For those of you who aren’t already aware, I’ve been working since July 2006 with “IREA Voices,” a group of member-owners of Intermountain Rural Electric Association (based in Sedalia, CO, south of Denver) who want to bring a great deal more openness, transparency, and modernization to their rural co-op utility. This small but dedicated group has been working to “Create a New IREA, One Voice at a Time.”

Rather than provide all possible background info, please check out the IREA Voices website – www.ireavoices.org – and an entry I submitted to the Colorado Renewable Energy Society’s blog in August 2006.

IREA Voices had a public “kick-off” meeting just before Labor Day 2006 in SW Denver, drawing 50 people, former Colorado Speaker of the House Lola Spradley, a spokesman for Congressman Mark Udall (D-CO), and other notables. A subsequent meeting in Castle Rock just before Thanksgiving drew fewer people, yet produced a great amount of brainstorming & ideas.

On January 18, IREA Voices came to Parker for another public meeting. While only a dozen or so new faces showed up, they came from all over IREA’s service territory. Some drove nearly two hours on each way a frigid weeknight to see what was brewing within their normally black-box utility … !

The meeting organizers didn’t have to do much to get the meeting (or the emotions) going. Many in the room had grown disgusted over years of IREA’s ignorance of their concerns, misuse of their money, and resistance to the idea of Colorado’s “New Energy Economy.” They appreciated seeing a group forming that could provide them with the kind of voice that IREA has up until now totally ignored.

Along with sharing a great deal of information about how co-op utilities are supposed to work, how IREA has actually worked, ETC., the meeting also focused attention on running candidates for IREA’s Board of Directors. Candidates are already running for 2 of the 4 districts that will have elections in the coming months. And while the “incumbent effect” is even more powerful here than it is in Congress(!), we can at least take solace in knowing that IREA will have to publish whatever we want published for candidate bio’s to be included in their infamous “Watts & Volts” newsletter. This could be the first time – maybe ever – that IREA publishes information about energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other forward-thinking ideas with a positive spin! Whether our candidates win or not, we look forward to seeing the kinds of forces that such an effort will unleash among the disaffected (or otherwise misinformed) IREA member-owners who have yet to find out about IREA Voices.

The next public meeting of IREA Voices will be on Tuesday, February 6, 6 – 9 PM, at the Woodland Park Public Library. Details are available at www.ireavoices.org.
PLEASE JOIN US, and help us “Create a New IREA, One Voice at a Time!”

If you lived through the Cold War, then you might remember The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ “Doomsday Clock.” When this clock theoretically “struck midnight,” then WWIII and Mutually Assured Destruction would be at hand.

The clock started out at 11:53 PM in 1947, and reached 11:58 when the Soviet Union first revealed its nuclear capabilities in 1953. It was then set “all the way back to 11:43″ in 1991 … when the USSR collapsed, and both sides (well: the Soviet side, at least) began major de-escalations of their nuclear capabilities.

Although I hadn’t even considered the Doomsday Clock since then, it looks like it’s still around. What’s more: it’s including more than just nuclear bombs when considering the end of human civilization … !

On Jan. 17, the Bulletin considered “new” nuclear powers since the Cold War (e.g. Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, and – thanks to lax post-Cold-War security throughout the former Soviet Union - who-knows-WHERE-else?!) and moved the Doomsday Clock back up to 11:55 PM.

What’s more, Bulletin Director Kennette Benedict added that “The dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons.”

Not yet convinced? How about Stephen W. Hawking, the renowned cosmologist and mathematician, who told the AP that global warming has eclipsed other threats to the planet, such as terrorism. “Terror only kills hundreds or thousands of people,” Hawking said. “Global warming could kill millions. We should have a war on global warming rather than the war on terror.”

The above quotes are from the full story where I first heard about this. You can read the rest of it at http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1103AP_Britain_Doomsday_Clock.html.

I remember a few informal conversations back in the 80s about whether the World would end “with a bang or a whimper.” The “bang” would be an all-out nuclear war, while the “whimper” could’ve been anything from the Sun dying out to us drowning in our own poisons.

