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Big Oil Steps Up

Gov. Bill Ritter's drive to make Colorado a center of renewable energy got a big boost from the private sector this week when ConocoPhillips said it's purchasing the former StorageTek campus in Louisville. Houston-based ConocoPhillips, the nation's No. 3 oil company, will use the 432-acre campus as an R&D center focusing on "renewable energy and high-tech carbon-fuels recovery," according to the Post.

"This will push the new energy economy for Colorado," said an ebullient Ritter in announcing the $55.6 million purchase.

In other energy news: Scientific American puts the cost of a fully renewable energy industry at $400 billion; big energy co.'s buy up land for shale-oil operations on the Western Slope; and legislators grapple with water issues surrounding in-situ leech mining of uranium.
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Death For Subsidies

In what ought to serve as a death-knell for corn-ethanol subsidies in the U.S., two studies from the new issue of the journal Science strongly indicate that the increased substitution of certain biofuels will actually exacerbate global climate change rather than slow it down.

While the researchers, from an array of independent institutions including Princeton University, Woods Hole Research Center, and Iowa State (smack in the heart of corn country), examined a variety of fuels, the chief culprit is clearly corn. Clearing land to grow additional corn stocks to make ethanol would release twice as much greenhouse gases into the atmosphere over the next 30 years as just burning regular gasoline.

In other energy news: BLM releases environmental impact statement on oil-shale production in the Rockies; EPA orders Colorado to examine gas-well air pollution rise; and state legislature eyes overcharging by cities for solar-power permits. [more]

In The New West magazine

When the U.S. Green Building Council announced in November a program to rate the environmental qualities of new home construction -- one based on the highly successful Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design requirements for commercial buildings -- it marked a watershed of sorts for the two-decade old sustainable building movement.

In the last year, public clamor for more responsible and energy-efficient ways of living, combined with the politics of climate change and the economic reality of soaring energy costs, has ushered the once-staid subject of how we build from the business section to the front page.

This story first appeared in the preview issue of The New West magazine. For more information on the magazine, or to subscribe, go to www.newwest.net/magazine. [more]

Monday Politics

The candidacy of Republican fundraiser Bruce Benson to become the president of the University of Colorado received another blow over the weekend when CU regent Cindy Carlisle announced she would no longer support him. A candidate for state Senate from Boulder, Carlisle had previously been the sole Democrat on the board of regents to come out in favor of Benson.

Late last week the CU faculty assembly postponed a vote on whether to support the proposed appointment of Benson, who has been an oil and gas CEO and is the former chairman of the Colorado Republican party. He is the sole finalist for the job of CU president. [more]

'An Absolute Crime'

Setting up a face-off with the White House, Sen. Ken Salazar said this week that along with two other members of the Colorado congressional delegation, he isi sponsoring a bill to restore the traditional 50-50 split between the states and the federal government of mineral leasing revenues on federal land.

The division was changed to 52-48 (in favor of the feds) in a little-noticed provision in the $555 billion appropriations bill signed by President Bush in December. Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, whose state stands to lose dozens of millions in mineral royalties, has called the change "an absolute crime."

In other energy news: Colorado offers rebates for residential solar-power systems; huge new natural gas pipeline sends fuel east from the Front Range; and coal hits near-record production levels.
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Super Duper Tuesday

Tomorrow's caucuses in Colorado will apportion 55 delegates to the Democratic presidential candidates (46 to Republicans), and it's a bit of an irony that neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton has spent significant time in the state that will host the Democratic National Convention next summer. In other ways, though, Colorado – which went 52 percent for George W. Bush in the last presidential election – "offers a microcosm of the national picture," as Laura Flanders, a political correspondent for the left-leaning Nation, puts it.
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FutureGen's Future Cloudy

Since I detailed the gaps in Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer's ambitious plans for "clean" coal plants in his state last month, the whole clean-coal movement has suffered a major blow. This week the Department of Energy said it would cancel funding for the FutureGen project, which is planning a commercial-scale coal plant with a carbon sequestration system in Matoon, Illinois.

Citing the high cost and potential difficulty in building a futuristic coal plant of this size, the DOE says it will cut its clean-coal funding and shift the dollars to smaller projects.

To say this is a disaster for developing less-destructive forms of coal generation – which still supplies about half of the nation's electricity – is an understatement.

In other energy news: Xcel Energy sees whopping profit surge; lawmakers object to shift in federal minerals-leasing revenue; and Colorado officials fire back at oil and gas producers over proposed new drilling regulations. [more]

a bluff?

Attempting to transform the way energy is produced and consumed in the West, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter has done his best to avoid antagonizing the oil and gas industry. Unfortunately he hasn't succeeded.

The appointment of Matt Baker, the executive director of Environment Colorado, to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission riled the oil-and-gas officials. The drafting of new energy-development regulations, now under revision by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, has infuriated them – so much so that energy-industry leaders are threatening to pack up their rigs and decamp.

This is bluster, of course: the oil and gas industry goes where the oil and gas is, and it's here, on the Western Slope. But Ritter is savvy enough to know that his ambitious plans for remaking the development and production of energy will not succeed if oil and gas producers refuse to go along. It'll be interesting to see how he responds to these latest threats.

In other energy news: EU gets down to brass tacks on moving toward non-carbon-based fuels; 2007 brings warmer temps – and a hot alternative-energy sector; and Xcel Energy charts an ambitious renewable-energy course.
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The CO2 Underground

The U.S. Department of Energy will fund a 10-year, $38 million project to study the long-term storage of carbon dioxide in deep geologic formations on the Gulf Coast. For the next 18 months, the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas will pump about a million tons a year of CO2 into brine formations up to 10,000 feet below ground, near the Cranfield oil field about 15 miles east of Natchez, Miss.

Capturing and storing 60 percent of the CO2 emitted by U.S. coal-fired power plants would require the transport and disposal of a daily volume roughly equal to U.S. oil consumption per day, according to an MIT report.
Texas alone could hold 40 years' worth of US emissions.

In other energy news: shale-oil exploration still only prospective on the Western Slope; Gov. Ritter appoints an environmentalist to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission; and state lawmakers try to head off uranium mining in Northern Colorado.
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Monday Political Roundup

In case you thought that recent sessions of the Colorado State Legislature have not been entertaining enough, you can take heart: the arrival of Colorado Springs Republican Douglas Bruce is already providing some theatrics.

Bruce, who credits himself with authoring the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (which hamstrung state government until its more drastic provisions were scaled back by Ref. C two years ago), has demanded a full House audience for his swearing in – bucking the tradition of new lawmakers who are filling vacancies taking their oath in private ceremonies. [more]

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