Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The great New York State energy switch debate continues as pushes are still being made from the state on shying away from gas and going electric in cars and homes.
Democratic New York State Senator Sean Ryan was on WBEN Thursday morning and says there's a lot of conversations that still need to be had before we reach the projected date of 2030, where homeowners would hypothetically not be able to purchase gas-powered appliances.
"Before that 2030 day becomes firm, we need to really look at places like Western New York, we need to make sure that our homes are insulated, and that we're using less energy and conserving energy," said Senator Ryan.
Senator Ryan acknowledges that most homes in Western New York are old and not properly insulated and if those homes switch to electric, the whole point of making the switch wouldn't make much sense from a green perspective.
"So if we just switched from gas power to electric, but we're still inefficiently, burning a lot, a lot of fuel, whether it's from electricity or gas, we're just creating a system that perpetuates waste. But worse than that, it would just mean with poorly insulated houses, you're [going to] have to build a lot more windmill or import a lot more electricity from Ohio, that's probably generated by coal. So we're not really to the point yet of a holistic energy policy."
Senator Ryan believes the future should be geothermal.
"I really do think that the answer to Western New York is geothermal heating. It doesn't depend on electricity, or it depends on a very small amount of electricity," Ryan said. The senator tells WBEN the executive branch has put out some proposals on the subject but added nothing is going to happen too quickly.
Climate change plays an important role as to why New York State wants to shy away from natural gas.
"If Western New York and the world continues to burn carbon fuel at the same pace, we're gonna continue to warm our Earth, and it'll have catastrophic consequences," said the senator. "We know it, we see it, we have to learn to move away from it. I don't think there's any dispute in any science now about the consequences of burning natural gas. I don't think any natural gas company thinks that in 50 years, they're going to be the choice for consumer home heating."
Senator Ryan doesn't think that the retrofitting technology is there yet to get the homes to go fully electric or geothermal, but in the long run, these home heating methods could be some serious savings.
"I think the technology isn't there yet, but also caution people not to get stuck on old paradigms," said the senator. "I just toured a redone apartment building on Elmwood Avenue last week, the old Pierce Arrow building. That whole complex is heated by geothermal and the owner of the of the complex reports massive savings. During the storm, they didn't rely on electricity for their power, they relied on the power generated on site. So I would definitely check this this idea of what the costs are."
WBEN published a story a couple weeks ago about a local Niagara county business who went geothermal and the costs where so expensive they had to resort to burning wood.
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Senator Ryan reacts, saying, "I don't know about that individual story. If that was true, nobody would be installing geothermal anywhere in New York State. So I don't know the exact circumstances there. But I would say if that sounds scary, and if that was true, then the geothermal industry would be dead today because who would ever install something that's so expensive to run that you have to resort to burning wood?"