As ominous a development as I feel global warming has  become, I honestly never considered it to be so bad as to be included in the Doomsday Clock scenario. I not only feel the need to thank the Bulletin for keeping the Doomsday Clock around, but for “promoting” global warming to this new (or at least newly-perceived) level of seriousness.

I too must admit to thinking in too short of a time frame. Most of us thought the “bang” of a nuclear war that we feared for nearly half a century would’ve only lasted a few hours at most. Even now, if al Qaeda were able to carry out their most apocalyptic plans, nuclear terrorism would’ve lasted a few minutes at a time: an occasional ”boom” here and there, but probably nothing anywhere near what the Americans & Russians could still do to each other.

In order to include global warming in the Doomsday-Clock scenario, however, you need to start thinking of long periods (i.e. years, decades, etc.) of environmental degradation, interspersed with the occasional Hurricane Katrina or other “natural disaster that can fit neatly into one or two news cycles.” I thank the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists for providing us with this additional perspective on global warming, and the additional ways in which human civilization can end human civilization.

I had the honor of being part of a panel discussion on Colorado’s New Energy Economy at the “Building to Be the Change” Conference in Denver on January 13. My colleagues on the panel talked about promising news from Congress, Colorado’s new Democratic Governor, investment opportunities, etc. I, on the other hand, felt the need to sound a warning about “The New Coal Rush” spreading across Colorado, America, and the World.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We’ve heard a lot lately about clean energy: solar, wind, biomass, efficiency, etc. Yet the vast majority of our electricity still comes from burning fossil fuels, mostly coal. The utility industry is aware of global warming, and see the writing on the wall that some form of “carbon regulation” (caps, taxes, or ?) is almost sure to happen … maybe even before the Bush Administration leaves
Washington(?!).

Until then, however, utilities are scrambling to build as many new coal plants as possible in an effort to “grandfather them in” before any new regulations occur:

-         2-3 new coal plants in
Colorado &
Kansas;

-         11 new coal plants in
Texas

-         As many as 150 more new coal plants throughout the rest of the
U.S.;

-         And as many as 500 more new coal plants throughout the rest of the World!

And they’re only “new” in the sense of when they come on-line. Utilities say these will be their “cleanest coal plants ever,” with filters, scrubbers, and other technologies that lessen the total amount of emissions. But these plants will still use essentially 19^th-Century technology: pulverize the coal, burn it to spin the turbines, and send all the waste through smokestacks and into the sky.

You may have also heard more about other clean coal technologies like carbon sequestration (i.e. “burying emissions underground”), IGCC (convert waste heat from coal into a gas and burn it again), etc. 

But almost none of these new coal plants will take advantage of them. There is also currently no way to retrofit pulverized coal plants in order to accommodate these clean technologies, so the industry really is trying to “grandfather them in!” 

Xcel Energy and “Comanche 3” 

To be fair, Xcel Energy has come a long way since they opposed the “Amendment 37” campaign for a Colorado Renewable Energy Standard in 2004. Most notably, they now include wind power – and soon solar power – as part of their own “baseload” electricity. Xcel will probably meet their own Amendment 37 requirements (of at least 10% of their electricity coming from renewable energy) as early as next year, about seven years ahead of schedule. They will also take their own shot at IGCC, upgrading an existing coal plant near Brush over the next few years (although they’ll face significant costs, while only treating a small percentage of the waste heat). And Xcel’s CEO Dick Kelly is saying all the right things about environmental protection, fighting global warming, etc. But then, there’s also the Comanche 3 coal plant.

Thanks to an agreement with a large coalition of environmental groups like CRES, Xcel is building the Comanche 3 plant while promising increased energy efficiency and renewable energy efforts elsewhere in its system. And thanks to Ratepayers United of Colorado (Leslie Glustrom, Alison Burchell, et. al.) and other groups, Xcel has still not received all of the approvals it needs. So Comanche 3 is not yet a “done deal.” 

