Retiring Xcel CEO ‘OK if no more coal’ after investing $1 billion-plus on Comanche 3 plant

“I’d be OK if there were never any more coal,” says retiring Xcel Energy CEO Dick Kelly, who invested more than $1 billion in Pueblo’s coal-fired Comanche 3 power plant. Leslie Glustrom of Boulder-based Clean Energy Action puts the interview “in the vein of ‘I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.’ Burritos are only $3 mistakes and the indigestion lasts for a day. Coal plants are $1 billion mistakes and the ‘indigestion’ lasts for decades.”

Boulder in midst of fight to determine who supplies the light

In Boulder, there is little debate over the cause of climate change. Everyone knows wind and solar are good and coal is bad. You would think the carbon conscious residents and council members would hop all over Xcel’s recent proposal to deliver 70 percent wind power to the city by 2013 and 90 percent by 2020. Well, it’s not that simple. While carbon reduction is a goal, it’s not the only goal.

Udalls introduce yet another bill to establish national renewable energy standard

Two days after a conservative group filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Denver challenging Colorado’s renewable energy standard (RES), Colorado Sen. Mark Udall – who was instrumental in getting voter approval for that RES back in 2004 – introduced a bill with his cousin Tom Udall, D-N.M., to establish a national standard.

With Congress gridlocked on climate legislation, environmental groups forge ahead

Despite the Gulf oil spill, a massive pipeline break in Michigan and broad concerns about global warming, ambitious climate-change and energy legislation is likely dead for the year. That poses a conundrum, going forward, for environmentalists: How to convince lawmakers of the need for legislation to sever the country’s decades-long ties to oil and to reform energy policy more generally?

Reeling BP looks to resume Colorado drilling, alt energy projects

BP in the coming months may have to look to its lucrative natural gas fields in southwestern Colorado to recoup the massive financial hit it’s taking in the wake of the worst oil spill in American history.

Xcel says it has no nuclear plans for Colorado

A spokesman for Xcel Energy told the Colorado Independent today that the company has not proposed a nuclear power plant for Colorado. Tom Henley, Senior Media Relations Representative for Xcel, said he was taken aback reading news that Colorado U.S. Sen. Mark Udall supported a plan Xcel was considering to build a nuclear plant in the state.

“We have absolutely not proposed a nuclear power plant,” Henley told the Colorado Independent Monday.

Ritter touts long-term economic strategy in ‘State of the State’ address

DENVER– In a “state of the state” address at a Rotary Club polio benefit Thursday, Governor Ritter said natural gas and nuclear energy should be embraced as part of a clean energy portfolio, that he was “agnostic” on whether schools should be public or charter, and that he would ask voters to eliminate the budgetary constraints caused by the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights should he be elected to a second term.

Conservation group hammers Rep. Salazar for no vote on ‘cap and trade’

The League of Conservation Voters Thursday launched a television ad campaign in Grand Junction, Pueblo, Colorado Springs and Denver blasting U.S. Rep. John Salazar for voting against the Waxman-Markey climate change bill.

Only two of those cities – Grand…

Tri-State wind farm dubbed a good first step by renewable energy advocates

Green energy advocates called Monday’s announcement of a major new wind farm on Colorado’s Eastern Plains by Tri-State Generation and Transmission a great first step down the renewable road Xcel Energy first paved more than a decade ago.

Colorado Winds Up With Wind

Colorado was third in the nation in new installed wind generating capacity for the second quarter of 2007, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Colorado installed 75 megawatts of new wind power with completion of PPM Energy’s Twin Buttes…