New York City, State Push Energy Change

[jpak]

http://www.nysun.com/article/60517

Wherever one looks, the Empire State appears to be getting a little greener. Underwater tidal turbines submerged in the East River, geothermal homes in the Hudson Valley, an urban wind farm on a brownfield site south of Buffalo, and a solar building in Battery Park that reuses storm water are among projects changing the way New Yorkers meet their energy needs.

"We will see a greater role for renewable energy in New York overall" in the coming decades, the director of Pace Law School's Energy Project, Fred Zalcman, said.

The director of the Urban Energy Project at Columbia University's Center for Energy, Marine Transportation and Public Policy, Stephen Hammer, said the degree of change toward renewable energy in the next decade would ultimately depend on how aggressively the government imposed mandates or established incentives. He said that PlaNYC 2030, Mayor Bloomberg's 127-part proposal to reduce greenhouse emissions, was one of the most comprehensive energy and climate plans ever written for a city. The plan would have "a ripple effect," and other cities would pay attention, he said.

New York State has set 2013 as the date when 25% of all power used in the state should come from renewable sources. The director of the Alliance for Clean Energy New York, Carol Murphy, said that given the state's abundant natural resources of wind, solar, and hydropower, the state could exceed that target. Governor Spitzer has likewise outlined a "15 by 15" plan to reduce New York's energy demand by 15% by 2015. The lieutenant governor, David Paterson, this summer held the first meeting of the Renewable Energy Task Force, which hopes to spur clean energy companies to settle in New York.

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