When it comes to the story of energy in America, what counts as “legitimate” opposition and what gets waved aside?
It’s been our position that narratives and ideas are just as important as megawatts and electrons.
And for decades, the “idea” of environmentalism in New York has carried enormous cultural and political weight. But what happens when the people raising concerns aren’t professional activists, foundation-backed NGOs, or conservationists, but homeowners, local fire officials, and working-class communities?
The latest example that brings this question into focus comes from the Hudson Valley, long established as the birthplace of the environmental movement.
This week, the Albany Times Union ran a long feature on New York’s push for large-scale battery energy storage, centered on a proposed 250 MW Terra-Gen facility in the Hudson Valley. The project is opposed by homeowners, fire officials, and dense neighborhoods worried about fire risk, evacuation zones, and property values. One can imagine that the opposition is coordinated over kitchen tables, Elks Lodge meetings, neighbor-to-neighbor conversations and bake sales.
In 2021, the same outlet covered what seems like a very similar energy controversy: a 800 MW pumped-storage hydroelectric project at the Ashokan Reservoir. That plan, capable of storing far more energy for much longer durations without fire risk, was framed by environmental groups and green politicians as an existential threat to the landscape and local communities.
Both projects are energy storage, designed to smooth out the external risks and limitations of renewable energy. Both carry local impacts and involve massive amounts of infrastructure.
But one was framed as an ecological crime, while the other has been framed as inevitable, with local concerns posed as obstacles to overcome rather than a death sentence for the project. And the real difference is who opposed each project, and whether that opposition was legitimized by the media.
How Energy Narrative Is Shaped
The latest Times Union article frames the battery project as necessary and safe, a response to an unquestionable state mandate. The quotes selected, and those left out, tell the story.
“Energy storage is central to New York’s climate goals – goals the state is far behind on.
New York aims to have 3,000 megawatts of storage by 2025 and 6,000 by 2030.
Battery storage systems would also bring flexibility to the grid, help with bottlenecks and keep power flowing during weather-related outages.”
Despite widespread community concern, the piece featured only one direct quote from a local opponent. In contrast, eight voices ranging from academics, developers, state officials, and climate policy advocates were included to deflect criticism.
“Nationwide, however, the percentage of facilities experiencing fires has dropped sharply since 2020, according to the EPA…
There’s a lot of new research, new discoveries, that have been integrated into these systems, so over time, they will become safer and safer.
It’s increasingly common for the fossil fuel industry to use isolated, unrelated incidents to evoke people’s worst fears about energy storage projects.”
Readers were also told that these battery plants “last long,” “store large amounts of energy,” and “could reduce reliance on peakers and lower bills” without any rebuttal or context.
Surface-level inquiry reveals that the state of Texas has built the second most battery capacity in the nation, yet is burning more natural gas (via peaker plants) than it did in 2020 (according to Electricity Maps). The state of California now has the most battery capacity, but also the most expensive electricity.
The Technical Reality Left Out
Just this week, the National Center for Energy Analytics published an analysis by Lars Schernikau, PhD, titled The Battery Storage Delusion: Utility-Scale Batteries Are No Silver Bullet. It says that while utility-scale batteries can enhance grid stability, they “are not a scalable and sustainable solution” to overcome the intermittency of wind and solar.
“The narrative that batteries can solve the intermittency problem at scale is not only technically flawed but also misleading, as it diverts attention from the development of power systems that actually generate-rather than consume or partially store-electricity and that are more robust, realistic, and cost-effective.”
— The Battery Storage Delusion, National Center for Energy Analytics (2025)
…
Utility-scale batteries cannot function as long-duration energy storage solutions or scale to the levels needed to back up large-scale energy systems that are reliant on intermittent wind and solar.”
For some reason, analysis like this was not included to balance out the article.
Rewind to 2021
Four years ago, the same newspaper covered the proposed Ashokan Reservoir pumped-storage hydroelectric project, a proven technology capable of storing vast amounts of energy for days at a time, over many decades of operation.
The difference this time? Major environmental non-profits were against it, including the Catskill Center, the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, Riverkeeper, Catskill Mountainkeeper, the Woodstock Land Conservancy, Mountain Top Arboretum, The Adirondack Mountain Club, the Ashokan Center and more.
Yet the pumped storage project was framed as a classic David vs. Goliath struggle: of locals and authoritative NGOs against an out-of-state and out-of-touch developer threatening water, forests, and historic communities. Not one technical rebuttal to the claims of the opposition was offered; they functioned as settled truth.
“Thanks to the unfragmented forests we are able to be an area that’s more resilient to climate change and also host a number of rare and endangered species.
Any of the proposed sites… would require buyouts of homes… and, most importantly, the fragmentation of a protected forest.
A new energy project forcing people from their homes is hard to swallow for a community that has a collective history with such action.
Concerns over displacing residents, potential contamination of NYC drinking water”
Contrast that to the coverage of the battery plant which is supported by environmental NGOs. The residents concerns have been treated as “fossil fuel misinformation” and fear that will be managed and overruled.
For their part, local environmental groups have publicly strategized on how to overcome local opposition to battery storage, green politicians have discouraged residents from seeking an environmental review of the project, and a state assemblywoman spent days arguing with residents on Facebook about the safety of the project. The media has followed their lead.
CHPE: When the Data Don’t Match the Story
Consider one more recent Times Union story: its 2023 coverage of the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) hydropower cable, a project NYISO itself has called critical to New York City’s grid reliability.
After towns along the Hudson pushed for extra drinking-water studies, the results came back clear: the jet-plow trenching needed to lay the cable would not violate state water quality standards or threaten local intakes. Turbidity, metals, PCBs, and organics all stayed within limits, and sediments settled quickly.
In other words, the science said the water was safe.
And yet the piece framed that outcome as “bittersweet” for local officials organized by environmental groups. A mayor along the Hudson was quoted saying they had been “hoping for a smoking gun” that would justify stopping the project. Instead of asking the obvious question: why a council formed to protect drinking water was disappointed to learn that drinking water would not be harmed, the article treated their thwarted opposition as emotionally understandable and admirable.
When we challenged that framing publicly, the editor insisted that the story showed they were relieved. But the word still framing the whole piece was “bittersweet.” The real loss, the reader is invited to feel, is not environmental risk. It is the loss of a reason to block a project the climate establishment doesn’t particularly like.
In the Ashokan story, in the CHPE story, and now in the Terra-Gen battery story, the pattern is the same: when opposition comes from the right institutions, their motives are never interrogated, and their fears are granted moral authority, even when science undercut them.
The Same Story, Rewritten With New Props
The apples-to-apples comparison between the coverage of these two energy projects is an extension of a larger truth: the story of New York’s energy policy has long been tightly stage-managed by massive environmental non-profits.
Just in the last five years, they’ve gotten multiple climate and renewables mandates passed, shut down one of the world’s greatest nuclear plants and blocked the conversion of dual fuel peaker plants into cleaner natural gas. They’ve gotten everything they’ve wanted… and yet electricity prices have skyrocketed while fossil fuel use has increased.
These stories show the urgency of how New Yorkers must take control of their own energy narratives. We can no longer afford to trust the judgment of powerful environmental groups, the politicians that hide behind them, and the media that legitimizes their opinions as unqualified facts.
Until our entire state, including the media, decisionmakers and the general public, recenters affordability, technical feasibility, and energy density, and stops policing who is allowed to dissent, our energy policy will continue to drift further from reality and deeper into crisis. New Yorkers deserve better.