Deora currently heads up “state and regional policy advocacy efforts for Houston-based Horizon Wind Energy’s government affairs team, focusing on promoting investment-friendly environments for renewable energy,” according to a release from Hickenlooper’s transition team.

Replacing former state Rep. Tom Plant as head of the GEO, Deora has a diverse background in renewable and alternative energy development. Before joining Horizon, he was a consultant with McKinsey & Company’s energy practice in Washington, D.C., working for utility and industrial clients. And before that, the former DOW chemical engineer also worked for Calpine Corp. analyzing the performance of natural gas-fired power plants.

Colorado is currently involved in a comprehensive and contentious effort to transition aging coal-fired power plants to natural gas or other sources of cleaner-burning energy as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets a schedule for regulating greenhouse gas emissions. The selection of Deora is viewed positively by environmental groups supportive of that transition and other efforts to increase efficiency and renewable energy production around the state.

“TJ Deora is a strong and exciting pick to lead this critical office,” said Environment Colorado Program Director Pam Kiely. “With the clean energy economy taking off across the state, Deora’s experience in the wind industry makes him a smart choice to take the reins.”

Deora got his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas and his master’s degree in business administration from Harvard Business School.

“Over the past several years Colorado has developed a robust clean-tech industry, ranging from (research and development) to manufacturing and deployment of energy production facilities,” Deora said in a release. “I am honored to have the opportunity to serve our state in expanding its leadership role and leveraging our strong human and natural resources to bring more jobs and investment here to the Rockies.”

Hickenlooper is a former geologist on Colorado’s Western Slope who was laid off during a traditional energy bust in the 1980s. He went on to become a successful Denver restaurateur and the mayor of Denver. During the 2010 governor’s race, Hickenlooper, a Democrat, gave every indication he would continue the push toward renewables and efficiency begun in earnest by Ritter, while at the same time offering an olive branch to traditional extractive energy industries. His selection of Deora indicates he’s at least serious about the renewable energy part of the equation.

“Colorado is clearly a global leader when it comes to wind, solar and other sources of renewable energy,” Hickenlooper said in a release. “We are excited to have TJ Deora join our team as we continue to find ways for the energy industry to grow, create jobs and help boost our state’s economy.”

It is with that in mind, that we bring you Republican Ryan Frazier’s latest ad, where he accused 7th District incumbent Democrat Ed Perlmutter of voting to spend enormous amounts of money bolstering the Chinese economy, while doing nothing to help hungry Americans.

Specifically, he says Perlmutter supported a bill spending billions on wind turbines from China.

The American Wind Energy Association says it’s just not true. According to Laura Stevens, doing PR for the Wind Association, “One hundred percent of wind projects that have received stimulus funds are built in the United States.”

In fact, the stimulus bill generally requires that almost all the money goes to Americans or American companies.

Stevens said that prior to passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the wind industry feared that would drop as the economy faltered, instead the industry grew by more than 17 percent in the United States in 2009.

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Overall, Xcel ended 2009 as the nation’s number one wind energy provider with 3,200 megawatts across its service territory. That represents 8 percent of Xcel’s fuel load, which is comprised of 15 percent renewable energy, including hydro, solar and other sources.

Among its 2009 accomplishments, Xcel listed SmartGrid City in Boulder, with 47,000 homes connected to the pilot program, and the Solar Technology and Acceleration Center (SolarTAC) facility in Aurora, billed as “one of the largest facilities in the world to test and demonstrate advanced solar technologies.”

The company also talked up its Solar Rewards program, first introduced in Colorado in 2006 and expanded to Minnesota and New Mexico in 2009. The program has accounted for more than 5,000 photovoltaic systems being installed by the end of 2009, and more than $110 million in incentives doled out to customers. The company finished the year as the 6th-largest provider of solar power in the country.

Xcel still relies on coal for 50 percent of its fuel load across its service territory, 24 percent natural gas and 12 percent nuclear. Its new Comanche 3 coal-fired plant will come on line near Pueblo soon, but the company has committed to shutting down or retrofitting several aging coal-fired plants in the state, converting them to natural gas.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding through the Department of Energy was one of five projects announced Thursday that will leverage an additional $167 million in local government and private sector funding.

The 30-megawatt Northeast Colorado (NECO) Wind Project will be located in Phillips County, although the project at 650-megawatt build-out would be spread over Phillips, Sedgwick and Logan counties. Both senators praised the project as an innovative way for rural Colorado to spur economic recovery and energy independence.

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According to the Baltic Course, described as an “International Internet Magazine (Baltic State news & analytics),” an Estonia energy company wants to erect more than 300 wind turbines atop several ash fields left over from extracting oil from shale rock and sand.

Here’s an excerpt from the Baltic Course article:

“Estonian energy giant Eesti Energia is applying for special water usage permit from the Environment Ministry to erect up to 308 wind energy generators and transmission lines in the Livonian Bay, writes Postimees Online/LETA.

“The wind energy generations are planned to be erected in the Ruhnu, Kihnuedela, Kihnukrundi, Kihnulõuna and Jaagupi regions.

“The total area of the wind energy parks together with cable lines is nearly 20,000 hectares.

“Eesti Energia is planning to build new wind energy parks also in Paldiski and on closed oil shale ash fields in Narva.”

This is relevant to Colorado readers because of growing domestic pressure to step up oil shale research and development in the Green River Formation in northwest Colorado, southwest Wyoming and eastern Utah – described as one of the largest oil shale reserves in the world. It may also be of interest to our dedicated Estonia readers.

