On this snowy Tuesday, your Editorial Team’s thoughts turn to the topic of warmth, namely, what makes warmth this time of year — energy.

There’s a lot going on with energy these days. We will do our best to try to bring clarity to a very complicated subject.

Let’s start with collective heart attack that Kingston and Ulster County had when we got our most recent utility bills. Many of us were startled to see a dramatic, nay terrifying, jump in the “Balance Due” department, with some pointing out that they, and others, simply cannot pay these kinds of prices.

Energy, either electricity or natural gas, is like a regressive tax: What you’re charged is not necessarily connected to what you can pay, . A report issued Feb. 24 by local data-crunchers the Benjamin Center at SUNY New Paltz on utility costs in the region was a sobering read. Across the region — defined as Sullivan, Ulster, Orange and Dutchess counties — one in 10 households have had their services cut off for nonpayment; one in four households in Ulster are saddled with “utility debt.”

Of this 25 percent, the report further states: “Many face higher-than-average utility cost financial hardships. Seven in ten also struggle to pay their rent or mortgage on time. Six in ten or more also report poor physical or mental health (69 and 60 percent, respectively). Majorities of households with highly variable income (59 percent) have utility expense difficulties, as do those who have moved due to housing costs (55 percent). Half of households that are always paycheck-to-paycheck and 49 percent of households with medical debt are also strained to pay for utilities, as are 46 percent of working-class households, 45 percent of lower class households, and 45 percent of households facing downward social mobility out of the middle class.”

“When three in ten regional households either face utility termination or utility debt, it’s clear that utility cost obstacles make it hard for many households across the region to make ends meet,” stated Kathleen (kt) Tobin, Ph.D., sociologist and Benjamin Center scholar.

January’s spike in energy costs was mostly triggered by January’s excruciating visit to our region by polar vortices, which resulted in a long stretch of uncommonly cold weather. When it’s cold, everybody needs more heat; high demand means higher prices for anything. Natural gas, which is the biggest source of electricity for the Hudson Valley, is no exception. But other factors are at play. When it’s that cold, the amount of natural gas coming out of the wells in Pennsylvania and Ohio, our primary sources of natural gas, can drop in what’s called a freeze-off.” There was an approximately 12 percent reduction in gas output during the cold spell because of this. In a recent meeting with journalists from throughout the region, Central Hudson officials also noted that the fact that there hasn’t been a new natural gas pipeline built in the area for more than 30 years throttles supply. (Less supply combined with more demand makes prices go up.) The absence of electricity from the now-closed Indian Point nuclear power plant doesn’t help matters, nor does our brand-new war with Iran, which is already pushing crude oil prices higher.

Not great news. What could help this situation is more supply. How is that side of the equation looking?

Uh, not good. There are many great things about living in New York State, but one of the less-great things is the pace of state government in addressing this (or any other) issue. In 2019 came the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, CLCPA for short. This legislation set an ambitious goal: By 2040, all electricity generated in New York must be 100 percent emissions-free. We have 14 years to go, which is a long time in dog or cat years, but a short time in the world of infrastructure.

Locally and elsewhere, the drive to meet this goal has run up against resistance. To make such a system work, a large amount of battery energy storage systems (BESS) must be built to store the juice for when the sun isn’t shining (i.e., night) or the wind isn’t blowing. But proposals to place these systems have so far been met with a lot of criticism from locals worried about their safety. (Whether their fears are justified by the facts, we are bold to say, doesn’t really matter. Minds are a terrible thing to waste, and an almost impossible thing to change.) The approval process as stipulated by the State Environmental Quality Review Act is not fast, by design. It also includes a lot of chances for people to have their say. Their comments must by law be addressed by the applicant, which takes time. And if people don’t like the answers they’re getting, they can take the matter to court with an Article 78 proceeding, which puts the entire shebang on ice until the suit’s decided.

While the clock ticks relentlessly toward 2040, with a benchmark on emissions reduction coming in 2030, 2026 is an election year for Gov. Kathy Hochul. Remember two years ago, when she held up congestion pricing in Manhattan to make things better for Democrats in tight races for Congress? We predict something similar will happen with the CLCPA.

One sign that a hit job against CLCPA is in the works came last week from an organization familiar to us here in the greater Kingston metroplex: the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, NYSERDA for short. It issued a memo predicting that if the CLCPA goals are to be met, it will cost us all a lot of money: some $4,100 per household per year in increased energy costs. While many are willing to shoulder that burden, that kind of price hike for an already-pricey necessity is something no politician wants to run on. We predict that at some point this year, Hochul will attempt to position herself as the savior of struggling families by asking the legislature to kick the CLCPA can down the road by a decade or two, saying it’s just too expensive today to follow a plan drawn up seven years ago. While this possibility is already being decried by Kingston politicians, the delay will help Hochul get re-elected. But it does nothing to actually fix the supply problem. (We should all be so lucky to live long enough to see the nuclear power plant Hochul is toting start generating electricity. If it even gets built in the first place.)

So, what can we do? Embrace energy conservation even more tightly than we’ve already done is one measure. Advocating for a quick end to the Iran war is another. A Kerhonksonite, Ethan Guillaume, has started a petition on Change.org; as of close of business Tuesday, almost 11,000 people have signed it.

But as your Editorial Team sees it, the phenomenon of rising energy costs is something we’ll all have to suffer from for a long time. It’s just a simple matter of supply and demand.