Billionaire hedge-funder Louis Bacon is donating a conservation easement on 90,000 acres bordering the San Luis Valley, which will provide the foundation for the proposed new Sangre de Cristo Conservation Area that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is in the process of establishing.
Xcel Energy’s announcement this week that it’s pulling the plug on a controversial and hotly contested transmission line project in the San Luis Valley is being cheered by local environmentalists but viewed with skepticism by Xcel’s partner in the project, Tri-State Generation and Transmission.
Hedge fund billionaire Louis Bacon, who has been battling Xcel Energy in its bid to run new transmission lines across his massive Trinchera Ranch in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado, apparently wins even if he loses. The Denver Post Friday reported Bacon’s hedge fund, Moore Capital Management, owns nearly $56 million in Xcel stock and stands to profit from the power lines that will connect the sun-soaked San Luis Valley and its many solar power facilities to Colorado’s Front Range cities.
Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) Chairman Ron Binz – a GOP and coal industry piñata the last several months – called it quits Thursday, telling the Denver Post he’s returning to consulting work for groups that promote clean energy.
The problem with massive, utility-scale solar and wind power plants, according to both critics and proponents, is the best places for collecting rays and electricity-generating gusts are often far from Colorado’s major population centers.
The San Luis Valley, for…
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