Albany

The state's vision for its energy future drew praise Tuesday for its goals of reducing climate-changing greenhouse gases emissions by midcentury and expanding green energy. But it also was criticized for the sparse details on how exactly that will get done.

And those who praised greenhouse gas targets also questioned how the state could possibly succeed if it were to move ahead with hydraulic fracturing of natural gas, a controversial drilling technique that is strangely absent from the 210-page draft plan released last month, even though the plan calls for increased use of natural gas.

The plan reaffirms the state's goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent of 1990 levels by 2050 through increased use of natural gas, clean alternatives such as wind, solar and biomass, and increased efficiency. That goal was listed in 2009 by Gov. David Paterson.

"There is no way that New York can hit Governor Cuomo's goals for climate protection if the state allows fracking or includes an uptick of natural gas/ fossil fuel production," said Conner Bambrick, an analyst with Environmental Advocates of New York.

The plan calls for the state to "encourage and support oil-to-gas conversions ... to accelerate investments in natural gas distribution." It also calls for expanded consumption of natural gas, which currently accounts for about a third of the state's total energy use. Much of that is used for heating in about 3.9 million homes.

Also, the plan calls for the state to require gas companies to "identify and repair (gas) leaks of significant magnitude" and to "limit methane emissions from natural gas compressor stations on intrastate pipelines."

Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, has an impact more than 20 times greater than carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas, over a 100-year period, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Natural gas and petroleum production is the largest source of methane in the U.S.

A recent study by Stanford University found that the U.S. may be emitting about 50 percent more methane from all sources than estimated by EPA.

In the state report, the word "methane" appears four times and "hydraulic fracturing" appears only once — in the glossary. Fracking supporters have questioned why the Cuomo administration remained silent on the issue as part of its energy road map, and last week landowners from Broome and Delaware counties sued Cuomo to force him to allow fracking to start, accusing him of delaying a decision for political expediency.

At Tuesday's hearing, held before several dozen people in a conference room at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in Albany, fracking opponents also questioned fracking's omission from a plan that calls for greater reliance on gas. Laura Haight, an associate with the New York Public Interest Research Group, said the state should drop support for natural gas expansion and focus on renewables and efficiency.

The state has been studying the gas fracking issue for more than five years, and a decision now awaits a health study on fracking's potential health impacts from the state Health Department.

The energy plan also calls for the state departments of Environmental Conservation and Health, and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, to "support research to enable the quantification of public health benefits to be incorporated into energy planning and policies."

"This report is full of PR and vague statements," said Sandy Steubing, a member of People of Albany United for Safe Energy, a group that opposes a rising volume of crude oil rail shipments from the Midwest into the Port of Albany that got state approval in late 2012. "It is too little, too late."

Power plant owners are also leery of parts of the plan that call for the state to encourage more decentralized "localized" power sources, like solar and wind, to lessen the sting of $30 billion in projected improvements over the next decade to upgrade an aging electrical grid and network of large, centralized power plants.

"The proposed changes indicate an altered regulatory mind-set that does not honor the investments made by private companies and seeks to incur more costs for the customer to, in effect, create a new distributed energy resource system," said Gavin Donohue, president & CEO of Independent Power Producers of New York, an Albany-based lobbying group that represents about 80 companies involved in generating about three-quarters of the state's electricity.

He said the group opposes "any unfair preferential treatment of (distributed energy) in the market that de-emphasizes central station power, on which the state has depended reliably for so long."

The State Energy Planning Board will hold five more public hearings on the plan. None of the remaining hearings will be in the Capital Region.

bnearing@timesunion.com • @Bnearing10