Wind whooshed, whipped and wailed through Boulder County for much of April’s first weekend…
Author: Allen Best
Allen Best publishes the e-journal Big Pivots, which chronicles the energy transition in Colorado and beyond.
BIG PIVOTS: The Electricity Problem in the San Luis Valley
In the wired world of the 21st century, Colorado’s San Luis Valley has an Achilles’s heel…
BIG PIVOTS: Geothermal Seeds, Sprinkled Across Colorado, Part One
Geothermal grants totaling $7.7 million to 35 projects seek to push along efforts. What role will this have in the energy transition?
BIG PIVOTS: Outrage in Coal Country
Wyoming politicos were furious, some enviros elated. But the Biden administration decision about Powder River coal leasing had no real consequences…
BIG PIVOTS: Mysteries of a Disappearing Snowpack, Part Two
“You’re trying to predict the future based on how conditions played with each other in the past,” explains Osenga…
BIG PIVOTS: Mysteries of a Disappearing Snowpack, Part One
Why the gap between deep winter snows and low summer flows? A 21st century hydrologic whodunnit…
BIG PIVOTS: Tri-State is Changing, But More Change is Needed
State’s second largest electrical provider has a new energy efficiency program…
BIG PIVOTS: The Audubon Society Dives into Electricity Transmission
“We literally guided them to best practices for routing, best practices for tower design, ways to avoid interruption of flight patterns,” says Madden…
BIG PIVOTS: A Proposed Wind Farm, a Massacre Site, and Lawsuits
No major rivers run through Kiowa County, and the few creeks — most notably Sand Creek, site of the infamous massacre of November 1864 – are ephemeral…
BIG PIVOTS: The Tri-State Train Leaves the Station
Duane Highley insists struggling wholesale provider has delivered results in energy transition despite dour predictions of detractors…
BIG PIVOTS: A Long-Ago Motorcycle Ride, and the Shift to EVs
In 1915, travel from Colorado to San Francisco had lots of dust and bumps. But 15 years later much had changed…
BIG PIVOTS: Colorado Goes Big on Solar, Part Two
“If you’ve been a student of this for a long time, we’ve had the “solar coaster” where we’ve ramped up and hired a bunch of folks and then the bottom dropped out and we let a bunch of folks go…”
BIG PIVOTS: Natural Gas to Remain in Colorado’s Energy Mix?
At a convention of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, one of the speakers was discussing the future of natural gas in electrical generation…
BIG PIVOTS: What Constitutes a Just Transition for Pueblo, Colorado?
Pueblo lacks consensus about its future. That was clear during a recent town hall in Pueblo attended by more than 600 people…
Federal Money for Colorado Electrical Cooperatives
Durango-based La Plata Electric is also getting federal aid, but its $13.4 million is coming from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022…
BIG PIVOTS: Where Colorado Oil & Gas Legislation Goes to Die
It was, he explained a “messaging bill,” which he did not define except to say that bill sponsors never expected it to pass…
BIG PIVOTS: Colorado Legislature Looking to Limit Non-functional Turf
The Colorado Senate on Tuesday voted in favor of a bill that would prevent thirsty turf species from being planted in places that rarely, if ever, get foot traffic…
BIG PIVOTS: Carbon Capture… a Waste of Money?
Gov. Jared Polis to talk it up at a conference in Denver. But in Aspen, Joe Romm says the case for CCS is incredibly weak…
BIG PIVOTS: Solar Industry Seeks Changes to Electrical Grid Planning
“We have a mid-20th century way of doing things as we hurtle through the 21st century…