Hochul and others are sticking to the story that wind and solar 1) are cheap and 2) create jobs (wonderful jobs). They’re not acknowledging that any specific policy is unaffordable, impractical, or utterly infeasible.
Meanwhile, they just approved a state energy plan that their own figures show will increase costs for moderate-income upstate households by nearly $600/mo. over conventional fuel use under a high-electrification scenario. That doesn’t take into account utility-initiated rate increases. They’re celebrating their “all of the above” fuel approach on the one hand while quietly sticking with those Climate Act mandates on the other. I believe this is called gaslighting.
Hochul’s hardcore support comes from urban downstate households whose energy use and costs are relatively modest, especially among those who don’t own vehicles. In contrast, upstate households (especially rural ones) require far more energy for housing and transportation. Commutes are longer, residences are mostly single-family, and winters are colder. The former don’t seem to understand or appreciate these differences—and the political class has no interest in them.
The plan has a chapter on affordability with detailed data. There’s a ridiculous “fact sheet” on affordability that neglects to include the levelized costs of heating equipment etc. The state pretends that the Green Energy Fairy distributes heat pumps and electric stoves to all good New Yorkers at no cost. When you add in the information carefully omitted from the fact sheet, you’ll see the actual numbers. Roger Caiazza has reassembled and examined it nicely here:
It’s next to nothing, even today with fairly high winds. Yet “renewables” are supposed to make up 70% of our energy generation by 2030 and 100% by 2040, according to the NYS Climate Act: a law, not a policy. Hydro is regularly almost 20% of the mix, but we need to add nearly another 50% in wind and solar in… 4 years? How’s that gonna work? Even the state no longer believes it (but won’t change it).
Rafe, you are quite right just on the NYISO dashboard running about 17,200 mw’s and renewables are a notional number. Nukes, hydro, nat Gas and dual fuel holding the fort.
New York thinks it has this figured out. In their planning documents they reference a DEFR, Dispatchable Emissions Free Resource. They don’t know exactly what it is, but they seem quite confident someone will invent it soon.
My question is that if you have a DEFR why are you screwing around with solar?
The obvious untapped energy source is atmospheric CO2. If as claimed 430 ppm can raise the temperature of the atmosphere by one degree F, it stands to reason that each pound of CO2 must have 25 230 btus available.
Since the earth weighs about a million times the atmosphere, each pound of CO2 must then have over 25 trillion BTUs per pound.
Yes, of course, wind and solar grids depend on conventional power. Schernikau and Smith explained why wind and solar are parasitic on conventional power.
The wind and solar based ‘energy transition’ can only reduce global net energy efficiencies because it requires more complex energy systems and increase storage conversion and transmission losses.
No normal person wants to see ideologues take down large numbers of unwitting participants in the FAFO events happening across the country. But I am on the verge of schadenfreude at the expense of lefties that perpetually set up a circular argument jungle for themselves in subjects far and wide.
It is deeply ironic that California, having driven most of their refining capacity to close, is now pushing for more crude oil production that they will be unable to convert to gasoline. If only so many people did not suffer from the ignorance and idiocy of politicians!
The increase in power prices this year is a lagged effect of the increased penetration of subsidised and mandated wind and solar. They can DISPLACE coal but they can’t REPLACE it.
That is what Secretary Chris Wright called “energy subtraction.”
It is imperative to get wind and solar off the grid to reduce the cost of power and also to use the resources for productive purposes elsewhere in the economy. That process is under threat, predictably, from Democrats, and also from RINOS who are either catering for local state constituencies or have been captured by the wind and solar lobbies.
It may help to get the voters into the act by promoting wind drought literacy so they can see clearly that wind and solar will not work and they will push their local lawmakers in the right direction.
The idea is to encourage people to look at the dashboard for their local grid at breakfast and dinnertime, or dawn and dusk, to see if there is enough RE to heat the meal! And to see how many multiples of the existing windmills would be required to do the job. Follow these instructions.
As I write, at 7am EST, the wind in New York ISO is delivering 6% of demand and solar is zero. Nuclear is 21% and Hydo 16%.
