Barriers to building electrification
Electrification of buildings makes sense for several reasons. What’s holding up the show? A new report lays out barriers and potential solutions in Colorado.
A shallow win for Tri-State
Tri-State Generation and Transmission gains a shallow victory in FERC order about jurisdiction, but the real story will be about legality of new members. At stake are exit fees of hundreds of million dollars—and perhaps the viability of Tri-State itself.
Rural Colorado & renewable energy
A new report commissioned by The Western Way finds enormous benefits for the farm and ranch communities of eastern Colorado as a result of wind and now solar development.
Xcel as a transportation company
As required by Colorado law, Xcel Energy has plans to heavily invest in charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. one analyst says that the electric utility is, in effect, becoming a transportation company, too.
Ruminating on water and energy
Colorado and the West have plenty of reasons to talk about both energy and water, but usually those conversations occur in separate rooms. An attempt to bring them together by historian Patty Limerick had much the same result, as she herself acknowledged.
Holy Cross Energy honored
Holy Cross Energy, an electrical cooperative serving the Vail and Aspen areas, has received national recognition for its innovations at Basalt Vista and other projects.
Menu of electrification options
Southwest Energy Efficiency Project has put together a menu of options for local jurisdictions that want to begin decarbonizing the building sector.
The next energy frontier
After successes as a wind and then solar developer Eric Blank sees electrifying buildings as the next frontier. “It’s crazy to build 40,000 houses a year” in Colorado with natural gas infrastructure, he says.
When the coal plants finally close
Colorado’s Just Transition Advisory Committee draft plan calls for benefits for displaced workers as coal mines and plants in Colorado’s Yampa Valley, but it has no answers for the local school districts who will lose significant property tax assessments.
Colorado aims for Just Transition
Colorado in 2019 adopted a law calling for a “just transition” for workers and communities impacted by the transition from coal. State officials heard testimony just before the dark curtain of covid fell, slowing but not stopping the planning.
Making steel with solar energy
Construction of the nation’s largest behind-the-meter solar project will begin in October after steel mill expansion in Colorado approved. The 240-megawatt solar farm will supply 90% of steel mill’s energy.
Colorado’s fourth biogas project
Boulder is the fourth to complete a biogas conversion project in Colorado, three of them occurring in the last year. A bill likely to be introduced in the next legislative session would give utilities further incentive to develop renewable natural gas.
Dust settles from 100% dispute
A Colorado energy researcher stands to get $75,000 after a legal dustup about how rapidly the United States can achieve a 100% renewable energy grid.
E-flights move forward
Bye Aerospace has received $10 million in funding, the first half from a venture capital group earlier this year followed by a $5 million venture raise.
Agriculture and global warming
Colorado dryland farmer John Stulp says a majority of farmers and ranchers believe global warming is happening, and he says they sometimes get a bad rap. They’re a solution, not the problem.
Colorado’s natural gas pivot
Colorado begins a conversation about limiting natural gas in new construction as necessary for the state to meet its carbon reduction goals.
Can Colorado hit emissions targets?
Colorado has some of the most ambitious emissions-reductions goals in the country. Can it reduce emissions economy wide by 2030? The discussion continues.
Squeezing the carbon from homes
Big houses use more energy. Period. But can carbon emissions be wrung out of those bigger houses. New regulations in Colorado’s Pitkin County seek to begin the drive toward net-zero during the coming decade. Boulder County is doing the same.
Closer but no cigar for Denver Water
Denver moves closer to permits it needs for expansion of reservoir in foothills of Rockies. In Fraser, at least one resident sees one diversion too many
Natural gas questions and tensions
Tension has been rising around the role of natural gas. A new Sierra Club report counters a push by a utilities in California about “renewable natural gas.” Colorado’s oil and gas sectors hopes to quash local natural gas bans with an initiative on the November ballot.
