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New West Energy Grok

Has Tri-State Seen the (Green) Light?

By Richard Martin, 4-13-07

You know that global warming is having an effect on the energy business when major utilities, like zeppelins in a windstorm, start the laborious process of changing their strategic models. That, apparently, is what’s happening with Tri-State Energy and Generation, which in recent weeks has scrapped plans for one of three coal-fired power plants on the boards, said it will seek ways to build greener, gas-fired plants to meet short-term energy needs, and even look into using wind power.

Based in Denver, Tri-State serves 44 rural electric co-ops in Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado and New Mexico (that’d be “Quad-State,” but never mind), and has been facing something of a member mutiny as it seeks to sign up co-ops to 10-year contract extensions, wrapping up its customers through 2050. While most of the co-ops have signed the extension, they’ve demanded that Tri-State re-think its commitment to coal. While the company won’t admit it’s responding to those criticisms, it said at its annual meeting last week it’s putting “on indefinite hold” plans to build a coal-fired plant in western Kansas. Plants in Holcomb, Kan., and in Southeastern Colorado are still slated to go online by 2012 or 2013.

Skeptics see Tri-State’s moves as window dressing – its wind-power plans call for only 50 megawatts of energy, enough to serve 50,000 households. But “there’s an old saying that you never criticize a dirty man when he’s taking a bath,” Wes Perrin, a San Miguel Power board member and vocal critic of Tri-State, told the Telluride Gateway.

In other energy news:

-- Just what the world needs: another big energy cartel. Saying they will form a high-level study group led by Russia to “examine tighter collaboration,” the Gas Exporting Countries Forum at its first meeting in two years, held in Qatar on Monday, moved toward forming a natural-gas version of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The world’s five leading exporters of natural gas are Algeria, Qatar, Iran, Russia and Venezuela – a list that “includes some testy regimes,” deadpanned Time.

-- Add to the list of entities casting a wary eye on the American push to produce and burn more ethanol Asian and European carmakers that operate in the U.S. While GM, Ford, and Chrysler are all pushing for the spread of E85, a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers – which includes the three major Japanese carmakers,Toyota, Honda and Nissan – are less enthusiastic. Japanese and European carmakers tend to be more in favor of diesel, which is already in widespread use in Asia and on the Continent.

-- Amid record prices for uranium, the old uranium mines of the West could be re-opened – and that has communities mindful of the health and environmental effects of the last uranium mining boom worried. Powertech Uranium Corp. is proposing a mine on 5,760 acres in Weld County, and local property owners have launched a Web site to raise awareness about the project.

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