Tag: wind

Farmer and rancher Jan Kochis knows what it’s like to live by the whims of the market. Her farm in Elbert County grows dryland...

In discussing whether renewables are, in fact, cheaper, lawmakers bitterly argued over tax subsidies. They saw in the data what they wanted to see.

Another attempt to extend a tax credit that helps keep wind turbines turning in Colorado and beyond failed in the Senate on Tuesday.

Xcel Energy is manipulating Colorado's renewable energy policies to reap profits from ratepayers above and beyond the allowed amount, according to a Public Utilities Commission renewable energy expert.

Xcel Energy, the state’s largest utility and a key backer of Colorado’s aggressive renewable energy standard (RES), reacted with skepticism to Monday’s lawsuit seeking to overturn a state law mandating 30 percent of Xcel’s electricity be produced by renewable sources by 2020. “... We understand that [the complaint] was made by a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy organization,” Xcel spokesman Mark Stutz told the Colorado Independent. “We would be surprised if a federal court would overturn Colorado's legislatively approved Renewable Energy Standard.”

Backers of a bill that would have prompted the study of a “feed-in-tariff” program in Colorado to connect renewable energy generators to the grid say the state’s major utilities quietly killed the legislation in committee last week because of their “continuing love affair with fossil fuels.”

A phone survey of 2,200 registered voters in five western states, including 600 in Colorado, found that a majority of western voters think the amount of their state’s electricity being produced by renewable energy sources should “dramatically increase,” even if it means paying more on their utility bill.

BOULDER -- Blue skies and sunshine set off Boulder in all its glory Saturday as normalcy returned to town. Concern that the Fourmile Canyon fire could move into the city ceased, as did the smoke pouring over the ridge lines. Firefighters say they have the nearly 6,500-acre blaze 56 percent contained.

With one week to go to pass six green-energy bills in the current legislative session, eight Democratic state lawmakers are holding a rally on the west steps of the State Capitol Wednesday at 1 p.m. – a sort of Renewabollapalooza for the New Energy Economy.