Nov 2, 2022 · 46m · green-blueprint
New York’s clean energy puzzle
Julian Spector · 15m spoken Marie French · 8m spoken Samantha Maldonado · 8m spoken Maria Gallucci · 5m spoken Stephen Lacey · 3m spoken
0:00 / 0:00
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Recorded live at WNYC studios, this episode of The Carbon Copy brings together leading energy journalists to assess New York's ambitious climate mandates, exploring the grid infrastructure, building electrification, environmental justice, and financing challenges shaping the state's transition.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 5.1 Guest teaching 4.6 Guest disagreement 1.1 The hosts pushing back 1.0
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 35:09 Marie reframes battery viability as peaker replacements
Marie pushes back against Julian's premise that batteries can directly replace retiring peaker plants, citing 12-hour-plus duration limitations and recharge grid draw.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 34:38 Julian challenges peaker phaseout reliabilityJulian presses the panel on the operational risk of shutting down local peaker capacity without constructing firm zero-carbon replacements inside city limits.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 35:09 Marie details technical realities of grid storageMarie educates the host on why offshore wind transmission lines, rather than battery storage, will carry the primary burden of replacing dirty urban peaker facilities.
The host holds their own ▶ 11:52 Julian synthesizes state solar capacity and policy dataJulian demonstrates deep domain expertise by citing New York's 4GW distributed solar milestone and comparing its national SEIA ranking against regional peers.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The hosts as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The hosts pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Live Panel Welcome and Journalist Introductions | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Julian Spector opens the live event, joking about sports and introducing journalists Marie French, Samantha Maldonado, and Maria Gallucci. | |
| Offshore Wind Targets and Deployment Hurdles | 6 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Julian sets the scene with statewide renewable numbers and downstate fossil reliance. The panel highlights offshore wind pipeline delays and notes the state will need double its current 9GW target. | |
| Solar Energy Development and Permitting Bottlenecks | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Julian contrasts New York solar with California and cites SEIA installation figures. Panelists explain local siting hurdles like OREZ staffing and skyscraper shadowing. | |
| Battery Storage Roadmaps and Grid Reliability | 6 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Julian references Astoria's 100MW project while Marie explains Con Ed's RFP shortfall and the upcoming Storage Roadmap 2.0 alongside statutory reliability off-ramps. | |
| Mid-Episode Sponsor Break: Rise Light & Power and Sealed | 5 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Following the mid-roll break, the conversation examines building gas bans. Samantha and Marie unpack why NYC passed a ban while upstate gas utilities successfully lobbied the state assembly against it. | |
| Local Law 97 and Existing Building Retrofits | 5 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Julian asks about retrofitting existing housing stock. Samantha outlines Local Law 97 compliance issues for outer-borough co-ops lacking final implementation rules. | |
| Phasing Out Peaker Plants and Environmental Justice | 5 | 7 | 3 | 2 | Julian presses on shutting peaker plants without in-city battery backups. Marie firmly clarifies that batteries cannot yet replace peakers due to duration and grid recharge limitations. | |
| Clean Energy Workforce, Green Marine Hubs, and Geothermal Pilots | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | The panel explores environmental justice and workforce development, discussing the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal offshore wind hub and union-backed utility geothermal pilot legislation. | |
| Energy Affordability, Policy Funding, and Federal Climate Support | 5 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Julian asks how New York will fund the transition. Marie explains carbon pricing debates while Samantha and Maria discuss ratepayer debt burdens and incoming IRA subsidies. |
Statements from this episode (19)
Spector: New York's grid is roughly 50% zero-emission via hydro and nuclear
“Now if you look at the way the energy system works right now, statewide, it's pretty good. It's, like, 50% zero emission. A lot of that's actually hydro and the nuclear that you all have allowed to continue running.”
Gallucci: New York has 4.3GW of offshore wind projects in development
“Right now, there's 4.3 gigawatts worth of projects in the pipeline, and if everything goes as the developers say it will, the first project, South Fork Wind, Might be, have turbines spitting in the water by the end of next year.”
