WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES SEPTEMBER 17, 2020 13
BY THOMAS J. GRECH
To be a business owner in
Queens, you have to be a
survivor.
Since 2007, businesses have battled
the depths of the Great Recession,
the damage of Hurricane Sandy, the
pain of escalating rents of the past
few years, and the devastation of the
COVID-19 pandemic and economic
shutdown.
Maintaining a business through
just one of these obstacles is truly
a feat. I know thousands who have
made extremely difficult decisions
to weather all of these storms.
And if we don’t take steps to
strengthen our electrical grid today,
we could soon be adding “rolling
blackouts” to the list of calamities.
New Yorkers have already faced
difficult, life-altering challenges:
from months of job losses, to food
shortages, and even the lack of basic
conveniences like toilet paper and
hand sanitizer. Blackouts would be
an immense challenge added to a
long list of hardships in front of us.
That’s why NRG’s plan to replace
outdated 50-year-old turbines at
the Astoria Generating Station with
state-of-the-art technology – the
most efficient and cleanest available
today – is so important. NRG will install
a new turbine that immediately
reduces onsite peak emission rates
by up to 99 percent and result in the
removal of nearly 5 million tons of
greenhouse gas emissions over the
next 15 years. That’s the equivalent
of taking 64,000 cars off the road
in Astoria. The new technology can
also be converted to use zero carbon
hydrogen fuel, transitioning to become
a source of clean energy in the
future.
The Astoria Generating Station
is one of New York City’s “peaker
plants,” specifically designed to
start up quickly when the electrical
grid needs support. Just a few weeks
after 150,000 New Yorkers lost
power from Tropical Storm Isaias,
the importance of electricity reliability
has never been clearer. It’s
a certainty that more New Yorkers
would’ve been without power if it
wasn’t for peaking plants supporting
the grid.
It goes without saying that our
hospitals, schools, restaurants,
shops and small businesses cannot
operate without reliable power. In
the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic,
hundreds of thousands of homes and
apartments need more electricity because
they are now the places where
children are learning, parents are
working, and vulnerable seniors are
depending on air conditioning and
heating for their health.
With climate change causing
more extreme temperatures, it’s
very likely that over the next few
years, demands on the system will
increase, making peaker plants even
more essential. Astoria Generating
Station alone will be able to power
more than 375,000 homes, while
reducing emissions and building
for the future.
Failing to plan for peak demand
is destructive – just ask California.
On Aug. 14 and Aug. 15, the state was
forced into rolling blackouts in the
middle of a heat wave because there
were not enough local power plants
to meet demand. They even tried to
purchase out-of-state power to make
up the difference, but those plants
were already committed to other
customers. In short, we cannot allow
what happened in California to
happen in Queens.
The business owners I speak with
in Queens fully support New York’s
aggressive plans for addressing
climate change. Renewable energy
technology like wind turbines, solar
panels and battery storage are critical
to ensuring we’re meeting our
targets. But it’s just as important to
recognize that we need redundancy
built into our power grid so that
our economy isn’t susceptible to
crippling blackouts. Until renewable
technology can fully meet New
York City’s needs, we need a backup
power supply that can be called into
action so that our businesses, homes,
hospitals and schools can continue
to operate when the sun isn’t shining
or the wind isn’t blowing.
NRG will remove some of the oldest
turbines in our region and replace
them with new technology that will
be more efficient with significantly
less emissions resulting in much
cleaner air now. NRG is also making
this investment on their own,
without any subsidy from ratepayers
or taxpayers. At the same time,
this project will create 175 union
construction jobs over three years
and pump more than $325 million
into the economy through 2040.
In the middle of one of the worst
unemployment crises in New York
City’s history, we shouldn’t be turning
our back on projects that offer
these kinds of important economic
benefits.
Queens business owners know
a bad storm coming when they see
one, and single-minded opposition
to a critical infrastructure project
would create all the conditions for
another maelstrom. We have a better
path: keeping the lights on in our
homes and businesses and improving
air quality now while Queens
transitions to renewable sources of
power.
Thomas J. Grech is president & CEO
of the Queens Chamber of Commerce,
which has over 1,150 members serving
more than 100,000 Queens-based
employees.
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Queens can’t aff ord California-style rolling blackouts
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