We know we are often toying with negativity when we speak out about anything that has to do with the environment, especially if we seem to oppose something that is good for said environment.
But we also take a certain amount of pride in the fact that we tend to be a little concerned about things that seem to lack some logic.
After our state legislature was so self-proclaimed successful in mandating that energy companies get 20 percent of their power from renewable sources, they did what lawmakers too often do; they say they want more. We fear that their wanting of more will leave too many of us with much less.
HB 1001, sponsored by Sens. Gail Schwartz and Bruce Whitehead, calls for the large utilities to get 30 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020.
We took the time to look at a few facts.
Tri-State Generation last year entered into an agreement to buy power from the Kit Carson Wind Farm near Burlington. We recently visited the area and learned from unofficial sources that the wind farm will likely be completed later this year at a cost of more than $100 million. The wind turbines cover a section, or 640 acres, of land. In the plains of Eastern Colorado 640 acres may not be considered a huge piece of land. On the top of Cedar Mesa it would be very significant.
That agreement, along with another involving a solar plant in New Mexico, brings Tri-State’s renewable source to about three percent of its total energy.
Using our advanced public school mathematics, we have determined that Tri-State will need nine more wind farms and another nine solar generator sources of the same size to get to that 30 percent. In wind farm land alone, that means another 5,700 acres of land and construction costs of more than $900 million for Tri-State alone.
Some sources we have heard from estimate that, statewide, the total for all companies is 240,000 acres. That equals about 375 square miles. To put that in perspective we note that Delta County covers an area of 1,149 square miles.
Now to costs.
One of the problems with wind-generated power is that it thus far is not all that reliable. For every wind farm there must be a back-up system ready to kick in when equipment fails or the wind simply does not blow. That back up adds significantly to the costs, some say those costs could be over 12 cents per kilowatt hour. Natural gas fired generation plants can produce more reliable power at fewer than 11 cents per kWh and coal as low as 8 cents. Again, some of the experts we talked to think our numbers are low.
To get back to our original statement, we are not against things that are good for the environment. In fact, we think that renewable energy sources have a place in our future. We also think that place can be achieved without overactive government intervention. We are of the opinion that, left alone to work within a less regulated free market, the energy companies would sooner or later figure out that they need to become competitive and they would strive to use these alternatives, but we think that HB 1001 does little more than increase costs and increase the amount of government involvement at a time when many of us are saying we want less of both.