French: New York's first offshore wind projects face 1-2 year delays
“These projects, you know, when they were first announced, the first two that have state contracts, when they were announced in twenty-nineteen by Governor Andrew Cuomo, you know, they were supposed to be online, I think twenty-twenty-four, May twenty-twenty-fo…”
French: New York needs roughly 18GW of offshore wind for 2040 goals
“To actually achieve the state's, you know, ultimate twenty-thirty and twenty-forty goals We're going to need a whole lot more offshore wind than just nine gigawatts. We're going to need much more than that. I think the Climate Action Council, you know, support…”
French: New York's renewable siting office still staffing up after two years
“OREZ, the Office of Renewable Energy Siting, which is the new state office that was set up to do permitting and speed it up, essentially, for renewable developers, is still staffing up. And it's been two years. So, you know, we're still waiting.”
Gallucci: NYC has installed 300 megawatts toward its 1-gigawatt 2030 solar target
“New York City has a goal of installing one gigawatt with a solar by 2030, and I believe has about a third, is about a third of the way there, so 300 megawatts, and the sense is that it's possible to meet that goal, but they, the city would really have to accel…”
Spector: High urban density limits the viability of purely rooftop solar transitions
“I think New York City is a good counter example to the sort of vision of the clean energy future that's all small scale, and every, every home just puts it on the roof because, you know, you have too many people living in very tall buildings that don't have th…”
Spector: New York crossed four gigawatts of installed distributed solar capacity
“They just crossed four, four gigawatts installed of distributed and, you know, there's a lot on roofs.”
French: Con Ed failed to award contracts in 300MW storage RFP
“Con Ed was required by the Public Service Commission to issue a utility scale request for proposals for battery storage. I believe, 300 megawatts was the target. I mean, other, other utilities were also required to issue RFPs, but they were like, you know, 10,…”
French: Storage developers will not build in New York without long-term contracts
“None of these developers or the incumbent generators that I talked to who are, you know, thinking about storage plan to build it without a long-term contract or support of some kind. There's no, no ability to do that in the current energy markets.”
French: NY climate law contains reliability off-ramps for 2040 target
“The climate law has off-ramps. The Public Service Commission, if it can, is concerned about reliability, Can, you know, be like, well, I guess we're not going to hit zero emissions by 2040.”
French: New York Assembly Democrats blocked statewide all-electric building mandate
“Senate Democrats were on board. The governor's office was on board but the assembly Democrats were not there yet.”
French: NY Climate Council considers delaying building electrification timeline one year
“And now the Climate Council is considering pushing back the whole timeline about a year, Because of the way that the international building codes are coming out later, and they need more time to sort of integrate it, if they do it through the building codes co…”
Maldonado: Local Law 97 compliance starts in 2024 despite unfinalized rules
“And these laws, I mean, they have to start complying by twenty-twenty-four, but the rules for, like, what guides the laws and how they would even calculate their emissions and their penalties are, just haven't, haven't been finalized yet, and so we're still wa…”
French: More New York peakers will shut down between 2023 and 2025
“Twenty-twenty-three some of these regulations go into effect. Some peakers have already started to shut down. More will be shutting down in twenty-twenty-three, 25 time frame”
French: NYISO warned peaker plants may run longer if CHPE delays occur
“If Chippy the Champlain Hudson Power Express doesn't come online, you know, when it's currently forecasted to come online there could be some reliability issues that the NISO itself has said, you know, this could mean that the peakers need to stay on longer.”
French: Battery storage cannot currently replace peaker plants one-to-one
“Well, I don't think batteries, right now, battery storage technology is not necessarily a one-to-one replacement for peakers, right? We don't necessarily have a battery that can run for several days or, you know, twelve-plus hours, and batteries need to rechar…”
Maldonado: New York passed law mandating utility geothermal network pilots statewide
“It was a law that got passed in the session last time. It was really, like, labor and environmentalists coming together To pass this bill that would mandate geothermal network pilots in the city and around the state for each utility.”
Maldonado: New York utility debt reached record levels post-pandemic
“Already in the past year, in part because of the pandemic, we've seen really high, like, cases of utility debts that lots of people have in, I haven't looked at the numbers in a while, but they were just far and away the highest numbers that we've seen, basica…”