NYPA President, Urges Measures To Protect Environment, Save Oil
New York - New York Power Authority (NYPA) President and Chief Executive Officer Timothy S. Carey called Tuesday night for aggressive efforts to develop environmentally compatible "green" buildings and to promote energy efficiency and clean energy sources.
"We must identify and develop the technologies that will best enable us to cut our dependence on foreign oil, to combat global warming and other threats to our environment and to assure the reliable, affordable energy needed to fuel economic growth," Carey said in a speech to the New York Chapter of the Association of Energy Engineers.
"These are, of course, national and international issues," Carey told the audience at the New York Academy of Science. "But I believe that New York State is well positioned to play a key role in addressing them."
He cited Gov. George E. Pataki's national leadership in advancing renewable energy, clean transportation and energy efficiency and in "moving aggressively to improve air quality." Among projects involving the Power Authority, Carey said, are the governor's initiative to develop a least one clean-coal power plant in New York State and to use clean, low-cost hydroelectric power to produce hydrogen as a fuel for transportation.
Carey noted that as president and chief executive officer of the Battery Park City Authority in Lower Manhattan, he led a successful effort to create the nation's first "green" residential high-rise building—The Solaire, at 20 River Terrace.
"Green buildings must conform to a set of environmental design and performance guidelines established by the U.S. Green Building Council," he said. "And they come in various shades of green, as arrived at by the Council's LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] rating system. What they all have in common is an astonishingly low impact on the environment."
Carey said he is now directing a project at the Power Authority to win LEED certification for NYPA's office building in White Plains by improving water efficiency, air purity and other elements of building performance.
"There is enormous potential for quality, economically sound investment in ‘green' buildings," he said.
He noted that the Power Authority already has cut annual energy use in the White Plains building by more than 50 percent through a series of energy-efficiency measures, including installation of a new cooling plant, lighting and motors, and a computerized energy management system.
Overall, NYPA has invested more than $900 million in energy-efficiency projects at public buildings throughout the state, saving taxpayers $92 million a year through reduced energy and maintenance costs, and cutting oil imports by more than 1.5 million barrels annually. In addition, Carey said, the Power Authority has installed 23 solar photovoltaic projects and 13 fuel cells in various parts of the state, with others pending, and is considering development of several biomass projects.
NYPA is also part of a team working to identify one or more potential sites in the state for private-sector development of coal plants that would be significantly cleaner that conventional coal-burning plants and would feature the capture, or sequestration, of carbon dioxide.
Also under study, Carey said, is a "Hydropower to Hydrogen" project that would use clean hydroelectric power from NYPA's Niagara Project to produce hydrogen through the electrolysis of water. The hydrogen would power vehicles running on fuel cells or modified internal combustion engines, helping to clean the air and reduce dependence on foreign oil.
SOURCE: New York Power Authority (NYPA)