By Steve Helmin, President, Stop Energy Sprawl
A recent upstate meeting with New York government officials to discuss requirements of the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) was met with strong backlash from some of those most severely impacted: highway and school personnel being required to purchase electric snowplows and school buses starting in just six months. Attendees of the meeting hosted by Assemblywoman Marianne Buttenschon (District 119) noted that neither type of electric vehicle is available, and that waiting lists are years in length. Representatives of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES) agreed that the input of people who Assemblywoman Buttenschon reiterated “are the boots on the ground,” was enlightening.
Beyond the unavailability of electric plows and buses, are the very real issues inherent to rural upstate communities: the severity of snowstorms and the length of bus routes. Electric battery capacity is often computed in miles for consumer vehicles, but road plowing is measured in hours – dependent on the snow and ice load being removed. A highway superintendent said the safety of his drivers and others on the roads keeps him up at night: “What will happen when an electric plow’s battery dies and is stranded on the highway with its wing plows extended in one of our blinding snowstorms?” he asked. “How many lives might be lost by vehicles sliding into stranded plows or on the roads not cleared?”
Highway garages aren’t equipped with EV chargers, and many areas lack the electric infrastructure necessary to allow installation of them. Further, how will roads be maintained for safe passage if plows need to be charged for hours at a time? On many winter days, snowplows are running 18-24 hours/day.
During the meeting, municipalities reported that the state’s new Advanced Clean Truck (ACT) rule will essentially prevent them from buying plow trucks at all. That’s because manufacturer sale quota requirements prohibit municipalities from buying vehicles with internal combustion engines even when the equivalent electric vehicle is unavailable. In a specialized market that already has extended delivery times, this development could risk lives and public safety by forcing towns to continue using old and increasingly unreliable equipment.
The bus rides for some Upstate New York school students top an hour with routes being dozens of miles in length. School bus garages are not equipped with EV chargers and the number required would exceed 60 in some districts. Furthermore, the buses carry students the majority of the day – starting with high school and moving on to the routes for middle and elementary schools. The length of time required to charge buses could require doubling the bus fleet without the land or garage space to house them. “Are rural school districts and municipalities being asked to double or triple their fleet size at huge taxpayer expense just to maintain the same level of service?” asked a local official.
Noted, also, was the dramatic increase in electricity demand expected from electric vehicles, heat pumps, and other CLCPA initiatives without a realistic plan to generate reliable power. “Upstate New York is being threatened with industrial wind and solar projects that will destroy hundreds of thousands of acres of forest and farmland, require dangerous battery storage systems, and necessitate massive transmission lines across the state. Yet no matter how many billions of ratepayer or taxpayer dollars are spent, the state won’t achieve its goal of carbon-free electricity with a plan that relies predominantly on underperforming intermittent sources,” said electrical engineer Keith Schue.
Greg Sacco, who worked in the utility industry for 35 years, drove home this point by noting that during the meeting – which occurred on one of the hottest days this summer when electricity demand is highest – New York State’s electric demand was 24,000 MW’s and the amount provided by industrial wind turbines was 277 MW’s, a miniscule 1.47% of the total energy needed.
The CLCPA calls for New York to generate 70 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2030 and 100 percent zero emission electricity by 2040. However, NYSERDA recently notified the NYS Public Service Commission that the State could probably not even meet the “70 by 30” renewable target. “It’s time for New York to develop an energy plan that works for both people and the environment,” said Steve Helmin, President of Stop Energy Sprawl.
Stop Energy Sprawl calls for the state to step back, perform a critical review of its energy strategy, and pursue a more diversified set of carbon-free solutions that can achieve climate goals without stomping on communities, wiping out farmland, and destroying nature. To that end, the coalition endorses testimony submitted by many of its members last year in the Public Service Commission’s Clean Energy Standard Case, 15-E-0302. That document can be found here: https://t.co/XNv1Cjjfn2
About Stop Energy Sprawl: Stop Energy Sprawl is a coalition of 40+ New York State community groups, municipalities, and elected officials from localities targeted by land-wasting, large scale industrial wind and solar projects, located far from where the energy is needed. More about the organization and its initiatives can be found at www.stopenergysprawl.org.
