The ramifications of New York’s raft of new “green energy” policies are beginning to sink in for residents of the Empire State. One of those regulations will soon begin the process of forcing residents to phase out their natural gas, oil, or propane heating systems and replace them with electric baseboard heating or electrified heat pumps. This will primarily impact apartment buildings and condos first, but it will eventually impact everyone. The transition turns out to cost a pretty penny, even if there are state and federal rebates available to soften the blow. But once the new systems are installed, according to a new study from the Empire Center for Public Policy, it will cost significantly more to heat your space with this gear. And that assumes there will be enough juice on the grid to run it when you need it most, something that can no longer be taken for granted. (NY Post)

New York residents could face skyrocketing heating bills under the state’s new “green” policies — which may not even have a significant impact on greenhouse-gas emissions, a new study warns.

A review by the Empire Center for Public Policy says the state’s new rules will push homeowners to buy expensive electrified heat pumps while being forced to phase out their natural gas, oil and propane systems.

But even then, the new electrification policy could only have a negligible impact on greenhouse emissions while burning up homeowners’ wallets, according to the analysis, “In Cold Reality: The Cost and Challenge of Compulsory Home Electrification in New York.”

For the co-ops and apartment buildings facing this demand, they aren’t going to simply suck up all of these expenses. They will be passed on to the residents and tenants. At one community center in Bayside, Queens, the owners claim to have no idea how they will pay for the conversion. The more than 200 residents there will likely be seeing an increase of more than 30% in their monthly maintenance fees overnight. Most of the residents are lower-income, working-class families and retirees. The senior citizens are concerned that they will need to move to even smaller quarters if they can afford to stay at all.

The conversions will have to be widespread and the displacements will not be evenly distributed. Currently, only 13% of all residential buildings in New York have electric heating. On Staten Island, only 5% have electric or solar heating, so nearly all residential buildings will be hit. The most common form of heating in the coldest, western, and mountainous parts of the state is oil. They too will be forced to “upgrade” to heat pumps or electric furnaces at great expense. Those upstate, rural areas are also the ones with the lowest average incomes, particularly when compared to New York City. The average cost of electrifying a single-family home ranges from $14,600 to $46,200. So the outlook isn’t brilliant for them.

And as the study mentioned above points out, this is all being done despite the fact that the actual reduction in carbon emissions will be minuscule. Modern gas and oil furnaces are remarkably efficient compared to earlier models. There are much bigger fish to fry in the carbon ocean, assuming you find some value in those efforts. And the cost to individual residents and commercial developers alike will be grossly out of proportion.

What this is going to do is make New York even less affordable and less attractive as a place to own a home. The state is already losing residents at a rate that isn’t even being made up for by the flood of illegal migrants rushing in without contributing anything to the economy. The faster they chase out the people who actually pay the taxes, the sooner they will run out of other people’s money. There used to be a tourism slogan here that informed us, “New York, New York. So nice they say it twice.” Perhaps they should change the second part to read, “too much at any price.”