BUT OF COURSE: New Yorkers are footing the bill for Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio’s quixotic energy-efficiency plans.

Even if we stipulate that increased energy efficiency in New York buildings is a good thing, the emissions-reduction targets are financially burdensome and unrealistic. Cuomo’s appointees at the New York State Public Service Commission have mandated that buildings must slash their energy use by 600 trillion BTUs by 2030. But as economist Jonathan Lesser points out in a recent report for the Manhattan Institute, the New York Independent System Operator has projected that those energy savings will be about 51 trillion BTUs—or about one-twelfth the required amount.

Opposition to nuclear energy has compounded the problem. The Cuomo administration negotiated the premature closure of the Indian Point Energy Center, but city documents show that shutting the state’s nuclear plants will mean more reliance on natural gas. In California and New England, carbon-dioxide emissions increased immediately after nuclear plants were shuttered, with gas-fired generators replacing the nukes.

Renewables can’t meet New York’s energy needs. In his August report, Lesser estimated that achieving 80 x 50 would require either 300,000 megawatts of new solar-energy capacity—equivalent to all existing solar capacity on the planet—or 100,000 megawatts of offshore wind capacity; that’s more than six times as much as now exists globally.

Anything that can’t happen, won’t.