Can Breck avoid the gas?
Breckenridge would like its next affordable-housing complex to be built without natural gas lines. But can it?
The greening roofs of Denver
Denver voters in 2017 approved the green roof initiative. Now, the results are showing up not only on roofs, but in other parts of the city’s new buildings.
Retire Colorado’s newest coal plant?
When Comanche 3 began producing electricity in 2010, the coal-burning unit at Pueblo, Colo., was projected to continue operations to 2070. Now, it’s an open question whether it will continue operations beyond 2030.
Driving the shift to renewables
Legislative renewable energy mandates came first, but lower costs and now sweeping statewide economy decarbonization goals have pushed the pivot in electrical generation.
Covid-19’s impact on electrical utilities
Covid-19 has impacted electrical utilities by cutting demand, slowing development of renewable energy, and causing executives to fret about revenue. Some changes will be temporary, others permanent.
Getting to 100% renewable energy
To get to 100% renewables for electrical production won’t be as simple as going to the wind and solar shelf and stocking up. That can get utilities to 50% easily enough, perhaps even 70% or 80%, conceivably even 90%.
Covid-19 fears and Pueblo’s election
Opponents of municipalizing Pueblo’s electrical supply emphasized fear and uncertainty, the same sideboards of the coronavirus pandemic.
United Power alleges Tri-State G&T crossed legal line to ‘imprison’ it in supply contract to 2050
A Trojan horse, deceit, and subterfuge—United Power says it was all there as wholesale supplier Tri-State Generation and Transmission assembled a strategy to make sure it would have to stay “imprisoned” in its contract with Tri-State through 2050, foregoing savings in lower-cost renewable energy and avoiding regulators in Colorado.
Why Tri-State’s new policies don’t work for these two dissident members
Two of three biggest members of Tri-State Generation and Transmission say they’re very unhappy with the new policies that are purported to provide transparency and increase member flexibility. Together, the two co-ops by July will represent upwards of 25% of the total demand among the by-then 42 members of Tri-State.
Upheaval & Tension in Colorado
In 2006, directors of Delta-Montrose Electric were asked to commit to the middle of the 21st century to a coal plant to be built in the Kansas prairie. They had a different vision. More slowly, that wholesale provider, Tri-State Generation and Transmission, created a new vision, too, forced by the upheaval in the world of energy that is just now beginning.
How a silver mine and a sugar beet factory in Colorado figured into major Supreme Court ruling about Hawaii
Two interpretations of the Clean Water Act in Colorado, one involving a silver mine near Ouray and the second the sugar beet factory at Fort Morgan, figured into the U.S. Supreme Court decision involving groundwater pollution in Hawaii.
David takes on Goliath in Pueblo
Supporters of Black Hills Energy assembled a $1.5 million campaign to defeat municipalization of the electrical utility in Pueblo, most of that money coming from unidentified sources. Can David prevail against these financial odds?