Looking at Texas between November 15 and December 14, at 7am and 7pm (breakfast and dinner) out of 60 meals, there were 18 when wind and solar were delivering less than 15% of the demand for power.
The worst cases were 6.6% at 7am on Nov 25 and 5.2% at 7am on December 1.
It may be hard at first to promote wind literacy but there can be a huge payoff as the voters become more alert to the downside of so-called clean, green and renewable energy.
Here in Maryland the crazy has died down to be replaced by effervescent sniveling over every other thing Trump does during his Presidency. However, the conversations I listen to or engage in when the subject of green energy as our savior comes up show that the thinking is just as stupefying as ever on the left. Windmills, pv's and electric cars are simply hardwired as the only choices to save the planet from immolation and the ideologues who believe would much prefer uninformed judgement to reason. You just can't argue with puritanism.
The link to the “Resource Adequacy and the Energy Transition in the Northwest..” report is going to take some effort to get through! I assume the new loads coming on line might need to be throttled down when the juice is a bit low in the coming years- “Nearly 9,000 MW of new capacity is needed by 2030”.
Merry Christmas and thanks for all the insightful analysis you have provided us this year.
I wonder, will these states now backing away from their idiotic plans to use renewables entirely by whatever date, start to get sued for backtracking. after all, the swamp of NGO's like NRDF or RMI have no legislative responsibilities, so can simply complain that the governments are breaking their own laws!
When the religion of climate change replaces the more traditional forms of religious practice lots can go wrong.planet’s got a fever!” “The oceans are boiling!” Shouts the evangelist preacher from the seat of his Gulfstream G5 at 43,000 feet cruise speed 680 knots across the deck. Nothing like a converted blue blood from Tennessee to tell us peasants how to live. Or that former Mr. Frosty driver the senior senator from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts “the planet has a fever, there are no emergency rooms for planets…” As the late William Bulger former president of the Massachusetts senate said “to a battle of wits Ed Markey comes unarmed.” And yet, they had/have traction. Literally the dumbest people on earth have traction on the discussion of energy and electric power production in the lower. Who forget that bastion of all Yankee fortitude John Forbes Kerry (JFK!) who got into a verbal grapple with engineering major from MIT Tom Massie over levels of carbon molecules in the atmosphere and called Massie an unserious person. Maybe so Secretary Kerry but he built his own off grid house….
Love the headline EBB, it says it all … The socialists have cloaked themselves in the Democrat Party … who are the socialists ? President Reagan described them the best in the 9 most terrifying words: I am from the government and I’m here to help.
To get the claws of the socialist off of energy prosperity of American households and businesses, we must codify energy independence & affordability into a federal law. Affordable reliable clean (ARC) Energy Security federal legislation in 2026 will achieve that. The beauty of this legislation is that it’s clean and simple, Louisiana already codified it into their state law with Ohio and other states in hot pursuit. ARC will be our nation’s shield 🛡️against the tyranny of socialists and the fuel ⛽️ of earth’s greatest economy for generations to come 🗽🇺🇸🗽
This email just in from Michigan Congresswoman, Kristen McDonald Rivet (D): "This is one of the coldest weeks we've had this winter, and next week could be even worse. It's a harsh reminder that utility costs are higher than ever. Too many families can’t afford to keep the heat on while paying for other essentials like groceries.
"I'm worried, and I want to know how rising utility costs are affecting your family. Please take a second to share your thoughts below. "
Democrats in Michigan have forced the closure of coal plants, penalized the building of natural gas plants and coal plants via CO2 capture mandates, and curtailed natural gas via pipeline intervention. To their credit they are supporting the re-powering of Palisades nuclear plant. Michigan has not learned that they cannot replace dispatchable power generation with intermittent energy sources.
Good analysis! Of course, leftists politicians are backtracking because they are slowly realizing that the spiking energy prices caused by the addition of part time renewables are politically untenable.
