Colorado’s biggest solar farm and a steel mill will come with purchase of the Bighorn solar project in Pueblo now owned by Evraz…
Author: Allen Best
Allen Best publishes the e-journal Big Pivots, which chronicles the energy transition in Colorado and beyond.
BIG PIVOTS: A Big Step for a Small Mountain Town, with a New Ban on Natural Gas
He offered the metaphor of a seed now planted “that might grow beyond our little garden..”
BIG PIVOTS: All That Nonsense About the Price of Gasoline
Oil is a boom-and-bust, roller-coaster sector. Gasoline prices were incredibly low just two years ago…
BIG PIVOTS: And a Hot One It Was!
Now we are redefining hot. This chart tells the big picture story of warming in Colorado…
BIG PIVOTS: Can Colorado Energy Providers Keep Pace with a Warming Climate?
Colorado regulators want assurances utilities will have enough juice for air conditioners on even the hottest of days…
BIG PIVOTS: Reinterpreting the Colorado River Compact for the 21st Century
“If forced to pick numbers right now, I’d go with 7%-25% lower by mid-century and 13%-33% less by the 2080s,” Lukas said…
BIG PIVOTS: Subterranean Ogallala Blues
Simple metrics of the Ogallala Aquifer astound. This underground body of water accounts for one-third of all irrigation in the United States…
BIG PIVOTS: Hot Dry Winds Licking at Winter’s Back Door?
We had the Marshall Fire with its 1,084 homes and other buildings destroyed while Christmas wreaths still hung on doors…
BIG PIVOTS: Fossil-Free Technology that Heats Homes in Frigid Fraser
Colorado needs many more air-source heat pumps — and fewer carbon emissions from buildings — to meet its mid-century decarbonization target goals of 90%…
BIG PIVOTS: Will This Coal Plant Deliver Electricity During a 2030 Heat Wave?
How different from just 18 years ago, when Comanche 3 was approved unanimously by a different set of PUC commissioners…
BIG PIVOTS: The Colorado River’s Unsolved Math Problem
Long term, this worsening situation of subpar runoff in the Colorado River matters to well more than 90% of Colorado’s population…
BIG PIVOTS: Electricity Today is Like Colorado’s Road Network a Century Ago
Building new transmission will be expensive and siting difficult. “But if you like clean energy, you have to love transmission,” said Hannegan…
BIG PIVOTS: Crossing the Natural Gas Bridge?
Will new natural gas plants end up being like many coal plants, assets stranded long before the debt is paid?
BIG PIVOTS: The Marshall Fire, Climate Change, and Colorado’s Legislative Agenda
“At no time during these fires did it occur to us that we might be in personal danger. That perception has now changed forever…”
BIG PIVOTS: Viewing a Useless Boat Ramp at Lake Powell
The ramp was about a football field in length and tilted at the angle of a beginners’ ski slope. At the bottom were barriers, then broken ground. Far below was the water…
BIG PIVOTS: Colorado is Now Talking About Closing Its Last Coal Plant
If accepted by the PUC, this likely will be the first time that social cost of carbon has been applied to operation of any fossil fuel plant in the United States…
BIG PIVOTS: Creating a Low-Carb Diet of Local and Imported Energy
Can local resources be knitted with large-scale resources from elsewhere to meet the 2030 carbon-free goals?
Colorado Arrives at the Dawn of Megafires, Part Three
“It was a gut reaction,” said Brubaker. “I looked at the sky and I knew that I needed to get out of here…”