Opinion: Tying up some loose ends


On the GMO front, the county commissioners are faced with sorting through lots of facts and opinions, but I have not heard much about the widespread use of certain herbicides leading to the evolution of “superweeds.” According to “The Growing Menace From Superweeds,” Scientific American, May 2011, weeds are developing resistance to glyphosate, the active ingredient in RoundUp and other herbicides. This process parallels the evolution of bacteria to resist certain antibiotics, and is accelerated by widespread use. Companies like Monsanto may make a profit by creating a GMO that resists a herbicide, and then promoting both this genetic variant and the herbicide. And farmers may do better in the short term, although even this is under debate. But the GMO/herbicide combo seems counterproductive in the long term, and that is what will ultimately count.
In the utility arena, Xcel has filed for a rate increase that, according to reports, will raise rates about 4 percent, nearly a $5 million increase for Boulder ratepayers. Part of the request in Xcel’s proposal is that they be compensated for the loss of revenues from the expiration of their contract with Black Hills Energy, which provides power in the Pueblo area. The Pueblo Chieftain reports, “The rate hike is sought in part to cover lost revenue from the utility’s decision to stop selling power to Black Hills Energy after this year, Xcel says. The decision led Black Hills, which says its hands were tied by Xcel’s actions, to rush to build its own power plant that will result in double-digit rates hikes on its customers.”
What I find interesting is that Xcel wants Colorado ratepayers to compensate the company for a revenue loss that it apparently created. The Pueblo Chieftain further reports, “The state Public Utilities Commission oversaw the moves by both utilities. The commission has maintained that it lacked the authority to force Xcel into extending the power supply contract and that a new natural gas-fired plant was Black Hills’ best option going forward.” But of course the PUC does have power. It could eliminate any profits that Xcel might make from selling the surplus power on the open market, currently a significant benefit to Xcel. Or the PUC could finally acknowledge that the current regulatory system has removed almost of Xcel’s risk and severely reduce its high return on equity (Xcel was awarded 10.5 percent in 2010.)
With regard to decreasing CO2 emissions, it’s time for the legislature to take a long-term perspective on where we need to get to. Many scientists have posited that an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 is the minimum needed to keep our home planet from becoming an environmental disaster. Given the long lifetime of fossil fuel generation investments, current actions must be viewed with that timeline in mind. Thus, the legislature would do well to revisit the Clean Air Clean Jobs Act decision to invest more money in coal plants (really, how crazy is that?)
Colorado’s Renewable Energy Standard is inadequate and too short term. The “30 percent” requirement for investor owned utilities is really only 26-plus percent because most in-state renewable energy is counted 1.25 times. The requirements for rural co-ops and municipal utilities are weaker yet. Preliminary figures I have seen put the whole state at only around 16-17 percent renewable energy by 2020. And Xcel has indicated that it does not expect to acquire any additional renewable energy projects in Colorado until 2028 (only 22 years before 2050), other than a small amount of distributed generation — most likely, rooftop solar and solar gardens.
Without continually increasing the standards for all utilities, public and private, our wind and solar industries will disappear, and when we finally figure out that they are essential, we will have to rebuild them from scratch. It’s time for the legislature to stop playing around with “good ideas” that won’t get the job done, tell the PUC to come up with a long term plan to actually get us an 80 percent CO2 reduction by 2050 statewide, and keep updating the plan as technology improves. This is not an issue that can wait!


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