Tag: Governor’s Energy Office

Colorado's conservation community deemed the 2012 state legislative session a success this week after it saw a half dozen bills it supported pass and 15 efforts to undermine the environment thwarted.

Two very different energy bills were debated in committees today, with one aimed at making dramatic changes to the Governor’s Energy Office and the other proposing a system by which residential and business property owners can finance energy-efficiency improvement through their local electric utilities. House Bill 1312 (pdf), sponsored by Rep. Jon Becker, R-Fort Morgan, calls for the reorganization of the Governor’s Energy Office, the brainchild of former Gov. Bill Ritter and his “New Energy Economy.” It was slated for debate in the House Agriculture Committee, where Democrats promised a fight.

The administration of governor-elect John Hickenlooper Friday named Denver-based wind energy executive Tanuj “TJ” Deora the new director of the Governor’s Energy Office, created by Gov. Bill Ritter in 2007 to facilitate the state’s burgeoning “New Energy Economy.”

Xcel Energy Tuesday released an ambitious plan to achieve the state-mandated Colorado Renewable Energy Standard (RES) of 20 percent of the utility’s energy base...

A $3 million methane-to-electricity project at the Larimer County Landfill will use decomposing trash to provide enough power for about 900 homes and offset...

An innovative system designed to use heat generated from wastewater treatment to melt snow and heat several town facilities, including a recreation center pool, is back on track after the mountain town of Avon struck a deal with the local water district last week.

Funding sources to turn millions of acres of dead and dying lodgepole pines into biomass-generated heat and electricity are seemingly coming out of the woodwork. With the governor’s Energy Office pushing state grants and aggressive renewable-energy programs — coupled with the potential for millions in federal stimulus dollars — the beetle-kill biomass dreams of ski towns like Vail and Avon no longer look like a kooky environmentalist's pipe dream.

A coup attempt by radical greenies or a long-overdue transition to a more environmentally balanced, 21st-century energy policy? Depending on who you talk to, that’s the way the debate is being framed as Colorado’s largest rural electric co-op, the Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA), faces one of the most critical — and contentious — board elections in recent memory.