U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Michael Bennet
50%
50%
50%
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Jena Griswold
(D) Brian Mason
60%↑
30%↑
20%↓
Sec. of State
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(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) George Stern
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%↑
30%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Manny Rutinel
(D) Yadira Caraveo
45%↓
40%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
February 05, 2025 06:54 AM UTC
30 Comments
February 5, and I was curious what was happening to the major political parties in Colorado. FEC site shows:
1/31/25 submission from the Democrats:
1/31/25 submission from the Republicans
Just a snapshot, of course. Lots of other interesting details in the filings.
Mass Resistance at the FBI. Benjamin Wittes at Lawfare.
Aren't you happy about the 5,000 cops under the microscope?
If Cash Patel fires them, isn't that the ultimate in defunding the police?
Libertariansim ALWAYS devolves into Kleptocracy, and Musk is the enemy; Trump is a distraction. Mike Littwin.
This is what I've been saying all along. The Trump shock & awe is designed to sieze the news cycle and distract us from the real damage. It's intentional. The "tell" is the projected level of outrage. Invade Greenland! Ethnic Cleansing in Gaza! Tariffs On! Tariffs Off!
Pay attention to: Heritage Foudation, Project 2025, DOGE, Musk, Peter Thiel. Libertarianism ALWAYS devolves into Kleptocracy.
Mike Littwin today:
From The Guardian. I'm starting to think Musk might be up to something:
Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) has started a movement in the House to impeach Yammie-pie over his mutterings for a hostile take-over of Gaza. That'll just be the starting point, as he and Musk pile up crimes against the U.S. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5128061-al-green-donald-trump-impeachment-gaza/
After the 2026 election – assuming it actually takes place <wink, wink> – the Dems should retake the House.
At that point, I imagine there will be the first of several impeachments none of which will get more than 15 minutes of time before John Thune's senate which will conduct an Alejandro Mayorkas-type impeachment "trial" and summarily acquit Trump.
Dogs bark but the parade marches on.
I've spent 4+ hours/day over the last 6 weeks diving into the energy grid and in particular wind and gas power. I've asked a lot of questions and written a lot of blogs about the individual pieces of all this.
And this is my summation of all that with respect to Colorado's energy policy.
On The Highway to Energy Poverty
Colorado's Energy Plan will deliver unreliable expensive energy
And if you dislike my conclusions about wind, then instead of ad-hominum attacks, refute the math.
David, I'm far less interested in the nuclear vs. wind debate than the collapse of the US government.
Me too. And if opportunity arises, my first priority will be any efforts to retain our Democracy.
But this is important too. WInd is not only a dead end, energy policy is the issue in the German elections right now. If the Democrats are still pushing wind in 2 years, as it becomes general knowledge that all that effort was wasted, that could determine election results.
So this matters not just to effectively address climate change, but to avoid another major issues Republicans can use to win against Democrats.
It's important. It's not urgent. I have no bandwidth for this while a coup is in progress.
Very fair point.
If I insist you post that flimsy argument on CP rather than giving your crappy Substack clicks, that's not Ad Hominum.
I don't understand why you have your panties in a twist because I have it on substack. My blog there is free. Always has been, always will be.
And you of course are welcome to ignore any post, by anyone, that links to the full article. Interesting approach as the fundamental power of the internet is links. But to each their own.
I read your Energy Poverty commentary. I did not see anything about disposal of nuclear waste.
I also don't think a comparison between Colorado and Germany carries a lot of weight. Different climates and different geography.
I used the Germany example more for the political impact of making the power supply fragile and expensive. I used eia numbers for wind generation in Colorado for the doldrums we face. And also used eia to graph the doldrums we face nationally (across all 3 grids).
As to disposal, we have a solution. We just need the political effort to use it. And it's not that much. Orders of magnitude less than the coal ash from a coal plant.
"I did not see anything about disposal of nuclear waste."
I'm guessing the current administration would deem the Bay area of California to be an ideal disposal area.
Please explain to me how nuclear is cheap and clean. I have been involved off and on with a radioactive waste dump since the late 1970's. It's been on the Superfund list for over 40 years – still not cleaned up or even properly assessed. The site (a former uranium mill and tailings disposal site) polluted a large number of private water wells in a nearby neighborhood. After decades those wells are still contaminated. And nuclear cheap? Really? There is absolutely no evidence I've ever seen that nuclear is cheap. Why do we have the Price-Anderson Act then?