Enjoyed this informative (as always) post. To give Hochul some credit, remember J.M. Keynes' famous remark, 'when the [evidence or] facts change, I change my mind." I'm inclined to think of her "retreat" as a 'pivot' towards more sensible, pragmatic energy 'solutions', as per this:
On Dec 19, Hochul signed off on an agreement (MOU) between the New York Power Authority and its northern-neighbor counterpart, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) to collaborate in advancing nuclear power development---large-scale reactors and SMRs---"to meet the growing electricity demand and protect long-term energy security." Here's a link to the Ontario government's version of the announcement:
Interesting and sad that anyone who had a shred of analytical ability knew this would happen. The engineers and grid operators were shouted down by the solar is cheaper crowd and climate grifters.
Because the grid in the renewable states is packed with useless solar and wind generation any new generator faces huge costs and long timelines to connect. Connecting a 100 MW battery in California will cost $50 million in grid upgrades and take six years to construct.
Average rates are misleading in that generally rates for regular customers are higher to subsidize the poor. In California the residential rate for a regular family is closer to 50 cents per kWh due to the state’s high poverty numbers.
Hochul and others are sticking to the story that wind and solar 1) are cheap and 2) create jobs (wonderful jobs). They’re not acknowledging that any specific policy is unaffordable, impractical, or utterly infeasible.
Meanwhile, they just approved a state energy plan that their own figures show will increase costs for moderate-income upstate households by nearly $600/mo. over conventional fuel use under a high-electrification scenario. That doesn’t take into account utility-initiated rate increases. They’re celebrating their “all of the above” fuel approach on the one hand while quietly sticking with those Climate Act mandates on the other. I believe this is called gaslighting.
Hochul’s hardcore support comes from urban downstate households whose energy use and costs are relatively modest, especially among those who don’t own vehicles. In contrast, upstate households (especially rural ones) require far more energy for housing and transportation. Commutes are longer, residences are mostly single-family, and winters are colder. The former don’t seem to understand or appreciate these differences—and the political class has no interest in them.
Thanks for this insight! Do you have a link to their figures?
First, the gaslighting: the NYS Energy Plan website:
https://energyplan.ny.gov/
The plan has a chapter on affordability with detailed data. There’s a ridiculous “fact sheet” on affordability that neglects to include the levelized costs of heating equipment etc. The state pretends that the Green Energy Fairy distributes heat pumps and electric stoves to all good New Yorkers at no cost. When you add in the information carefully omitted from the fact sheet, you’ll see the actual numbers. Roger Caiazza has reassembled and examined it nicely here:
https://pragmaticenvironmentalistofnewyork.blog/2025/12/08/energy-affordability-at-energy-planning-board-meeting-on-12-1-2025/
Here’s Roger’s Substack; he’s written about this and other NYS energy topics extensively and reposts his blog summaries here:
https://caiazza.substack.com/
Have a look at the fuel mix in the New York grid and see the negligible contribution from wind and solar!
https://www.gridstatus.io/live/nyiso?date=2025-12-14to2025-12-21
It’s next to nothing, even today with fairly high winds. Yet “renewables” are supposed to make up 70% of our energy generation by 2030 and 100% by 2040, according to the NYS Climate Act: a law, not a policy. Hydro is regularly almost 20% of the mix, but we need to add nearly another 50% in wind and solar in… 4 years? How’s that gonna work? Even the state no longer believes it (but won’t change it).
Who goes to prison if the law is broken? No one is above the law
Rafe, you are quite right just on the NYISO dashboard running about 17,200 mw’s and renewables are a notional number. Nukes, hydro, nat Gas and dual fuel holding the fort.
My question for several years has been; who supplies the dispatchable energy to operate wind and solar collection grids?
New York thinks it has this figured out. In their planning documents they reference a DEFR, Dispatchable Emissions Free Resource. They don’t know exactly what it is, but they seem quite confident someone will invent it soon.
My question is that if you have a DEFR why are you screwing around with solar?
The obvious untapped energy source is atmospheric CO2. If as claimed 430 ppm can raise the temperature of the atmosphere by one degree F, it stands to reason that each pound of CO2 must have 25 230 btus available.
