Muni's environmental cost
Published in the Boulder Daily Camera, January 20, 2015
Contrary to the old saying, time isn't always just money. The real message is that time always has value, as those of us quickly growing older know only too well.
People concerned about a warming planet usually see the goal of stopping greenhouse gas emissions "someday" as not good enough. As last week's headlines remind us, the world is heating up now. Time matters.
The need to reduce emissions sooner rather than later is an obvious source of conflict between environmentalists and Boulder's electrical municipalization project. The conflict stems from the city's decision four years ago to walk away from Xcel's offer to acquire wind power resources equaling 93 percent of Boulder's electrical consumption starting in 2013 — over two years ago. Boulder just had to negotiate the deal, but instead it rejected Xcel's offer outright in favor of pursuing municipalization.
A conservative estimate of Xcel's offer was that it would have reduced the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by 1,000 tons per day starting in 2013.
Yep, that's right... 1,000 additional tons of carbon dioxide have been released into the atmosphere every day as Boulder has taken the time to pursue municipalization. That means that the 750 days of thrashing over municipalization since Xcel's windmills would have started generating clean power have already resulted in about 750,000 additional tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The clock is still ticking.
Last week, we found out that much more time must now pass before Boulder electricity gets cleaner.
The bad news came in the form of another court decision telling Boulder that it has to clear the confiscation of Xcel's equipment located outside of the city with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC). This is Boulder's second try at getting around this requirement by claiming that Boulder's "home-rule" status allows it to take whatever it wants from whomever it likes wherever they are. Two state courts have now ruled that the PUC, being responsible for ensuring the reliability and effectiveness of electrical supplies, must approve Boulder's plans to ensure that electrical consumers outside city limits will not be hurt by municipalization.
Whatever the law says, it's easy to see why the people on the PUC who actually know and understand electrical utilities should be trusted to protect the electrical security of non-Boulder citizens in this process. This is not politics — it's common sense. But, until this issue is resolved, the time-critical tasks holding up municipalization have stopped in their tracks.
Boulder's options to hurry this along are not pretty. Appealing this issue one last time to the Colorado Supreme Court would take about two years, and Boulder still might lose. Or, Boulder could just suck it up and ask the PUC to approve Boulder's confiscation of Xcel's assets, which will take about nine months. However, there are many reasons that the PUC might say "no" to Boulder's plans, meaning that municipalization would be back to Square One.
Which brings us back to the issue of time. Boulder had planned on being ready to crank up the municipal utility by 2017, and that's now pure fantasy. It's hard to foresee the start of a municipal utility any sooner than 2019, if ever.
Even if Boulder finally succeeds at municipalization, it will be a long time before Boulder produces clean energy on the scale that Xcel had offered years ago. This translates to millions of tons of additional carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere to generate Boulder's electricity because Boulder decided to municipalize rather than negotiate Xcel's clean energy offer. Ouch.
Considering the environmental harm that these additional greenhouse gases are doing today, it's hard to paint a picture where Boulder's utility can ever make up for all the lost environmental ground. This whole process is taking too long and that, in and of itself, makes it a bad idea if what you want is to stop global warming.
If the city really wants to help the environment, it must seriously consider another path forward, and one may open up soon. Tax credits for windmills expired last year, but there is a good chance they will be extended as part of a congressional tax deal sometime in the next year. If that happens, there will be another rush to build windmills and Xcel will be in the thick of it. That would be a great time for Boulder to swallow its pride, find a way to work with Xcel, and finally do something to help stop climate change now, not later.
Contrary to the old saying, time isn't always just money. The real message is that time always has value, as those of us quickly growing older know only too well.
People concerned about a warming planet usually see the goal of stopping greenhouse gas emissions "someday" as not good enough. As last week's headlines remind us, the world is heating up now. Time matters.
The need to reduce emissions sooner rather than later is an obvious source of conflict between environmentalists and Boulder's electrical municipalization project. The conflict stems from the city's decision four years ago to walk away from Xcel's offer to acquire wind power resources equaling 93 percent of Boulder's electrical consumption starting in 2013 — over two years ago. Boulder just had to negotiate the deal, but instead it rejected Xcel's offer outright in favor of pursuing municipalization.
A conservative estimate of Xcel's offer was that it would have reduced the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by 1,000 tons per day starting in 2013.
Yep, that's right... 1,000 additional tons of carbon dioxide have been released into the atmosphere every day as Boulder has taken the time to pursue municipalization. That means that the 750 days of thrashing over municipalization since Xcel's windmills would have started generating clean power have already resulted in about 750,000 additional tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The clock is still ticking.
Last week, we found out that much more time must now pass before Boulder electricity gets cleaner.
The bad news came in the form of another court decision telling Boulder that it has to clear the confiscation of Xcel's equipment located outside of the city with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC). This is Boulder's second try at getting around this requirement by claiming that Boulder's "home-rule" status allows it to take whatever it wants from whomever it likes wherever they are. Two state courts have now ruled that the PUC, being responsible for ensuring the reliability and effectiveness of electrical supplies, must approve Boulder's plans to ensure that electrical consumers outside city limits will not be hurt by municipalization.
Whatever the law says, it's easy to see why the people on the PUC who actually know and understand electrical utilities should be trusted to protect the electrical security of non-Boulder citizens in this process. This is not politics — it's common sense. But, until this issue is resolved, the time-critical tasks holding up municipalization have stopped in their tracks.
Boulder's options to hurry this along are not pretty. Appealing this issue one last time to the Colorado Supreme Court would take about two years, and Boulder still might lose. Or, Boulder could just suck it up and ask the PUC to approve Boulder's confiscation of Xcel's assets, which will take about nine months. However, there are many reasons that the PUC might say "no" to Boulder's plans, meaning that municipalization would be back to Square One.
Which brings us back to the issue of time. Boulder had planned on being ready to crank up the municipal utility by 2017, and that's now pure fantasy. It's hard to foresee the start of a municipal utility any sooner than 2019, if ever.
Even if Boulder finally succeeds at municipalization, it will be a long time before Boulder produces clean energy on the scale that Xcel had offered years ago. This translates to millions of tons of additional carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere to generate Boulder's electricity because Boulder decided to municipalize rather than negotiate Xcel's clean energy offer. Ouch.
Considering the environmental harm that these additional greenhouse gases are doing today, it's hard to paint a picture where Boulder's utility can ever make up for all the lost environmental ground. This whole process is taking too long and that, in and of itself, makes it a bad idea if what you want is to stop global warming.
If the city really wants to help the environment, it must seriously consider another path forward, and one may open up soon. Tax credits for windmills expired last year, but there is a good chance they will be extended as part of a congressional tax deal sometime in the next year. If that happens, there will be another rush to build windmills and Xcel will be in the thick of it. That would be a great time for Boulder to swallow its pride, find a way to work with Xcel, and finally do something to help stop climate change now, not later.
