public Service (DPS) staff regarding progress toward the clean energy goals of the 2019 Climate Act”. The Second Informational Report (prepared by DPS staff “focuses on Commission actions from January 2023 through August 2025, and includes the estimated costs and outcomes from 2023 through 2029 to provide the most up to date information.” This post summarizes my first impressions of the Report.
DPS Staff prepared a presentation that summarizes the report. There is a lot of information in this report making it difficult to decide what points to summarize. I concentrated on the DPS Staff conclusions because it is indicative of the intended message of the Report.
In my opinion, this report is a politicized public relations document. The report provides documentation for the claim that even though ratepayer costs are going up we should not blame the Climate Act for the increases. The other primary message that the Hochul Administration is trying to sell is that utility rate case increases are inevitable because of aging infrastructure.
The report advances two claims. The first is the political message that even though ratepayer costs are going up don’t blame the Climate Act for the increases. While the Climate Act costs are relatively minor, I also think they are optional at a time when affordability is a crisis. The second claim is that utility rate case increases are inevitable because of aging infrastructure. I noted that the lack of investment in infrastructure is at least partially due to political limitations on those programs in previous rate cases.
In my opinion, this is another New York agency report that is more about messaging than providing New Yorkers with unbiased information. I plan to follow up on some details in this report so stay tuned.