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March 04, 2009 02:18 AM UTC

Pueblo solar project under attack w/ poll

  • 9 Comments
  • by: ClubTwitty

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Apparently oblivious about the $300 million or so in subsidies that Colorado taxpayers lavish on oil and gas producers in the state, the spokesman for the Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA) and former CO state senator Bill Schroeder decries a concentrated solar project which could power between 60,000-90,000 homes with unsubstantiated claims that it would ‘drive up prices’ for consumers, according to a story on Colorado Independent, by disincentivizing coal.    

The Clean Tech Brief article, top link above, describes the project as:

The proposal, according to The Pueblo Chieftain, calls for a partnership between the county, Helios and the Pueblo Chemical Depot to build the large solar collector array on unused land at the depot.

According to the Independent article, Schroeder also attacked the science behind global warming.

Colorado could benefit in many ways from this project–in jobs, in demonstrating leadership as America and the world transitions to a new energy economy, and in the clean energy it would provide to power our homes.

Like much of the state. Pueblo has taken a hit in the current economic climate, the Pueblo Chieftain notes:

But the jobs picture worsened through the year, he said. The slowdown is reflected in a rise of the full-year jobless rate to 6.3 percent in 2008, up from 4.9 percent the prior year, he said

.

And in another article:

But unlike past years, it will be the job seekers and not the employers that event organizers expect will fill the Occhiato Ballroom for the one-day employment fair.

“We’re anticipating there will be about 500 participants this year, which is way up compared to past fairs,” Michelle Gjerde, director of the career center, said Tuesday. “We’re planning on a lot more of our alumni coming this year, simply because we are hearing from a lot more of them who are out looking for jobs.”

Unfortunately, Gjerde added, the number of companies that will be recruiting prospective employees will be drastically lower than in past years. “Last year, we had 75 companies and had one of the biggest fairs that we’ve ever had,” she said. “A year later, here we are hoping that we get at least 50 (companies).”

Meanwhile, clean energy provides a way to put people to work in high-paying jobs, as noted in the Independent article:

The White House estimates Colorado will see 59,000 jobs – many of them in the renewable-energy sector – saved or created by the stimulus package and its $130 million in direct federal spending on green-energy projects.

But such solid reasons mean nothing to the retrograde IREA:

But Schroeder’s boss, IREA general manager Stanley Lewandowski, told the Rocky Mountain News last month that weaning the state off coal and gas is impractical, expensive and in the long run will have no real effect on the global climate.

And besides, the IREA argues, why should Colorado or the United States showcase leadership and innovation, when we can just follow China?

“If you take all the fossil-fuel plants in Colorado and shut them down, in two weeks China will replace all the carbon dioxide you’ve cut with its new plants,” Lewandowski said last month.

Thankfully not all rural electrical associations–even those that are members of the IREA–agree that clean energy should be shunned and we should instead just keep building coalfired power plants–because a) that’s what China does, and b) because global warming isn’t real anyways.  

For example the Delta-Montrose Electrical Association actually has programs to actively encourage those traditional conservative ideals of conservation and efficiency and 21st century (as opposed to 19th century) energy.    

Clean energy is good for the nation, it’s good for the environment, and it’s good for Colorado.  It’s too bad that the IREA cannot see that through their carbon fog to support what’s best for our nation.  

 

Clean energy is

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9 thoughts on “Pueblo solar project under attack w/ poll”

  1. Bill Schroeder seems to be taking a similar approach as that used by the keynote speaker at the Energy Expo in Grand Junction last Friday. An insightful take was just published in the Colorado Energy News.

    Here’s a choice quote from Michael Economides during his cheerleading routine in Grand Junction:

    “Get it (solar) out of your mind. Your electricity bill will be $10,000 a month. That’s what solar energy will do. There are no alternatives to hydrocarbon energy sources in the foreseeable future.”

    I think you’ve got it right with your signature line, CT, and Economides has put it in practice. He (and Schroeder) don’t know what they’re talking about, so they just make shit up.

      1. .

        The cited CleanTechBrief article says that the plant would cost $900 million and power 60,000 homes.  

        By my math, that works out to $15,000 per home.  One time.  Not $15,000 per month.

        If you use the 90,000 homes figure, its $10,000.  But when has a large project like that ever come in at the low estimate ?

        That would be enough to replace the coal-fired plant south of town, if folks don’t need electrical power on cloudy days, or after dark.  

        In other words, each home will then need a power storage unit, like the battery banks that are installed with most off-grid PV systems today.  That might cost another $5,000 per home.  

        One way or another, each household is going to have to pay those costs.  

        For my money, if I’m going to have to pay $20,000 for power from a concentrated solar plant, I’d just as soon spend less on my own domestic system that could deliver more power.  

        And it looks like the coal-fired plant will still be needed for nighttime.

        So, while its an exaggeration to say that electricity bills will be $10,000 a month, its no exaggeration to say that there are no affordable alternatives to hydrocarbon energy sources in the foreseeable future.

        Wishing otherwise doesn’t change that.

        .

        1. Barron, while I usually appreciate your analyses, but I think this one is a little too off-the-cuff.

          I think any meaningful analysis has to be compared to a traditional coal plant over the complete life-cycle with a variety of scenarios for future coal prices and maintenance costs. Everybody assumes that we have essentially limitless supplies of coal, but I’ve read recently (sorry, no ref) that we will “soon” use up the easy-to-get coal, and have to dig quite a lot deeper to get the rest at much higher expense.

          I’d also like to see public health costs factored in, since we all pay those. To the best of my knowledge, solar plants don’t emit mercury, NOx, SOx, or particulates.

          I don’t think that coal will be the sole solution to our energy future, but I think it plays a very important role, and I think that your analysis presumes that it can’t.

        2. Fronius (a major player in solar photo-voltaic systems) had home fuel cell prototypes in testing in 2008. This will make it much more feasible to be off-grid with reliable electricity for numerous cloudy days in a row. [Not yet available in the US]

        3. but I live in a “green” house with solar panels on the back.  I run net most months, the most I’ve paid is $12.  It is just me, in a fairly small house, but that means fairly small panels.  Eh?

    2. The GM being Stan Lewandowski, a notorious global warming denier who spent $100,000 of IREA money a couple of years ago to hire noted skeptic and misinformer Patrick Michaels to promote locally the idea that climate change was “alarmism.”

  2. good update.  I didn’t know about this.  The rural electric coops have several problems of their own making.  Even progressive leaders in the coops can’t seem to make much progress.  Hanging over them is Tri-State.  What amazes me is DMEA.  Delta & Montrose are pretty conservative towns and yet they have managed to have the most far-thinking association.  I like to think that many old school conservatives are in that area.  Don’t mess with their water, don’t tell them what to do, but, dad gummit, use the coop money in a smart way.  Who cares if it’s not the right ideological answer.  I think Sen. James Webb would say there’s a lot of Scots-Irish in the area.  And he may be right.

    (Webb recently wrote “Born Fighting”, a history of the Scots-Irish and an interesting read.)

    1. I meant to include in the diary that Delta and Montrose both voted for Wayne Wolf, Bob Schaffer, and John McCain.  Pretty handily too.

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