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YESTERDAY
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THE DAY BEFORE
THE DAY BEFORE THE DAY BEFORE
THE DAY BEFORE THAT
AND THE DAY BEFORE THAT
THE LAST DAY UP HERE
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Anne B. Butterfield
of DAILY CAMERA,
is a biweekly contributor to NewEnergyNews
In Colorado, we're at the leading edge of a clean-energy revolution… We've created a model strategy for every state in the country to follow. We've built a template for a comprehensive national strategy that marries energy policy with climate policy….
On the beautiful and gusty Monday, October 19, Governor Ritter appeared in Boulder at the wind site of the National Renewable Energy Laboratories to celebrate the commissioning of the new Siemens 2.3 megawatt wind turbine, installed as a test facility in our nation’s largest government-industry cooperative venture for wind energy.
At over 40 stories high and moving gently with the wind, the turbine seemed natural in its setting, a giant redwood of the plains or a leviathan of the air. Its grandeur was cited by most of the dignitaries as a sign of Colorado’s accomplishments in the renewable energy field.
But Henry Kelly, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of Energy, warned of the magnitude of our nation’s energy predicament in which we to seek to reduce our emissions by 80 percent by 2050, saying, “We will need to be incredibly bold and audacious. And even to reach 20 percent wind power by 2030, we will need to learn a lot.” Looking every bit the bureaucrat in his white shirt with dark tie and suit, Kelly used language you’d expect from a race car driver: “One would generally wish a fair wind at the back of a new venture such as this, but in these times this test turbine should face winds that rip at its foundation, torture its blades and baffle its controls.”
On the next day at Colorado’s New Energy Economy Conference, the Governor did not mention that there was any test of character in store for people and commerce, but instead he kept to sunny superlatives: In Colorado, we're at the leading edge of a clean-energy revolution… We've created a model strategy for every state in the country to follow. We've built a template for a comprehensive national strategy that marries energy policy with climate policy…
In spite of the Governor’s enthusiasm there was a slightly suppressed feeling to the conference, as if everyone was going through the motions. In none of the sessions did anyone mention the elephant in the middle of Colorado’s New Energy Economy: Comanche3, the 750 megawatt new coal plant coming online perhaps as soon as next month.
To capture this travesty, one needs Henry Kelly’s way with metaphor: Comanche 3 is not just the elephant stomping on the Governor’s New Energy Economy, it’s also the proverbial white elephant, that gift from Hindu lore that’s part sacred cow and part trophy wife to make the perfect gift that keeps on taking.
We don’t need it. Comanche 3’s energy in the first years of operation will be excess capacity through 2015, as much as 500 megawatts above the 16 percent margin, according to Xcel’s formal notice to the Public Utilities Commission in early 2009.
Still, we Xcel ratepayers of Colorado will have to feed that white elephant through elevated base and fuel charges (known as the ECA on your bill), even customers having 100 percent subscription to Windsource. This was explained last week at the Meadows Library by Steve Mudd, Manager for Windsource.
Meanwhile, by Xcel’s own numbers the cost of newly installed renewable energy, particularly a “wind heavy” mix as analyzed in the 2009 “All Source Solicitation 120-Day Report”, is forecast to bring real savings to Xcel’s service as soon as 2013.
Still, with the logic of shopaholics , Xcel and Governor Ritter continue to defend Comanche 3’s contribution as “low cost energy”.
It just so happens the National Academy of Sciences doesn’t agree with this “low cost” notion in its book-length study just released: “Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use”. It sums up the unpaid costs of fossil fuels at about $120 billion per year.
Shouldering an extra $120 billion every year can add up to real money – exactly the kind that has been breaking our nation’s health care system and state and federal budgets. The costs the NAS report finds are mostly health related.
Henry Kelly got it. We are facing a wind that is ripping at our foundations and baffling our controls. The process is well underway.
Full disclosure; Anne Butterfield’s husband is the Chief Engineer for NREL’s wind program and was instrumental in bringing Siemens’ test program to Colorado. Email her: annebbutterfield@yahoo.com
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Anne's previous NewEnergyNews columns:
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*Doctor with my hands
*Author of the "OIL IN THEIR BLOOD" series with my head
*Student of New Energy with my heart
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Pay a visit to the HARRY BOYKOFF page at Basketball Reference, sponsored by NewEnergyNews and Oil In Their Blood.
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About Me
A tip of the NewEnergyNews cap to Phillip Garcia for crucial assistance in the design implementation of this site. Thanks, Phillip.
THINGS-TO-THINK-ABOUT FRIDAY, 11-20:
This week, Peter Sinclair lets scientists explain why climate change is real and human emissions are the cause. While deniers insist emptily that the science “isn’t there,” the truth is any scientist with well-substantiated proof the changes are caused by anything OTHER that heat trapped by human-generated greenhouse gas emissions would become famous. None has. From greenman3610 via YouTube.
posted by Herman K. Trabish @ 4:49 AM
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WALL STREET JOURNAL'S Environmental Capital selected NewEnergyNews as one of the "Blogs We Are Reading" in March, April and May of 2007 and quoted NewEnergyNews on June 5, 2007
MOTHER EARTH NEWS' Energy Matters selected NewEnergyNews for its "What We're Reading" list in September 2008
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