Per capita, Colorado drives — a lot. What will it take to ratchet this down — and our emissions, too?…
Author: Allen Best
Allen Best publishes the e-journal Big Pivots, which chronicles the energy transition in Colorado and beyond.
BIG PIVOTS: Vestas Announces New Generation of Wind Turbines
Vestas, the world’s largest manufacturer of wind products, has invested more than $1 billion in Colorado…
Colorado Sees Continued Growth in Electric Vehicle Sales
Colorado lags only California in sales in second quarter of 2024. It bucks national trends. But can this momentum be sustained?
BIG PIVOTS: Agrivoltaics in Our Future, Part One
Many solar developers submit proposals to northern Colorado jurisdiction with explicit plans for agricultural production…
We Have Heat Pumps. Who Will Install Them?
“My goal is to help build out a diverse and robust workforce. There are two parts. One is thinking about the next generation. How do we bring new workers to this type of work?”
BIG PIVOTS: A Colorado City Riled Up About Black Hills Energy
“If you want to strangle this part of the state, that’s what you do, just keep increasing the cost of electricity,” she said…
Colorado Can Achieve Its 2030 Clean Energy Goals… by 2031
The Colorado Energy Office expects more than 10,000 e-bike purchases in 2024 as a result of a new $450 point-of-sale discount…
BIG PIVOTS: The Winds of (Climate) Change
Wind whooshed, whipped and wailed through Boulder County for much of April’s first weekend…
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…”