New York

Energy and power

Although New York State's fossil fuel resources are limited, the state ranked 6th in the US in electric power production in 1999. About 16% of the state's annual electric power output came from hydroelectric plants built and operated by the Power Authority of the State of New York. Almost 10% came from oil-fired units, 15% from coal-fired units, 32% from gas-fired units, 26% from nuclear power plants, and about 2% from other sources. Installed capacity (utility and nonutility) in 1999 was 33.7 million kW. Electrical output totaled nearly 144.6 billion kWh. Electric bills for New York City are the highest in the nation, and customers in Buffalo and Rochester also pay above the national median. Sales of public and private electric power totaled 131.8 billion kWh in 1998, of which 40% went to commercial users, 19% to industrial purchasers, 31% to residential users, and 10% for other purposes.

The largest nonfederal hydroelectric plant in the US is the Niagara Power Project, which had a capacity of 2,160,000 kW at the beginning of 1999. The New York side of the St. Lawrence River Power Project had a capacity of 912,000 kW in the same year. Both plants were built and are operated by the Power Authority of the State of New York, which also built and operates a pumped-storage plant in Schoharie County (1,000,000 kW) and a nuclear power plant on Lake Ontario near Oswego (883,000 kW). Other nuclear plants in the state include two reactors at Indian Point (one operated by Consolidated Edison, and one by the State Power Authority), and units operated by the Niagara Mohawk Power Co. and the Rochester Gas and Electric Co. The State Energy Research and Development Authority manages the only commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the US, at West Valley in Cattaraugus County.

Estimated reserves of petroleum in New York State are much less than 1% of the US total. Oil output in 2002 was 452 barrels per day—also a tiny fraction of the national total. Because New York has a large number of motor vehicles and because more than half of all occupied housing units in the state are heated by oil, the state is a very large net importer of petroleum products.

The state's estimated natural gas reserves as of 2001 were 318 billion cu ft (9 billion cu m); marketed production in the same year totaled 27.8 billion cu ft (0.79 billion cu m). Although the state's natural gas output has risen steadily since 1966, both production and reserves represent only a tiny fraction of US totals.