Good policy in climate & energy
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser talks about state government innovations energy and climate policy and the conflicts with the Trump administration.
Who’s on the sidelines?
Major environmental groups have chosen to remain silent as a legislator introduces bill to study community choice aggregation.
An emissions conductor for Colorado?
Worried that Colorado has moved too slowly in decarbonizing, environmentalists are behind a bill that would create more structure, authority, and deadlines.
New Mexico’s belated community solar
New Mexico has finally authorized community solar as a business model. Why so much longer for New Mexico than neighboring Colorado?
What were these ‘nays’ really about?
Hmmm. What was that about? A legislative committee hearing about renewing the Office of Consumer Counsel fractured along party lines. The reason was unclear.
How a warming climate has crimped flows in Colorado’s Yampa River
Colorado’s Yampa River was long an exception, a major river mostly without restriction on supplies. Every straw was welcome and satisfied. That’s changing.
Battery storage next at Hayden?
Xcel Energy says it won’t leave workers or taxing districts stranded once its coal-burning units close at Craig. Battery storage? That’s one of the options.
How this small Colorado mountain town got an electric school bus
The Colorado mountain town of Kremmling still gets cold enough that school officials wondered whether an electric bus would work. They’ve quit wondering.
Colorado’s debate about natural gas
For now, Colorado will be more like California than Arizona in allowing towns, cities and counties to limit extension of natural gas to new buildings. But the talking points at a recent legislative committee were revealing.
How can Steven Chu be hopeful?
Climate change has already made this world warmer and wackier. So why does this Nobel Prize-winner still find reason to laugh?
Why Colorado could be a model for decarbonization
Eric Blank of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission details the strengths that Colorado has that could make it a model for decarbonization.
Colorado’s last standing coal plant?
What will be Colorado’s last standing coal plant? Xcel Energy wants it to be Comanche 3. Can the company persuade state regulators it should operate to 2040?
Xcel’s plan for $1.7 billion in transmission in eastern Colorado
Xcel Energy has plans for $1.7 billion to build 560 miles of new transmission to deliver renewable electricity from eastern Colorado to the Front Range by 2027.
Xcel Energy stands by Comanche 3
Colorado’s newest coal plant has been a dog, but Xcel Energy says it should stay open until 2040, a crucial component of the company;’s decarbonization plan.
Sun rapidly sets on Colorado coal plants
The 2020s will be the decade of rapidly closing coal plants in Colorado. Utilities have plans for just one plant beyond 2030.
Questions in Colorado after the big chill
Colorado regulators are looking into what gas utilities should have known before the February chill that briefly sent natural gas prices shooting upward.
Energy gleanings from Colorado
Vestas layoffs, Boebert on renewables, Garfield County on Biden climate plan, Gunnison County emissions, Summit County’s electric buses, & WildEarth Guardians.
Slashed carbon and a tidy profit
Xcel Energy reduce carbon emissions 12% in 2020 and still managed a tidy profit for investors. But in Wyoming, continued problems in the Powder River Basin.
What role for Tri-State going forward?
It’s not Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, but electrical co-ops have been getting divorces from G&Ts. Two grad students examine the gains of staying together.
Can Colorado negotiate these steeps?
A gap exists between Colorado”s decarbonization goals and its clear path to achieving them. How about cap-and-trade? Too many problems, a state board decided.
