Tag: Intermountain Rural Electric Association

One of the ironies of the controversy over proposed Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) oversight of the state’s second largest utility, Tri-State, is that the rural electric co-op arguably most in need of increased state supervision, the IREA, would be unaffected. Eighteen of the state’s 22 rural electric co-ops (REAs) would be impacted by PUC approval of Tri-State’s integrated resource plans — annual documents that detail the utility’s energy loads — but the IREA (Intermountain Rural Electric Association) and three other co-ops don’t get their power from Tri-State.

While praising the Colorado Legislature for passing more than a dozen “green economic recovery” bills in the session that wrapped up Wednesday, conservation groups also skewered lawmakers for failing to require greater energy efficiency of the state’s largest rural electric co-op.

The volatility of natural gas prices causing a major production downturn on Colorado’s Western Slope is exactly why William Schroeder Jr. of the Intermountain Rural Electric Association says the state’s largest co-op spent $366 million on a new coal-fired power plant.

The CBS news mag “60 Minutes” aired an interesting primer on the debate over so-called "clean-coal technology" Sunday night, interviewing some of the heavy hitters in the industry and scientists calling for a moratorium on all new coal-fired power plants.

Incumbents made it a clean sweep Thursday in the prickly battle for seats on the board of the Intermountain Rural Electric Association, the state’s largest rural electric co-op with nearly 138,000 members.

Another day, another blow to conservation-minded energy consumers in the suburbs between Denver and Colorado Springs.

Some early returns are in for the Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA) board election, and it’s not good news for renewable-energy advocates trying to bust up what they say is a cabal of coal-loving incumbents.

Votes are being counted in the closely watched Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA) board election after a lightly attended annual meeting in Woodland Park over the weekend, but results reportedly won’t be available till the end of the week.

Despite a growing body of evidence to the contrary, including a 2007 United Nations report, former Republican state Sen. William Schroeder Jr. contends global temperatures are actually dropping.

The first thing former school principal Mike Galvin said he’ll do if elected to the board of Intermountain Rural Electric Association, the state’s largest energy co-op, is enact sweeping reform of the election process itself.