Since the earth weighs about a million times the atmosphere, each pound of CO2 must then have over 25 trillion BTUs per pound.
Yes, of course, wind and solar grids depend on conventional power. Schernikau and Smith explained why wind and solar are parasitic on conventional power.
https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/wind-and-solar-the-energy-thieves-a0c
The wind and solar based ‘energy transition’ can only reduce global net energy efficiencies because it requires more complex energy systems and increase storage conversion and transmission losses.
No normal person wants to see ideologues take down large numbers of unwitting participants in the FAFO events happening across the country. But I am on the verge of schadenfreude at the expense of lefties that perpetually set up a circular argument jungle for themselves in subjects far and wide.
It is deeply ironic that California, having driven most of their refining capacity to close, is now pushing for more crude oil production that they will be unable to convert to gasoline. If only so many people did not suffer from the ignorance and idiocy of politicians!
The increase in power prices this year is a lagged effect of the increased penetration of subsidised and mandated wind and solar. They can DISPLACE coal but they can’t REPLACE it.
https://energynetwork.substack.com/p/2107-intermittent-solar-and-wind
That is what Secretary Chris Wright called “energy subtraction.”
It is imperative to get wind and solar off the grid to reduce the cost of power and also to use the resources for productive purposes elsewhere in the economy. That process is under threat, predictably, from Democrats, and also from RINOS who are either catering for local state constituencies or have been captured by the wind and solar lobbies.
It may help to get the voters into the act by promoting wind drought literacy so they can see clearly that wind and solar will not work and they will push their local lawmakers in the right direction.
The idea is to encourage people to look at the dashboard for their local grid at breakfast and dinnertime, or dawn and dusk, to see if there is enough RE to heat the meal! And to see how many multiples of the existing windmills would be required to do the job. Follow these instructions.
https://rafechampion.substack.com/p/will-windpower-heat-your-breakfast
As I write, at 7am EST, the wind in New York ISO is delivering 6% of demand and solar is zero. Nuclear is 21% and Hydo 16%.
Looking at Texas between November 15 and December 14, at 7am and 7pm (breakfast and dinner) out of 60 meals, there were 18 when wind and solar were delivering less than 15% of the demand for power.
The worst cases were 6.6% at 7am on Nov 25 and 5.2% at 7am on December 1.
It may be hard at first to promote wind literacy but there can be a huge payoff as the voters become more alert to the downside of so-called clean, green and renewable energy.
Here in Maryland the crazy has died down to be replaced by effervescent sniveling over every other thing Trump does during his Presidency. However, the conversations I listen to or engage in when the subject of green energy as our savior comes up show that the thinking is just as stupefying as ever on the left. Windmills, pv's and electric cars are simply hardwired as the only choices to save the planet from immolation and the ideologues who believe would much prefer uninformed judgement to reason. You just can't argue with puritanism.
That’s true. Save Brandon Shore!
The link to the “Resource Adequacy and the Energy Transition in the Northwest..” report is going to take some effort to get through! I assume the new loads coming on line might need to be throttled down when the juice is a bit low in the coming years- “Nearly 9,000 MW of new capacity is needed by 2030”.
Merry Christmas and thanks for all the insightful analysis you have provided us this year.
Thanks, Mark! We’ll write about that so you can wait for our take haha
I wonder, will these states now backing away from their idiotic plans to use renewables entirely by whatever date, start to get sued for backtracking. after all, the swamp of NGO's like NRDF or RMI have no legislative responsibilities, so can simply complain that the governments are breaking their own laws!
Yes probably. That’s what we are seeing in New York
Hoist by their own petard. Will they be forced to change the laws. Wouldn’t that be sweet?
