Water, Wind and Climate Change

Energy Future of the West: Half Empty or Half Full?

By Dan Whipple, 6-04-08

	The Judith Gap Wind Energy Center in Wheatland County, Montana, the state's largest wind farm, but perhaps not for long. Photo by Dave Morris

Colorado House Majority Leader Alice Madden put up a slide of Lake Mead with the rhetorical question: Half empty or half full?

Madden’s immediate subject at the University of Colorado’s Natural Resource Law Center’s Annual Summer Conference was water, but the question echoed around a wide variety of subjects: energy, climate, renewable resources.

There’s a lot of talk around the water cooler about “tipping points” these days, especially as they relate to wobbling climate. But there’s a definite sense that the West is teetering on the edge of its own tipping point, one that will determine whether it bursts forth into a new world of forward-thinking policy choices, or return to a world of – what? – the old stuff.

In short, there is a new wind blowing through energy policy. Wind. Really. Lots of wind.

Vicky Patton, general counsel of the Environmental Defense Fund, said, “There’s lots of reason for hope and some stunning progress. But there are gaps.”

The chief reason for hope is the growth of renewable energy and the reduction in costs of that power. As the cost of fossil fuel has increased – that famous four dollar a gallon gasoline – alternative fuel sources have become more attractive.

In the real world so far, “alternative energy” means wind power, mostly. There are some strides being made in solar power, but the growth in alternative energy is mostly in the wind.

On the Great Plains, Bob Gough of NativeEnergy Inc., said that the 30 Missouri River Basin tribes are trying to break the Indian cycle of energy development – “sell low, buy high,” Gough said – “now we’re seeing revitalization around wind with a intertribal wind planning and policy … we’re trying to find a way beyond this recipe for poverty. Gough says the tribes are working on a distributed wind project in the Great Plains.”

The use of wind in power generation has been successful in Colorado. Madden said that the renewable energy standard passed in 2004 in required that 10 percent of power be generated form renewables by 2015. The state’s largest utility, Xcel Energy, originally opposed that standard.

But by 2007, Xcel had already met the ten percent standard, and supported successful legislation to increase the level to 20 percent by 2020. Nearly all of Xcel’s renewable energy generation comes from wind.

The central Rockies have been firmly in the middle of the pack on energy innovation. Madden admits, “We haven’t led on these issues. But we have done a 180 on them.” A major question is what comes next.

Madden cited legislation passed in Colorado this year that allows cities and counties to give homeowners low-interest loans to provide energy efficiency improvements to the homeowner’s house, which is repaid by an increase in property taxes. The debts, however, stay with the house, not with the homeowner.

Heidi Van Gederen, Colorado Gov, Bill Ritter’s senior advisor on climate change, said that initiatives in other states might offer a clue to future initiatives. These might include state subsidies for worker training for the alternative technology industries, or rewarding manufacturers for using less packaging.

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