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The study, led by researchers from Stanford and Cornell universities, provides a theoretical road map to how New Yorkers could rely on renewable energy within 17 years. It would require massive investments in wind turbines, solar panels and more from the windy shores off Long Island to sun-exposed rooftops upstate.

“It’s doable,” said co-author Robert Howarth, a Cornell professor of ecology and environmental biology. “It’s way outside of the realm of what most people are talking about … But I think people have been too pessimistic about what can be done.”

In fact, New York has been committed to significantly increasing green energy production for the past nine years under its renewable portfolio standard, which is funded by a surcharge of less than a dollar on monthly electricity bills. Then-Gov. George Pataki began the program in 2004 with the goal of New York relying on renewable resources for a quarter of its electricity by 2013.

That goal, tweaked three years ago, is now for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to support the production of about 10.4 million megawatt-hours of energy from hydro, wind, solar, biomass and landfill gas annually by 2015. The authority reported this week that it was 46 percent of the way to the goal at the end of last year.

The goal could lead to roughly 30 percent renewables by 2015, once clean-energy purchases by consumers and resources added by the Long Island Power Authority are factored in.

With two years to go, clean energy advocates say it will be difficult for New York to hit the 2015 renewable target. But they believe the larger point is that New York is making progress……

“Exclusive of hydropower, the state has developed more renewable energy than any other state in the Northeast,” said authority spokeswoman Kate Muller. “Including hydropower, New York’s renewable energy capacity is comparable to the entire renewable energy capacity of the other eight states in the Northeast.”

New York has made a lot of progress in harnessing wind power, jumping from 48 megawatts of wind capacity in 2004 to more than 1,600 megawatts now, including large-scale development on the windy Tug Hill Plateau east of Lake Ontario….. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/07/ny-renewable-energy-study_n_3032873.html?utm_hp_ref=green