March 04, 2009 02:18 AM UTC

Pueblo solar project under attack w/ poll

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• 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.  

 

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