Comanche 3 is also 25% owned by Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA), a rural co-op based in
Sedalia, CO. Rural co-op’s don’t usually own their own power plants, so IREA is now not only responsible for part of its construction, but also for whatever liabilities may arise over the next 50 years or so (e.g. carbon taxes, an eventual white elephant of a power plant, etc.). IREA’s General Manager himself has admitted that he did not include the possibility of any carbon taxes or additional costs from carbon regulation when making the decision to join in on Comanche 3, thus exposing its customers to unprecedented financial risks. That may be part of IREA’s own efforts to prolong the “debate” over global warming, but that’s for another conversation.

Tri-State and the Holcomb Coal Plants 

Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association of Westminster, Colorado, is part of a rural electricity landscape that’s so convoluted and complicated that I would need more like 5 hours than 5 minutes to explain it!

Tri-State is a “co-op of co-op’s,” generating and supplying electricity to its 44 member co-op’s in
Colorado,
New Mexico,
Wyoming, and
Western Nebraska. Through their own opposition to Amendment 37 (even though it did not pertain to them … !) and other past experience, they are not at all “renewable-friendly.”

Tri-State is currently filing a new “Integrated Resource Plan” (IRP). Tri-State evaluated all of the different resources available for producing electricity, and (surprise!) decided on pulverized coal for most of its future needs. They’ll spend $3 to $6 billion on these new coal plants in Western Kansas, and those costs will ultimately get passed on to individuals & businesses in those rural areas, many of whom are already having enough trouble paying their bills.

This plan blatantly ignores the fact that Tri-State’s service territory has some of the most abundant renewable energy resources in
America:

-         steady winds throughout
Wyoming and the Eastern Plains;

-         over 300 days of sunlight throughout
Southern Colorado and
New Mexico;

-         geothermal resources in
Western Colorado;

-         and biomass resources available almost everywhere in Tri-State’s territory.

It is even more ignorant of how much water is needed for coal-fired electricity, especially considering the years-long drought in most of the Eastern Plains. Tri-State plans on using groundwater for these new coal plants, to which they have rights for the next 50 years … !

To simplify: Tri-State wants to take coal from its Wyoming mines, put it on trains that’ll run through Colorado to Holcomb, Kansas (where there is already one coal plant, and where they want to build two more), upgrade the transmission lines between Kansas and Colorado (not necessarily a bad thing, and a whole other discussion in and of itself), and then send the electricity back into Tri-State territory.

Even though the ultimate consumers of this electricity could – and should – keep their money in their communities through local renewable energy development, they will instead have to send their money out of their community – and even out of state – for their electricity.

AND Even by Tri-State’s own projections, this plan will cause retail electricity rates to increase 50-70% over the next 30 years … ?! 

Tri-State also has yet to answer why they’re building enough capacity to supply almost double what they project their customers will need over the next 30 years … ? While they have yet to officially admit it, the answer is almost certainly oil shale.

To provide some background: the last time oil shale development was all the rage on
Colorado’s Western Slope was in the 1970s. The Colorado Ute Electric Association built a coal-fired plant to supply Exxon with all the electricity they needed in order to bake the ground(?) and boil the oil out of it. Then Exxon abruptly abandoned its oil shale operations in 1982, and Colorado Ute was stuck with a glut of excess capacity and nobody to buy it. They filed for bankruptcy, and Tri-State was the company that eventually rose from the ashes.

While oil shale may indeed make a comeback on the Western Slope, Tri-State is completely ignoring the boom-and-bust cycle that has become such an integral part of energy development in the West, and was even responsible for its own creation! In fact, while going through the approval process for these new plants, the price of coal has nearly doubled. Prices for steel, concrete, and other raw materials have also risen enough to now make construction of these plants much less attractive. Railroad infrastructure (now used almost exclusively for coal) is in such dire need of repairs and upgrades that it could also jeopardize the whole project through supply disruptions or ?.

People Power is making sure that this plan is not going smoothly for Tri-State. Protests against the coal plants have erupted all over Tri-State territory, and in
Kansas. Some of Tri-State’s member co-op’s have voluntarily “opted in” to Amendment 37, and have refused to sign the contract extension Tri-State needs in order to pay for the new plants.

