Tag: Renewable Energy

Holy Cross Energy, viewed by many as one of the most progressive rural electric co-ops in the state, isn’t nearly forward-thinking enough for some renewable-energy advocates looking to oust longtime president of the board Tom Turnbull, a Carbondale-area rancher. In a little-publicized board election to be determined June 5, Turnbull is being targeted by Glenwood Springs businessman and Carbondale resident Marshall Foote, who has the endorsement of the most environmentally aggressive ski company in the state, Aspen SkiCo.

Most experts agree, the factors shaping the 2010 election on Colorado’s Western Slope – and to a lesser degree the rest of the state – boil down to a version of that old James Carville chestnut: “It’s the energy economy, stupid.”

The push by environmental groups for Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) oversight of rural electric co-ops (REAs) and the utilities that supply them with power is already shaping up as a key campaign issue in the 2010 governor’s race.

Henry Waxman, D-Calif., may not “have the nuts” to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act (at least according to his GOP counterpart on the House Energy and Commerce Committee), but some Colorado environmentalists say the bill itself doesn’t have the teeth it needs to truly transform America’s energy infrastructure.

The global warming debate is heating up in the House, leading to the kind of quirky moments that are a common feature of life on the Hill.

Beset by a growing chorus of environmental opposition culminating in more stringent drilling regulations in April, some in Colorado’s natural-gas industry say they need to do a better job of portraying their product as the cleanest burning fossil fuel.

Robb Walt, cofounder of Littleton-based Community Power Corporation, says he’s doing a brisk business these days in modular biopower systems, but not in Colorado despite a huge potential fuel load in the form of a mountain bark-beetle epidemic that’s killed millions of acres of lodgepole pines.

Details of the Obama administration’s $3.4 trillion federal budget released Thursday revealed a big bump for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden.

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.

Colorado’s New Energy Economy will serve as a model and its congressional delegation as a catalyst for a comprehensive energy bill currently being hashed out in two U.S. House committees, according one Denver-based environmental advocate closely tracking the legislation.