Ramifications of Buffalo going green

Buffalo a climate refuge? Maybe that's the economic development vision of Buffalo's mayor to re-populate a city losing residents to the south, but is it likely, or just ludicrous?

The state of New York is keen on banning all sorts of carbon fuels and driving the economy and powering home heating with electricity. Buffalo, close to one of the largest hydroelectric power sources in the world -- Niagara Falls -- might seem to be an ideal candidate for an all-electric energy lifestyle. Yet the first question would be: If it is such an abundant, local resource, why is it not already Buffalo's primary energy source? The simple answer is that the rest of the state -- and Canada -- draw their electricity from Niagara, and that does not leave enough for Buffalo to go all-electric.

But never mind that, the state has a plan to banish carbon, including the primary source of home heating in frigid, economically depressed Buffalo. That resource is natural gas, a highly efficient heating source -- unlike electricity -- and until the Biden administration started to impose additional restrictions, an inexpensive heating source for those cold Buffalo winters.

So if New York goes green, bans natural gas and coal-fired electrical generating plants, how is Buffalo going to be able to heat and power its economy, especially at the 'skyrocketing' electricity prices Barack Obama promised as a direct effect of his cap and trade approach adopted by the Democrats? The answer: Not easily and not cheaply.

The basic engineering and economics don't work, especially in the Buffalo environment where solar power has been more of a fraud than a fountain of energy.

It would come as a surprise to most western New Yorkers that wine country is new to the upstate region, as it has been a mainstay for years. No reason to create "global warming."

As to escaping "blistering temperatures" in Florida and Texas, good luck with that idea. First, there are no blisters to be found. Second, Buffalo residents are more likely to blister, only from the extreme cold, not heat, and in the absence of carbon-based fuels, that cold could easily permeate their residences, when all of the alternative, "green" energy sources either disappear or become well beyond the budget of a Buffalonian. Some refuge.