On Thursday morning*, we held a Google Hangout, for The Great New York Power Shift – Transitioning to a Low Carbon Future — a discussion of New York’s energy choices through 2050.
Here’s the video feed:
The event featured Mark J. Jacobson, a Stanford University engineering professor who has focused for years on identifying renewable-energy menus that can, in theory, entirely substitute for fossil fuels at the level of states, the nation and the planet.
He was joined by my colleague Karl R. Rábago, who is the executive director of the Pace Energy and Climate Center at Pace Law School and has worked in just about every capacity you can imagine related to providing sustainable electricity.
The focal points of our chat were recent papers in which Jacobson and others proposed how New York State could move entirely to renewable energy supplies by 2050, as well as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo‘s ambitious Reforming the Energy Vision (or REV) initiative, aimed at making the state’s electricity grid cleaner, more resilient and more affordable.
For some context, you can explore a very accessible overview of the state’s plan on the Natural Resources Defense Council blog. But even better is a remarkably readable deconstruction of grid issues (which are as much regulatory as technological) by Tim McDonnell in Mother Jones. His piece shows how energy transitions can be deeply hampered by inertia. Here’s a snippet:
Even the most ardent climate hawks agree that we can’t afford for utilities to go out of business altogether. Someone needs to maintain and manage the grid. Hardly any solar homes are actually “off the grid,” since they still depend on power lines to soak up their excess electricity during sunny afternoons and deliver power at night. In fact, net metering is a key factor in making solar economically viable to homeowners.
The question of how to aggressively slash carbon emissions without completely undermining the power sector (and simultaneously raising the risk of blackouts and skyrocketing electric bills) is one of the big existential questions that climate-savvy lawmakers are now trying to figure out. [Read the rest.]
Jacobon’s energy menu for New York, which I’ve portrayed more as a valuable thought experiment than a roadmap given the scale of what would have to happen, has been explored on Dot Earth here and here.
My hope for our chat was that we could dig down a bit into how to move from ideas to action.
I also, as some could predict, planned to ask how nuclear power fits, given the reality that a swift shutdown of the state’s and region’s nuclear reactors is unlikely and, without nuclear generation the challenge of a swift from fossil fuels becomes that much bigger.
Jacobson is also the leader of a new nonprofit, The Solutions Project, which has created renewable-energy menus for all 50 states.
Along with energy analysts, the initiative includes environment-minded celebrities, most notably Catskills resident Mark Ruffalo, investors and entrepreneurs including Billy Parish (of whom I’m a big fan).
You can post questions or comments here or send them via Twitter using the hashtag #energypace.
The event has been organized by Caroline Craig, a research associate at the Pace Academy of Applied Environmental Studies (my academic home since 2010). She cast the task of our panel, and our generation, this way:
Carving the path to our ideal energy future requires a variety of actors working together. In trailblazing regulatory reform, New York is bringing the players to the table. Now is the time for an honest and educated dialogue on renewable energy’s capacity to power our state. We’re ready to get past the ‘if,’ to the ‘when’ and ‘how.’
You can watch the video stream here or come to our Pleasantville, N.Y., campus.
On Friday, Pace is sustaining the discussion with an all-day event on the Manhattan campus, New York’s Energy Vision: A Conversation on Valuing Resources.
To prime the pump, and to get a sense of the scale of the transition that would be required to be on the Solutions Project path for New York energy use, see this excerpt from a Stanford news release:
According to the researchers’ calculations, New York’s 2030 power demand for all sectors (electricity, transportation, heating/cooling, industry) could be met by:
• 4,020 onshore 5-megawatt wind turbines
• 12,770 offshore 5-megawatt wind turbines
• 387 100-megawatt concentrated solar plants
• 828 50-megawatt photovoltaic power plants
• 5 million 5-kilowatt residential rooftop photovoltaic systems
• 500,000 100-kilowatt commercial/government rooftop photovoltaic systems
• 36 100-megawatt geothermal plants
• 1,910 0.75-megawatt wave devices
• 2,600 1-megawatt tidal turbines
• 7 1,300-megawatt hydroelectric power plants, of which most exist
Footnote | * Text was adjusted to reflect that this event took place.