To say that your car mechanic knows how to fix a car is to say that you can hand him your car and expect him to return with it fixed. To say that a net zero expert understands electricity is not to say that we can send him out with a grant and expect him to return with a workable design and prototype of a functioning power grid. He is more likely to return with a report on why he has not succeeded yet, including the inevitable need for more money, a larger staff, more sweeping powers, etc. In short, the degree of authentication of knowledge may be lower for endeavors pursued by our so-called expert class than your local car mechanic. With many intellectual endeavors, notably climate science and net zero engineering, there is neither a swift nor a certain authentication process for ideas, and the only ultimate validation is whether the ideas sound plausible to enough people, or to the right people.

We are seeing this play out in New York State with Governor Kathy Hochul and her hand-picked team of energy “experts.” They want to revolutionize the power grid by bringing CO2 emissions down to zero. Their scheme however, has several flaws. Foremost is the lack of a substitute for dispatchable power, in particular, the natural gas generation that they wish to phase out by 2040. They have coined the term “dispatchable emissions-free resource” (DEFR) as the substitute for natural gas, but they have no idea what it will look like. Current battery technology is not up to the task and a technological breakthrough that would bring down cost seems unlikely. The same is true for green hydrogen schemes. Pumped storage is equally expensive and has the added difficulty of limited siting.

One scheme for replacing dispatchable natural gas generation is to utilize the vast storage capacity (60,000 GWh) of Hydro-Québec. The UK seems to have adopted that approach by tapping into the vast storage capacity (85,000 GWh) of Norway. It has been increasing its reliance on imported electricity from Norway. (See Wake up call to UK energy planners.) The percentage of electricity imported from Hydro-Québec to New York is estimated at approximately 15–20% of the state's total electricity consumption. With the completion of the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) transmission line connecting Hydro-Québec to New York, transmission interconnect capacity will increase by 1,250 MW from its current capacity of 2,000 MW. However, utilizing the transmission capacity of the CHPE in order to make Hydro-Québec storage a DEFR has several flaws. It underutilizes the CHPE, which is much better used to provide steady state rather than intermittent dispatchable power. Moreover, as was the case with the UK interconnect to Norway, power fluctuations led to an increase in electricity price volatility in Norway, which hindered Norway’s ability to provide electricity at a consistent, affordable rate to its own citizens.

Under Hochul’s plan, the need for dispatchable power will grow with the proposed increase in wind and solar power. In addition, New York City has mandated that residential heating transition from gas to electric heat pumps and New York State has laid out a legally binding roadmap requiring progressive adoption of electric vehicles. Both legislative actions will increase overall electricity demand and volatility. However, New York state and City plans may be rendered moot, if a congressional repeal of tax credits for renewables, E.V.s and heat pumps gets passed. With federal repeal, the burden for state mandates will shift solely to the state level and could have a chilling effect on their ultimate implementation. At any rate, I do not see Hochul’s plan as being cohesive and maybe it was never intended to be taken literally, but more as an aspirational manifesto, just as Karl Marx’s “workers of the world unite” polemic never provided a realistic blueprint.

Image from Grok.