Why wouldn't the governor solicit bids for energy, and let the companies that actually build and run generation capacity decide the cheapest way to do that? Having the governor choose seems weird to me.
Technology neutrality is fairly important. The role of the government should be in controlling the requirements which has a collective/social cost, like emissions, grid stability and price variability (as those are things that voters will demand from the government, as has been demonstrated in EU during the energy crisis). As long any company is willing to provide similar services under similar requirements, what technology they choose to use may be better determined by market forces rather than political choices.
What they should not do however is to simply look at potential generation capacity and have that be the only important criteria. Voters has clearly demonstrated that they will vote for politicians that can promise stable grid and stable pricing, rather than having those being controlled by the market.
The market is famously terrible at pricing in externalities and accounting for long-term needs. I think if you used the government to force bidders to account for those, you'd just end up in the same place.
You might, or you might not. You might end up with tidal or wave, or wind+batteries, or something else. Tying yourself to something that's going to take decades and almost certainly include big cost overruns seems like a terrible idea.
Not an unreasonable choice if externalities such as carbon (and mining, etc. in the case of nuclear) are taken into account. And suppose you price carbon in, how do you actually produce a real carbon sink at the assumed cost and scale if nat gas wins the bid?
Are you suggesting letting private companies whose entire purpose is to make the most amount of profit for their shareholders to be the ones that decide what is best for the people of the state?
NYPA does build and run generation capacity, it's just the state owned utility. Besides, this is a policy and strategy push instead of a lowest-bidder ask.
Solar and wind are cheapest when installed in ideal locations with ideal parts.
Gas is a bit more expensive than the ideal green model, but cheaper on average. It also can be built anywhere on a comparatively small land parcel, and can provide easily scalable energy 24/7/365.