Thanks also to the efforts of groups like Western Resource Advocates, Environment Colorado, Sierra Club, and others, Tri-State is starting to water down its original plans. While neither of the two new coal plants are needed for actual customer demand over the next 30-50 years, Tri-State may already be taking one of these plants off the table, and reducing the size of the other plant.

To be fair, Tri-State has started offering reduced-cost “Renewable Energy Credits” where customers of member co-op’s can pay a few extra dollars each month to have renewable energy come to them from outside Tri-State territory. This is roughly where Xcel was when it introduced its WindSource program back in the late 1990s: “you can have renewable energy, but you’ll have to pay extra for it.”

But this, and especially Tri-State’s role in The New Coal Rush, is nowhere near where they should be:

-         It’s nowhere near where they should be if they want to encourage local economic development for its member co-op’s (e.g. by encouraging the Ag community to produce electricity as another “cash crop”).

-         It’s nowhere near where they should be if they want to provide electricity at more stable prices over the next 50 years.

-         It’s nowhere near where they should be if they want to preserve groundwater supplies in their territory.

-         And it’s absolutely nowhere near where they should be if they want to fight global warming. These two new coal plants alone would produce as many greenhouse gases as would be prevented by Amendment 37. 

How Can WE “Be the Change” to Stop the New Coal Rush? 

-         Xcel:o       www.ratepayersunited.org / www.cleanenergycolorado.org o       Stay up-to-date on developments with the
Colorado
State Legislature (many bills in ’07 re: energy, transmission, etc.),

Colorado PUC (s/b MUCH more renewable-friendly under Gov. Ritter),
et. al.-         Tri-State / Co-op’s:

o       Find out who is where
-> http://www.tristategt.org/OurMembers/system-map.cfm,
     and then click on your co-op to go to its website.

o       Get informed (bylaws, board meetings, etc.)

o       VOTE for “the right” board members
(with small customer bases, and even smaller voter turnout,
 your vote really DOES count in a co-op)

o       OR RUN for your co-op board yourself!
(see above)

-         Other

o       Tell contacts in Tri-State co-op’s about this,
 and get them INVOLVED!
(stress economic concerns over environmental ones, though)

o       Become as energy efficient, carbon-neutral, etc. as YOU can
(i.e. it isn’t easy to “boycott” a utility)

o       Take yourself off the grid (that IS boycotting the utility!)

-         Additional Resources:
o       www.cres-energy.org o       www.environmentcolorado.orgo       www.westernresources.org

o       I will also be available all night for any other information you might want about Xcel, IREA(!), Tri-State, and The New Coal Rush.

Thank You, and I hope you’ll join us to “Be the Change” in order to stop The New Coal Rush!PvH 

I never thought my first two entries into this blog would revolve around shout-outs to people of note who are much (MUCH!) more conservative than I am. Then again, it’s a very encouraging sign that a sustainable future is becoming more & more of a “purple” (i.e. as compared to “red” or “blue”) issue.

I’ll admit this item is a bit old, having slipped through the holiday cracks … but I’ve nonetheless found it worth repeating. Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) responded to an article in The Economist with an excellent letter about the need to radically reduce our dependence on imported oil.

My only fault is that even Lugar fails to make the distinction between rising oil prices and the need for more renewable energy for electricity. Of course, that also still seems to be the only times the public, markets, et. al. pay more attention to solar, wind, and other renewable technologies.

Regardless: I applaud and thank Senator Lugar for his national-security focus on the need to become more energy independent. Environmentalists have known this all along, and Wall Street has finally realized this in the last year or so. Now we have another respected voice telling us about the geopolitical and even military advantages to embarking on this more sensible course for the future.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

December 7, 2006

Dear Sir,

Your report on investing in clean energy highlights the fact that public and political support for renewable energy may wane when the cost is perceived to be too high (“Tilting at windmills”, November 18th). However, the case for government subsidies and mandates to compensate for failure in energy markets is strong. For instance, the price Americans pay for oil does not cover the risks to the economy from delivery disruptions, price spikes, the vast expenditures required to protect supply routes and infrastructure, or the risk premium for the social tumult that could result from climate change.

