New York State’s Draft Scoping Plan has been released. It is a blue print for reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The plan contains a reasonable estimates of the costs and benefits of the reductions. On balance the benefits are higher than the costs. Also the plan will not kill the economy, it should be called the building trades full employment plan. There are lots of jobs there. The plan is a cost estimate or bid for doing New York’s Part to reduce global warming.
Because cars and furnaces last 20 years the plan requires that all new light duty vehicles (cars) sold will be electric by the early 2030. In addition most replacement furnace equipment sold after 2023 will also have to be electric. They’re not actually coming for your gas cars, but when yours wear out, the replacements will have to be electric. The last gas car should limp to the junkyard in 2050.
The electric furnaces will mainly have to be heat pumps, because their fuel costs are 1/3 of resistance heaters. Building upgrades represent the largest costs, because most buildings will need more insulation. The electrical grid would have to double in size and New York State would become a winter peaking system. Two large high tension lines would need to be built to the downstate. Most of the options will only reduce emissions 85% by 2050. So there will have to be some storage. New York’s timber business already absorbs 8% of emissions (A 2X4is sequestered carbon in addition to being a 2X4), presumably other agricultural that can store carbon in the soil will also gain.
The argument against doing this is that it is expensive and hard. The cost over 30 years is calculated to be about 300 billion dollars. There are 19.5 million New Yorkers. So the cost comes to about $15,000 per person over the 30 years, or about $512 per year per person, or $42.00 a month, or $1.50 a day every day for 30 years. It is also about 1% of the New York’s GNP. Most of the costs are in the out years and they will build slowly. Most of this money will be spent in NY and so enters the economy making jobs.
The argument for doing this is that doing nothing is even more expensive. The scope plan estimates $240 Billion in avoided damages and $170 Billion in health benefits for net benefit of 30 years of about $120 billion dollars. It turns out that fossil fuels cause a lot of death and disease.
A lot of what is being avoided is Billion dollar weather disasters (Fires, Floods, Hurricanes, Droughts, and Storms). These are obviously are being made much worse by climate change and cost an average of $153 billion dollars a year over the last 5 years which is $466 dollars per person per year or $1.27 a day. The cost of these disasters is going up 2.5 times as fast as the economy is growing. Inflation adjusted the cost of these disasters has gone up from (5 year averages) from $16.7 billion in 1985, to $37.5 billion in 1992 to $22.9 billion in 2002 to $70.4 billion in 2012 to $153 billion last year, which is why they are in the news constantly. Global warming is not only real. It is gaining on us fast.
Another reason for doing this is the high price of gas and oil. The costs and benefits mentioned above are sensitive to the price of oil and gas both of which are quite high right now. Although it is easy to blame Biden for the price of gas, this is the third spike since 2008 and one of those spikes lasted 4 years. Inflation adjusted the price of gas is not at a peak. Anyway, one way to keep the price of oil and gas down is to reduce demand. As strange as it seems one of the best ways to enjoy your gas ride, is if your neighbors buy electric.