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The state’s biggest ski company — owner of Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Heavenly (Calif.), Keystone and Vail — has been on a major enviro-tear the last few years, becoming the 25th largest buyer of wind energy credits in the nation, announcing a billion-dollar green-built (LEED-certified) base village called Ever Vail and dramatically chopping its power consumption.

Aspen Skiing Company officials have been more vocal and politically active on the global-warming front, testifying before Congress and backing green candidates in local rural electric co-op board of directors elections, but Vail has been making major strides under the fairly recent tenure of CEO Rob Katz.

Last year Katz announced “energy layoffs” aimed at reducing by 10 percent the $25 million per year the company spends on energy. Monday he announced the company cut energy consumption by 6.1 percent in the previous year and was on track to meet the 10-percent goal in the coming year. That initiative is far more meaningful than buying wind credits, according to Aspen-based energy consultant Randy Udall.

Vail Resorts did make somewhat of a political statement last year by contributing $500,000 to the Democratic National Convention in Denver but nothing to the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis.

The RES proposed in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which Udall is a member of, would fall short of Colorado’s RES of 20 percent by 2020 — 10 percent of which was mandated by voters in 2004 (Amendment 37), with the other 10 percent imposed by the State Legislature in 2007. Rural electric co-ops are only subject to a 10-percent mandate.

Udall in a release said he pulled back an amendment that would have required 25 percent by 2025 because he knew there still wasn’t enough support for the higher number. He also objected to a stipulation in the RES that 4 percent of a utility’s 15-percent requirement could come from increasing efficiency in existing, conventional power plants.

The RES deliberation is part of the broader American Clean Energy and Security Act, which some environmentalists have criticized as not going far enough in establishing a carbon cap and a renewable standard. The Eldorado Springs Democrat helped get Amendment 37 passed in 2004, and other Colorado lawmakers are expected to play key roles in crafting the current federal bill.

Here’s the statement Udall released Thursday on the RES debate:

“While I’m disappointed that the RES proposed by the Committee today isn’t stronger, it is a small but important step in the right direction toward setting a national goal to increase our renewable energy use. My own home state of Colorado is an example of the potential benefit for the rest of the country. Since 2004, when Colorado’s RES was first approved by voters, more than 3,000 jobs have been created in the wind and solar energy fields alone.

“A federal standard has the power to create hundreds of thousands of renewable energy jobs, while reducing pollution and helping us end our dangerous addiction to foreign fossil fuels. Today, I offered an amendment that would increase the standard to 25 percent by 2025 because I thought it was important to emphasize that there is support on the Committee for a stronger RES. I withdrew the amendment because I knew there was not enough support for it yet among Committee members.

“We still have much work to do on the Energy Bill as well as on the Renewable Electricity Standard. I led the effort to create an RES in Colorado, and I will continue my efforts to create a strong national RES as well. I firmly believe that with a stronger standard, we will be able to lead the world in renewable energy production. But without it, we may see that opportunity pass us by.”

In danger of losing a $1.5 million “New Energy Communities” grant from the Governor’s Energy Office because of disagreements over lease lengths and funding commitments, the town and the Eagle River Water and Sanitation District finally worked out all the kinks and signed an intergovernmental agreement.

Town officials were concerned about committing $2.5 million to the project without a 40-year lease, but water district officials wanted a 20-year lease in case technology upgrades made the system obsolete. The two parties agreed to a 20-year term, and construction is expected to begin in the spring of 2010, with completion by June of 2011.

The Avon Heat Recovery Project will return cooler treated water to the Eagle River, while heating the Avon Recreation Center pool, the district’s wastewater treatment facility and providing heat to the town’s snowmelt system for its proposed Main Street pedestrian mall. Wind credits purchased through Holy Cross Energy will power the system, resulting in a near-zero carbon footprint, according to officials.

Avon Town Councilman Brian Sipes has proposed installing pipes beneath the new Main Street development in order to circulate hot water from a centralized biomass power plant that would run on wood chips from surrounding forests ravaged by a mountain pine beetle epidemic. Shops, hotels and office buildings could then tap into that system for radiated hot-water heat that could replace electric and natural-gas heating systems.

In 2006, the Broomfield-based ski, hotel, retail and real estate company began purchasing enough wind credits to account for 100 percent of the electricity consumed at its ski areas and other properties in Colorado, California and Wyoming.

Computer-processor manufacturer Intel Corporation topped the list with 46 percent of its total consumption covered by REC purchases, or 1.3 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of green power (defined by the EPA as electricity generated from renewable sources such wind, solar, biomass or small-scale hydro). By comparison, Vail Resorts’ total consumption amounts to about 151.3 million kWh.

The EPA itself comes in at 14th on the list with 285 million kWh of REC purchases, or 100 percent of its consumption. Vail ranks behind heavy-hitters like Pepsi (2nd), the U.S. Air Force (8th) and Starbucks (18th), but ahead of retail giants like Staples (27th), Lowe’s (32nd) and Safeway (36th).

REC purchases aren’t embraced by all renewable energy advocates. Some say RECs allows companies to wantonly consume energy and buy offsets from the overall grid without directly contributing to renewable generation.

However, Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz this past season engaged in an effort to reduce the company’s overall energy consumption by 10 percent through a variety of efficiency initiatives. And the company has been researching and implementing a variety of renewable energy projects, from small-scale hydro using local streams to solar panels on ski-area buildings to biomass projects.