$8 million jobs blowin' in the wind
A new study of enterprise zones in Illinois reveals that each “wind job cost taxpayers $8 million” according to a press release from Illinois Wind Watch. A review of reports obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show: that wind farms create very few local jobs. Of the 15 wind farms reported on the IWEA website, […]
NREL: Big Green Empire
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) located in beautiful Golden, Colorado, is the federal government’s primary research facility for renewable energy for the Department of Energy (DOE). According to its Web site, NREL has enjoyed an enormous budget increase over the last two years. As the economy slowed in 2007, NREL saw its budget decrease […]
Mining for green jobs
Another day, another story about a solar company moving part of its operation to China. This time it’s Advanced Energy in Fort Collins, which will lay off 5 percent of its labor force and move “more of its manufacturing to China as it works to increase profitability,” according to the Coloradoan. Advanced Energy was one […]
New energy economy's dirty little secret
Former Governor Bill Ritter and other advocates of Colorado’s “new energy economy” often use the misguided argument of breaking our dependence on foreign oil as a viable reason for their economically unsound energy policy. Just last November Ritter said: ‘Over the past few years, we’ve established a clean-energy template that is creating thousands of new jobs, […]
Fischer full of hot air when it comes to energy policy
The Colorado News Agency reported a gem of a quote from State Representative Randy Fischer (D-Fort Collins). While providing arguments against Representative Kathleen Conti’s (R-Littleton) bill to bring more accountability to the Public Utilities Commission, especially in the area of utility rate increases, Fischer: refuted Conti’s assertion and countered that cost increases can be attributed […]
Advice for Incoming PUC Chair
For 4 years, Public Utilities Commission Chair Ron Binz has been a key driver of the New Energy Economy. Under his watch, the PUC changed its mission, from advancing lowest cost electricity, to fighting climate change with expensive green energy. As was first reported here, Binz is leaving life as an environmentalist PUC Chair, for […]
Renewable energy mandates unconstitutional?
We know they are costly but are renewable energy mandates such as Colorado’s 30 percent mandate unconstitutional as well? Yes according to the American Tradition Institute, which “filed a complaint in a U.S. district court that contends Colorado’s RES should be declared unconstitutional because they violate the Commerce Clause, which grants only Congress the authority to […]
Only job Ritter created was his own
In a recent New York Times editorial former Governor Bill Ritter reveals the magic formula for states with struggling economies – just “create” green jobs the way he did in Colorado! In reality, the only job he created was his own. Ritter starts by empathizing with other governors as they wrestle “with budget issues, making […]
What's wrong with "least cost" for CO ratepayers?
In State Senator Scott Renfroe’s closing remarks to the State, Veterans and Military Affairs committee, he reasonably questioned members while asking for support of their support for SB11-058: “What’s wrong with striving to have our energy sources be the least cost?” Apparently everything. The committee defeated Renfroe’s “Electric Utilities Employ Least-Cost Planning for New Resource Acquisition” […]
PUC Chair spends lots of time out of the office
Just about the time that Xcel Energy customers have recovered from the sticker shock of this summer’s air conditioner tax, ratepayers await another decision from the Public Utilities Commission on how much more their bills will increase – this time due to HB 1365, the controversial fuel-switching bill. Our paper “Colorado’s Clean Air Clean Jobs […]
Preview of October 26 PUC Hearing on HB 1365: A New Plan
Archive Preview of October 25 PUC Hearing Review of October 25 PUC Hearing Preview of October 26 PUC Hearing: A New Plan Yesterday at 5pm, Xcel filed a new plan to meet HB 1365. The utility’s original plan had been rejected by the PUC because it would have switched fuels at a 351 megawatt Denver […]
[Updated] Review of October 25 PUC Hearing on HB 1365: PUC Deliberations Are Mere Industrial War by Other Means
Review of October 25 PUC Hearing on HB 1365 As I explained this morning, Xcel today filed a new plan to comply with HB 1365, the controversial 2010 law to meet all “reasonably foreseeable” state and federal air quality regulations. The PUC rejected Xcel’s original plan because it would have replaced a 351 megawatt Denver […]
