What to make of June snowstorms amidst this rapidly warming climate?
It snowed hard in Aspen and other places in Colorado last week. How do you reconcile that with the reality of rapidly warming temperatures?
Windy enough in Dust Bowl land
Southeastern Colorado has wind aplenty, almost enough to power the entire state. But that wind is like a farm without a road to market. Why that may change.
Colorado’s decarbonizing road trip
As Colorado chooses its path toward 50% decarbonization of its economy by 2030, all the paths involve the state’s regulation of electrical utilities. But there’s more than just closing down coal plants. That’s already underway.
Getting a grip on Colorado’s emissions
Colorado had adopted rules governing collection of emissions. Some of it is easy enough, other things also impossible to quantify. But has the state moved too slowly? Time to seize the coronavirus—and climate—moment?
Selling fear despite the evidence
The New York Times had a disturbing report that Republican strategists intend to sow fears of the cost of addressing emissions. The trouble is, the fears fly straight into the face of the available evidence.
RMI pats Tri-State on back, describes it as a model for other G&Ts
Rocky Mountain Instittue, the highly regarded think tank, credits Tri-State Generation & Transmission with plotting a a sharp pivot away from coal-based generation to a renewables future.
Why flexibility matters to this utility
The decision by the Colorado city of Fountain to get with a new wholesale supplier says an awful lot about the rapidly evolving story of electrical generation. Electricity is rapidly getting cheaper and cleaner.
Poudre Valley REA says it wants to have say with PUC
Colorado’s disputes among electrical cooperatives and also with and against its wholesale supplier Tri-State Generation and Transmission continue. Poudre Valley REA wants to be at the table in PUC proceedings.
Xcel Energy thinks big in EV charging
Xcel Energy proposes to spend $102 million in laying out charging infrastructure in its service territory in Colorado, where the state has a goal of rapidly expanding EV sales to 42% of all cars sales by 2030.
Taking aim at high-energy of mansions
Colorado’s Pitkin County—home to Aspen—aims to tighten the energy belt of its often big houses on the way to net-zero by 2030. Boulder County aims for the same in 2022. But Pitkin County is more ambitious in one way.
Aspen’s Building IQ
The city of Aspen plans to target energy use in its commercial and multi-family building sector in a new program called Building IQ. Commercial and residential buildings in Aspen account for 58% percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
Tamping down building energy use
Will other jurisdictions in Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley take the lead of Pitkin County as it prepared to squeeze the fossil fuel diet for houses?
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.
