What Not to Do: California Energy Policy Serves As a Warning to Colorado
Just days after finalizing a future ban on the sale of gas-powered vehicles, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) sent out a bulletin Tuesday afternoon warning that an expected heat wave posed serious threats to the reliability of the state’s electric grid. Starting tomorrow through Tuesday, California and the West are expecting extreme heat that […]
Gas is Dead. Long Live Gas!
Natural gas is one of the go-to bogeymen for many climate hawks. This is despite the remarkable economic and climate contributions of natural gas over the last decade or so. As such, activists and policymakers have made a concerted effort over the last few years to begin constraining the industry and phasing out the fuel’s […]
Despite skyrocketing electricity rates, former Gov. Ritter says voters ‘willing to pay more’
On April 11, 2016, former Colorado Governor, Bill Ritter, spoke to Colorado Public Radio host Ryan Warner about renewable energy and energy costs in Colorado. Warner pressed Ritter on the issue of costs, saying: Cost is central, central to the debate that is raging in the courts right now, in the state legislature, over the […]
December 17 Colorado Energy Cheat Sheet: Environmental ‘Propaganda’ Agency; electric rate hikes called ‘discrimination’; anti-energy activists promise to ‘ratchet up’ efforts
Some commodity pricing is giving Colorado Xcel ratepayers a temporary reprieve from escalating energy costs: Xcel said the new rates will result in “significantly lower bills, particularly for natural gas customers, for the second half of the current winter heating season. “Compared on a year-to-year basis to better gauge the seasonal impacts of weather, both […]
December 17 Colorado Energy Cheat Sheet: Environmental 'Propaganda' Agency; electric rate hikes called 'discrimination'; anti-energy activists promise to 'ratchet up' efforts
Some commodity pricing is giving Colorado Xcel ratepayers a temporary reprieve from escalating energy costs: Xcel said the new rates will result in “significantly lower bills, particularly for natural gas customers, for the second half of the current winter heating season. “Compared on a year-to-year basis to better gauge the seasonal impacts of weather, both […]
Testimony Against Divestment at CU Regent Board Meeting
Delivered April 16: · Thank you for the opportunity to speak today on the issue of fossil fuel divestment. My name is Michael Sandoval. I am a proud graduate of CU Boulder and CU Denver. I graduated with degrees in history and marketing. I am here today speaking as both a proud alumnus as well […]
Sputtering Wind Energy Prompts Transmission Cost Concerns from Xcel
Growing transmission costs for wind-generated electricity have prompted Xcel Energy to seek approval for rate hikes to smaller utilities using Xcel’s transmission lines to reach their consumers: Xcel wants the utilities to pay for its costs associated with having supplies of reserve power ready to go in case the wind suddenly dies, said Terri Eaton, […]
Fried Birds: Green Energy Involves Tradeoffs Too
The Ivanpah solar plant went online last week, but the cost to wildlife–particularly birds–won’t be known for at least two more years. Reports that the giant solar thermal array featuring more than 300,000 reflective panels and steam-driven turbine towers have been “killing and singeing” birds by heating the air to around 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit near […]
January 23 Energy Roundup: Fracking Dishonesty; Interior Sec. Jewell Boots Press
Periodically, the Independence Institute’s Energy Policy Center will take a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly in energy stories from around the United States and abroad, and bring the best (and worst) of those stories to your attention. 1. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell may have violated Colorado Open Meetings Law […]
Emails Show EPA’s Denver “Listening Tour” Stop A Collaboration Between Agency, Environmentalist Orgs
Emails published this week by the Washington Free Beacon’s Lachlan Markay illustrate a pattern of coordination and cooperation between the Environmental Protection Agency and external environmentalist groups, including the use of at least one agency event to “pressure” an Xcel Energy executive at the Denver stop of a 2013 “listening tour”: The emails, obtained by […]
Emails Show EPA's Denver "Listening Tour" Stop A Collaboration Between Agency, Environmentalist Orgs
Emails published this week by the Washington Free Beacon’s Lachlan Markay illustrate a pattern of coordination and cooperation between the Environmental Protection Agency and external environmentalist groups, including the use of at least one agency event to “pressure” an Xcel Energy executive at the Denver stop of a 2013 “listening tour”: The emails, obtained by […]
FERC nominee Ron Binz the flipper
By Amy Oliver Cooke and Robert Applegate As Ron Binz campaigns to be confirmed as the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, much of the emphasis has been on his position as an activist for what he considers to be low or no carbon energy sources, predominantly Big Wind. (Forget the fact that wind […]