When the religion of climate change replaces the more traditional forms of religious practice lots can go wrong.planet’s got a fever!” “The oceans are boiling!” Shouts the evangelist preacher from the seat of his Gulfstream G5 at 43,000 feet cruise speed 680 knots across the deck. Nothing like a converted blue blood from Tennessee to tell us peasants how to live. Or that former Mr. Frosty driver the senior senator from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts “the planet has a fever, there are no emergency rooms for planets…” As the late William Bulger former president of the Massachusetts senate said “to a battle of wits Ed Markey comes unarmed.” And yet, they had/have traction. Literally the dumbest people on earth have traction on the discussion of energy and electric power production in the lower. Who forget that bastion of all Yankee fortitude John Forbes Kerry (JFK!) who got into a verbal grapple with engineering major from MIT Tom Massie over levels of carbon molecules in the atmosphere and called Massie an unserious person. Maybe so Secretary Kerry but he built his own off grid house….
Wait for the wave of blaming Trump for expensive power. If he hadn’t abandoned solar and wind rates would be going down…blah blah blah
Merry Christmas guys! Always enjoy the Saturday morning article! Good to see Sarah will be joining you at your day job!
As T.Boone Pickens said about these fools 50-years ago: “Let the bastards freeze in the dark.” Fools never seem to learn.
Love the headline EBB, it says it all … The socialists have cloaked themselves in the Democrat Party … who are the socialists ? President Reagan described them the best in the 9 most terrifying words: I am from the government and I’m here to help.
To get the claws of the socialist off of energy prosperity of American households and businesses, we must codify energy independence & affordability into a federal law. Affordable reliable clean (ARC) Energy Security federal legislation in 2026 will achieve that. The beauty of this legislation is that it’s clean and simple, Louisiana already codified it into their state law with Ohio and other states in hot pursuit. ARC will be our nation’s shield 🛡️against the tyranny of socialists and the fuel ⛽️ of earth’s greatest economy for generations to come 🗽🇺🇸🗽
https://youtu.be/9d3EsX1vNtI?si=J4Rl1_cI9_cCR-jC
This email just in from Michigan Congresswoman, Kristen McDonald Rivet (D): "This is one of the coldest weeks we've had this winter, and next week could be even worse. It's a harsh reminder that utility costs are higher than ever. Too many families can’t afford to keep the heat on while paying for other essentials like groceries.
"I'm worried, and I want to know how rising utility costs are affecting your family. Please take a second to share your thoughts below. "
Democrats in Michigan have forced the closure of coal plants, penalized the building of natural gas plants and coal plants via CO2 capture mandates, and curtailed natural gas via pipeline intervention. To their credit they are supporting the re-powering of Palisades nuclear plant. Michigan has not learned that they cannot replace dispatchable power generation with intermittent energy sources.
Congrats on the traffic in DC!
Good analysis! Of course, leftists politicians are backtracking because they are slowly realizing that the spiking energy prices caused by the addition of part time renewables are politically untenable.
If the Democratic Party is incorrectly called the Democrat Party, the Republican Party should be called the Republic Party
Nice!
Enjoyed this informative (as always) post. To give Hochul some credit, remember J.M. Keynes' famous remark, 'when the [evidence or] facts change, I change my mind." I'm inclined to think of her "retreat" as a 'pivot' towards more sensible, pragmatic energy 'solutions', as per this:
On Dec 19, Hochul signed off on an agreement (MOU) between the New York Power Authority and its northern-neighbor counterpart, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) to collaborate in advancing nuclear power development---large-scale reactors and SMRs---"to meet the growing electricity demand and protect long-term energy security." Here's a link to the Ontario government's version of the announcement:
https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1006888/ontario-and-new-york-sign-agreement-to-build-nuclear-energy-and-grow-economies
Interesting and sad that anyone who had a shred of analytical ability knew this would happen. The engineers and grid operators were shouted down by the solar is cheaper crowd and climate grifters.
Because the grid in the renewable states is packed with useless solar and wind generation any new generator faces huge costs and long timelines to connect. Connecting a 100 MW battery in California will cost $50 million in grid upgrades and take six years to construct.
Average rates are misleading in that generally rates for regular customers are higher to subsidize the poor. In California the residential rate for a regular family is closer to 50 cents per kWh due to the state’s high poverty numbers.