In his first annual address to legislators last week, Gov. David A. Paterson said, “The state of our state is perilous.” Yet his energy platform promises to visit more peril upon the Empire State.
The centerpiece is Paterson’s “45 by 15” plan for New York “to meet 45 percent of its electricity needs through improved energy efficiency and clean renewable energy” by 2015. The idea is to decrease overall electricity usage 15 percent in six years through efficiency measures.
Meanwhile, policymakers would increase the state’s “renewable portfolio standard” — the amount of the state’s power that would come from renewable energy sources — to 30 percent from the previous target of 25 percent.
Neither is likely to happen, but we are guaranteed to spend a lot of money learning some hard lessons. The state economy is already fairly energy efficient, partly because high prices have driven heavy manufacturing out of state. So the likelihood of finding substantial gains there is slim. The only realistic hope for reducing energy consumption is not efficiency, but a lengthy economic downturn, which nobody wants.
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