Likewise, the foreign-policy priorities of America and her allies are endangered by current global trends. Oil-rich authoritarian regimes use their revenues to stymie opposition and fund anti-Western appeals, energy-poor nations struggle to pay their rising oil and gas bills and terrorists have targeted energy infrastructure. Energy reserves are coming under the tighter control of governments, resulting in supply decisions that are based on politics, not market logic, and this changes geopolitics. Our relationship with Russia has already been redefined: Brazil, China, India and others will follow suit.

Breaking our dependence on oil through the use of renewable energy and efficiency is not something we should do because of “green idealism”. It is a necessity for our economic and social security. Whether the cost of subsidies is “too high” cannot be judged in a vacuum: it must be weighed against the calamitous consequences of doing nothing, and the enormous gains in security and economic and environmental well-being that will result from a sustained long-term effort that the market cannot currently provide. So although it is correct to say that the public will not support wasteful subsidies, it is up to politicians to convince the voters that these expenses are neither a waste nor a luxury, but are essential to avert political, economic and environmental disaster.

Richard Lugar
Chairman
Foreign Relations Committee
United States Senate
Washington, DC

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PvH

It’s not often when I quote a neo-con so proudly. Yet few people have as much of a clue about true national security as R. James Woolsey.

Woolsey served as CIA Director under President Clinton (1993-1995), and has since become a rather authoritative voice for the Neo-Conservative Movement. While I’m sure Mr. Woolsey wouldn’t lump himself in with Messrs. Bush Jr., Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al., he’s been labelled as such nonetheless. And while I’d never – EVER – want to publicly agree with a NeoCon, I have to give Mr. Woolsey props for his notion that the the Cold War actually was WWIII, and the current War on Terror is now “World War Four.”

Aside from all that NeoCon malarkey, Woolsey has become quite an authority and advocate on America’s dire need for radically increased energy efficiency. Rather than put my own spin on what he has to say about it, I’ve taken the liberty of pasting his Jan. 1, 2007 column in the Wall Street Journal into this entry.

The only bumper sticker on my 2001 Prius says “Support the Terrorists. Keep Driving that SUV.” I’m close to removing that bumper sticker for something a more “positive,” and I can only hope that something James Woolsey says about all this can be condensed down into a bumper-sticker-sized sound bite … ~:-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gentlemen, Start Your Plug-Ins
How does 500 miles a gallon sound to you?

BY R. JAMES WOOLSEY
Monday, January 1, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

Wall Street JournalAn oil and security task force of the Council on Foreign Relations recently opined that “the voices that espouse ‘energy independence’ are doing the nation a disservice by focusing on a goal that is unachievable over the foreseeable future.” Others have also said, essentially, that other nations will control our transportation fuel–get used to it. Yet House Democrats have announced a push for “energy independence in 10 years,” and in November General Motors joined Toyota and perhaps other auto makers in a race to produce plug-in hybrid vehicles, hugely reducing the demand for oil. Who’s right–those who drive toward independence or those who shrug?Bet on major progress toward independence, spurred by market forces and a portfolio of rapidly developing oil-replacing technologies.In recent years a number of alternatives to conventional oil have come to the fore–oil sands, oil shale, coal-to-diesel and coal-to-methanol technologies. But their acceptability to a new Congress, quite possibly the next president, and a public increasingly concerned about global warming will depend on their demonstrating affordable and effective methods of sequestering the carbon they produce or otherwise avoiding carbon emissions.

I have plenty more to say about that myself (and will probably do so in the future), but it would largely pale in comparison to the airtight case Mr. Woolsey presents here. Bravo, Mr. Woolsey! Here’s hoping the Powers that Be in Washington, Detroit, et. al. come over to your way of thinking sooner rather than later . . . PvH

Hello All … I promised myself that I’d add something to this blog +/- daily throughout 2007. I’m afraid my “Blogger’s Block” is still in full effect, though(!). So I honestly don’t have much to add today other than my best wishes for a Happy and SUSTAINABLE 2007 for all of us.

 Thanks, and More to Come Soon . . . PvH