Ravenswood Generating Station in Long Island City, Queens.

Cold, hard reality has finally descended on New York’s critically important energy future. None too soon, although still not entirely as detailed as it should be.

A recently released draft of the state’s latest energy plan by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, mandated every four years by Article 6 of the state energy law, at long last recognizes that the same fossil fuels we rely on today will be needed 15 years from now, perhaps to a slightly lesser degree, depending whether alternative energies may or may not make a small dent.

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Statewide, half of our electricity today is generated by burning natural gas. In the New York City and Long Island area, 87% comes from that source. During peak times when we need the instant extra boost to get us through, it’s fossil fuels that keep the lights on and air conditioning humming.

We may not like it. We may wish it was coming from clean energy through wind, solar, hydrogen and even new-age nuclear.

But for a variety of reasons, those alternatives do not yet meet the combined criteria of reliability, availability and affordability for such a short time frame as the next 15 years. So we need........

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