The newly elected representative for the Fourteenth Congressional District of New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is pushing a "Green New Deal" plan on Twitter.  Vox has a detailed description of the plan.  Simply put, it features three main goals: decarbonize the economy, provide a federal jobs guarantee with large-scale public investments and a just transition with protections for those hardest hit by historical discrimination.  She has also suggested a 70% income tax rate for the "tippy top" earners (above $10 million) to pay for it.

Her electric power plan calls for a transition to 100% renewables by 2030.  That is much more ambitious than Governor Andrew Cuomo's own newly announced Green New Deal plan to make New York's power 100% carbon neutral by 2040.

Since the recent "otherworldly" blue flash over Astoria, Queens, dubbed Astoria Borealis on social media, we must consider the technology in use in the 14th District!  Governor Cuomo attributed the flash to "a device similar to a circuit-breaker [that] did not intervene and the electricity kept cycling through, causing the electrical flash.  The affected equipment was isolated to a single section within the substation."  The good news is that the elected government officials now know what direction to take to find the mysterious source of electrical power to La Guardia Airport and environs.  Just follow the blue light.

What a field trip might discover are the Eastern Generation LLC's Astoria I generating plant and Astoria Energy's Astoria II plant.  As you can see from the links, Astoria I was opened in 1962 and has an average aggregate capacity rating of 957 MW.  Astoria II is a natural gas fired 575 MW combined-cycle turbine power plant with an Alstom steam turbine.  It opened in 2011.  The first question this brings to mind is, "Do these natural gas-fired generating plants qualify as 'renewable energy' because Nancy Pelosi said that natural gas was 'a clean cheap alternative to fossil fuels'?"

It might help all these Democrat politicians to learn about the sources of New York State's electric power as of 2015, as reported by N.Y.'s Green Power Program.  It was 38% natural gas, 32% nuclear, 22% hydro, 3% coal, and 1% oil.  Wind, solar, biomass, and solid waste combined for the remaining 4%.

Gov. Cuomo has been adamant about closing down the Indian Point nuclear power plant by 2025.  Currently Units 2 and 3 are in commission producing a combined total of 2,083 MW. To offset the impending loss of this source of power, a natural gas-fired plant was built in Wawayanda, Orange County, N.Y.  It is the CPV Valley Energy Center, a 680-megawatt natural gas-fueled combined-cycle electric generation facility.  It seems one option favored by utility companies is natural gas, which is increasingly abundant due to the fracking revolution.  While Gov. Cuomo has largely banned fracking with New York State, NPR has reported that the gas for this center is piped in from the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania.

And that does not include all the hydro power imported from distant sources, primarily the 2,600-MW Niagara  Power Project and the 900-MW St. Lawrence-FDR power project.  Does Rep. Ocasio-Cortez favor building more unsightly power lines to carry the power from those sources to her constituents in Queens?

Which option does she favor: more CO2 to offset less nuclear?  Allowing fracking in New York State?  Adding more natural gas pipelines?  Raising already high electric rates to reduce consumption?

One can speculate that like Scheherazade she thinks she can charm some rich guys into paying for her dreams by doing a dance for them.  She should book a private room for the next time Jeff Bezos come to town to look over HQ2 right away.

One can also speculate that Anderson Cooper won't get her answers to any of these questions for his 60 Minutes interview.  He was last seen doing tequila shots on New Year's Eve.

Bruce Thompson was a junior thermodynamicist for Grumman Aerospace on July 20, 1969, the date the Eagle landed on the Moon.  Perhaps that is what AOC means by a "moonshot."