Price-Anderson is what makes nuclear artificially cheap. If it weren't for the liability caps and if energy production companies had to factor in to their product cost what insurance would run them withhout Price-Anderson, the cost would be prohibitive.
The funny part is that even with the liability cap, nuclear is still considered too expensive to develop.
Nuclear is too expensive because of the NRC, NEPA, etc. I am 100% in support of reasonable oversight and regulation. But Korea builds a similiar plant to the Votgle and Korea does in for 5b while Vogtle was 14b, And Korea has a very safe system.
That extra expense is policy, not safeguards.
Well then, if “Nuclear is too expensive because of the NRC, NEPA, etc.”, all Colorado (and the United States) needs to do is abandon democratic processes that established the existing constraints, somehow managing to make them go away, and we can have inexpensive energy.
Republic of Korea has a whole different set of priorities emerging from their history and geography. Nearby, you ought to also be looking at the example of costs in Japan. Cost estimates there obviously are a matter of great concern, and there is a new government estimate. The Japanese organization Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center.article has a pretty thorough critique. It begins with the observation:
The critique continues, pointing out the government’s assumptions on nuclear power are not borne out by experience, and thus comparisons would be even less favorable to nuclear power.
The cheapest way to generate electricity is hydro & coal. So yeah, there's cheaper alternatives.
But if you want green and you've already dammed everything, then nuclear is your best bet.
It also depends on how you measure it. Solar on a rooftop with no backup is cheap. But if enough people do that you then have the externality of backup for that solar that is usually not priced in to the cost of solar. Wind even more so.
It's the systemic view that brings these other costs in.
As to NEPA, NRC, etc. there is bi-partisian discussion in Washington about fixing both of these. Until they do though you have a good point on the costs they add.
Coal is still cheapest? Is that really true. Maybe if you have an existing coal pp; I'm sure not if you are building a new pp.
Looking at the price per KWhr for the different technologies on some charts, I notice that solar panels have gone down so much in price, that they are the cheapest, and wind turbine technology is about the same. Of course as you are saying, backup, siting, permitting and life-cycle costs need to be considered.
One reason I don't quite buy your numbers is that power companies are installing gobs of wind generation as well as solar. Are they really doing that if the costs aren't better than coal. Of course displacing CO2 generation is an important and necessary factor in the decision-making process.
I don't think you addressed my earlier point about smart grids and time-shifting the load. As the solar percentage increases energy costs during the sunny days assymptically approach zero, so everyone will charge their cars for free, and the only time when we need backup is evenings when everyone is cooking and cloudy, windless days.
Same answer for old refining sites of pretty much every material. The government did not regulate this well and allowed corporations to ignore the pollution they created when mining. That was bad. It's also not an issue for any refining today in a first world country. Developing & 3rd world – who knows. For urnaium, lithium, coal, you name it.
Price-Anderson is because insurance companies can't price in a really bad outcome with an infintesimally small chance of occuring. You would have the same problem getting insurance against an asteroid taking out Denver. Incredibly unlikely but the cost to rebuild Denver from ashes – incredibly high.
As to evidence for cheap, look at electricity prices in France vs Germany.
And with all the above said, nothing is perfect. It's all trade-offs. Weighing out the different approaches I think nuclear is easily the best solution for base and medium load. For peal load, solar + batteries and maybe gas.
This is David’s most important point, and I think we should treat if fairly and objectively rather than by argument by insult. As technologies improve, and political barriers or subsidies are implemented or removed, the equations change. I’m personally not convinced that wind is so expensive; I don’t quite buy David’s concern about cost(s) of load balancing, but I’m willing to consider it.
Thank you.
And I can say that at present the vast majority of the time the wind dies down they use SCGT as backups. Why? I don't know. But the people running the grid know their shit so I trust their judgement on this.
Well, here's one point of rebuttal:
Seems as if the "real world" construction and delivery time isn't delivering on the promise of "affordable" energy.
Absolutely. That's why I specified the Korean units, built by the Korean contractor. They're already building plants in other countries.
"Holding On." Josh Marshal
"Psy-Ops. Reprinting as a whole, here:
I think that's spot on.
I think the other thing starting to happen that will help is the Democratic Congresspeople are taking action. Going to the AID office yesterday was great.