Allen Best and Big Pivots

By 2030, Colorado hopes to have nearly a million electric vehicles on the road. But to fuel them cheaply will require an ample supply of renewable energy. That’s the fundamental challenge being explored by Charging Perks, an Xcel Energy’s pilot program.

It’s hard to image the climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe getting grouchy. I’ve seen her twice in person and also in video presentations, most recently on Sept. 23 via a Zoomed video interview sponsored by the Vail Symposium. She’s bubbly and funny, always brimming with good cheer. Hayhoe can talk science deeply because, after all, she […]

Tom Vessels was eulogized last Friday afternoon at the Pavilion at Denver’s City Park. As sunshine streamed in the windows, stories were told about his thirst for adventure, his backpacking trips, his devotion to family, even a ribald tale about something he said at a beer festival.  Only the briefest allusion was made to what […]

The Martin Drake Power Plant will burn its last load of coal Friday, ending a century of coal-burning near downtown Colorado Springs. All but one of Colorado’s remaining coal plants will also close in this decade. What will replace the electricity generated by coal combustion in times when neither the wind blows nor the sun […]

Aspen got national attention in 2004 when it launched a program called the Canary Initiative that aimed for greenhouse gas reduction. This summer, a time of smoky skies and heat in the mountain resort that at one point surpassed temperatures in sub-tropical Florida, city officials have decided those original goals fell short of what is […]

The utility commissioners were engaging in an exercise of what-ifs. They regulate Xcel, which is responsible for more than 60% of the state’s electrical sales, and Black Hills Energy, also an investor-owned utility. Periodically, those utilities must submit plans to show how they intend to meet demands. Part of the dance between regulators and utilities is creation of models that seek to depict future trends.

A legislative bill that landed on the desk of Gov. Jared Polis last week may be just as important in Colorado’s energy journey as the first renewable energy standard approved by state voters in 2004.

Top-level federal officials and representatives discussed the effort required to meet the challenge of climate change at the 21st Century Energy Transition Symposium held on May 4 and May 5.

In 2009, Wyoming was riding high on coal. It supplied the coal that provided roughly half the nation’s power generation. The trains out of the Powder River Basin were almost non-stop, delivering the sub-bituminous low-sulphur coal from Wyoming’s subterranean to plants as far as Florida. The Sierra Club had mounted a campaign in which it […]

In 2020, the raft of bills passed by Colorado legislators the previous year began altering the state’s energy story. Then, the markets and economy were ravaged by the effects of COVID-19. 2021 will be a fascinating year in the Colorado energy sphere. Here are the stories to keep an eye on for the coming year:

Consider that Colorado legislators last year adopted some of the deepest decarbonization goals in the country. A reflection of a rapid shift of Colorado’s electorate? Not at all, reported Joshua Low of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.