New York has some big energy needs in the years to come, between meeting clean electricity goals in the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, attempting to replace dirty power sources like gas and oil, new technologies like AI demanding additional energy and strains that come from increasingly common extreme weather. In addition to increasing the supply, the state’s power grid needs updates and improvements to be able to handle all the demand and adequately distribute that energy to the places that need it.
The state has a statutory requirement that all electricity in the state come from clean and renewable sources by 2040, a date that is fast approaching even as Gov. Kathy Hochul has admitted that New York won’t hit all the deadlines spelled out in the CLCPA. Meeting the law’s clean energy targets will require building electric transmission lines to get that clean energy from the places where it’s produced to the communities that need it – projects that are championed by climate activists and many on the left.
At the same time, conservatives wary of green energy are advocating for new gas pipelines to supply what they consider far more reliable and cheaper energy to meet the state’s current needs, even as Democrats have tried to decrease the state’s reliance on fossil fuels…