{"id":795259,"date":"2019-04-27T19:28:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-28T01:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/mountain-town-news-utility-directors-in-colorado-calculate-changes-as-prices-drop-energy-concerns-rise\/"},"modified":"2019-04-27T19:28:00","modified_gmt":"2019-04-28T01:28:00","slug":"mountain-town-news-utility-directors-in-colorado-calculate-changes-as-prices-drop-energy-concerns-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/mountain-town-news-utility-directors-in-colorado-calculate-changes-as-prices-drop-energy-concerns-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountain Town News: Utility directors in Colorado calculate changes as prices drop, energy concerns rise"},"content":{"rendered":"
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DURANGO \u2014 For sometimes years on end, directors of La Plata Electric Association could meet with scarcely anybody noticing. These are different times. Worries about greenhouse gas emissions and plunging opportunities for low-priced renewables have nearly all utilities examining their options.<\/p>\n

Directors of the Durango-based La Plata last week were told by consultants that the utility could maintain reliable power while saving money by buying alternative power supplies with much higher levels of renewables.<\/p>\n

Salt Lake City-based energy consultant Caitlin Liotiris told board members the electrical cooperative La Plata could purchase 100% renewable power on the open market in 2020 at a cost of 6.84 cents per kilowatt hour. It currently pays 7.48 cents to Tri-State Generation & Transmission, according to a report in the Durango Herald.<\/p>\n

Tri-State was formed by electrical co-operatives in 1952 to distribute hydroelectric power from the giant dams of the West. As power needs grew, it invested heavily in coal-fired generation and then natural gas.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoal keeps the lights on,\u201d said signs several years in Craig, where Tri-State is the majority owner in three coal-generating units.<\/p>\n

But as Xcel Energy and other large utilities are showing, it\u2019s also possible to keep the lights on with large volumes of renewables. Xcel serves Colorado\u2019s Summit County and sells power to co-operatives serving Steamboat Springs, Vail and Aspen. By 2026 it expects to be at 55% renewable generation. In December, it announced it was confident it could hit 80% renewables by 2030 using existing technology.<\/p>\n

Why doesn\u2019t La Plata just make the switch? It\u2019s not that simple, said Mike Dreyspring, the chief executive, in a press release. \u201cWe need to further study the transmission system.\u201d The cost of bringing the power into southwestern Colorado has not been established, he said.<\/p>\n

Plus, like a cell phone carrier, Tri-State requires contracts of its members. La Plata\u2019s current contract runs to 2050 and requires La Plata to buy 95% of its power from Tri-State. More than 60% of Tri-State\u2019s power comes from coal or natural gas. That will decline in the next few years as a couple of coal plants close and as Tri-State adds renewables. But Tri-State still lags the shift being engineered by Xcel.<\/p>\n

Tri-State has been facing revolt. Kit Carson Electric of Taos, New Mexico, in 2016 bought its way out of the contract with Tri-State for $37 million. It is now developing solar farms around Taos and expects to have enough production to meet daytime demand by 2022.<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s Delta-Montrose Electric informed Tri-State it wanted a divorce. But after a year of fruitless negotiations, the co-op appealed to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to arbitrate. The PUC agreed to do so in February and set a weeklong hearing for June. Tri-State argues that the PUC has no jurisdiction and has filed suit in a civil court.<\/p>\n

Taking note of this dissent was Moody\u2019s, the credit-rating agency. \u201c\u2026 the dispute between the parties is credit negative for Tri-State because of the challenge it may pose to the generation and transmission (G&T) cooperative\u2019s independent governance and rate autonomy, while raising broader questions about Tri-State\u2019s historically strong member and regulatory relationships,\u201d it announced.<\/p>\n

Tri-State spokesman Lee Boughey downplayed the significance of the report in a February email to Mountain Town News. \u201cMoody\u2019s did not have a rating action, outlook or watch change,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Several other co-ops, most notably United Power, near Denver, with three times the customers of La Plata, have also indicated dissatisfaction. A new policy being drawn up could potentially ameliorate their concerns. But various devils may lurk in the details.<\/p>\n

All of this is being watched carefully by the co-ops that serve Telluride, Crested Butte, Fraser, and other mountain towns.<\/p>\n

Another big question mark remains how Tri-State\u2019s new chief executive, Duane Highley, will steer Colorado\u2019s second largest utility (Tri-State also serves portions of New Mexico, Wyoming, and Nebraska). People who want change like what they hear, but Higley has tough decisions ahead.<\/p>\n

The most challenging is what do you do with the 21st century equivalent of DVDs, the old coal plants and, perhaps, natural gas plants, too. But unlike DVDs, Tri-State is still paying heavy debt on its fleet of fossil-fuel infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The bigger question, one defined by Bill McKibben in the April 4 issue of New York Review of Books, is at what point does a new technology cause an existing industry to start losing significant value?<\/p>\n

Nobody \u2014 including Colorado\u2019s Xcel Energy \u2014 has yet figured out the pathway to 100% renewable energy. Xcel itself says that coal-fired generation, coupled with carbon capture and sequestration, hitherto a very expensive process, still remains on the table, as does the idea of modular nuclear power plants. They are also expensive.<\/p>\n

But the market economics of renewables have swiveled significantly, as McKibben points out. In 2017, sun and wind produced just 6% of the world\u2019s electricity supply. However, they made up 45% of the growth in supply, and the price of wind and power continues to fall by about 20% with each doubling of capacity.<\/p>\n

Once upon a time, fossil fuels were the sure road to wealth. That proposition looks increasingly suspect.<\/p>\n

Questions about technology as phone coverage expands<\/p>\n

JACKSON, Wyo. \u2014 The National Park Service favors adding 13 cell towers to supplement the two existing towers in Grand Teton National Park. Whether this is good is being debated.<\/p>\n

The intent, say park officials, is to improve reception in the frontcountry portion of the park. They acknowledge a small increment of new telephone reception in backcountry areas.<\/p>\n

Even a small increment doesn\u2019t sit well with Jim Stanford, boatman on the Snake River and a Jackson town councilman. \u201cAre we losing something here?\u201d he asks the Jackson Hole News&Guide rhetorically. \u201cAre these places becoming less wild for the sake of modern convenience?\u201d<\/p>\n

Franz Camenzind, a well-known conservationist, also has reservations. \u201cProviding extensive coverage to the general public, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s their responsibility. I think it\u2019s contrary to the value that natural areas and national parks can provide to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new coverage will not be comprehensive, says Rusty Mizelle, but he had advice for those bothered by the coverage: \u201cTurn your cell phone off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cell phone service has already fundamentally altered rescue operations during the last decade, says Cody Lockhart, of the Teton County Search and Rescue. First responders now initially use cell phone forensics to determine locations.<\/p>\n

\u201cA decade ago, most of our incidents started out as a search, and then became a rescue,\u201d he said. This shift has \u201cdefinitely saved lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dumpster-diving bear with taste for honey pays price<\/p>\n

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS \u2014 The blond-haired black bear first attracted attention in Steamboat Springs for its dumpster-diving. But when it started hanging around a daycare center, state wildlife officials knew that the bear had to go.<\/p>\n

But to where? In this case, the bear was captured and then released to a ranch about 50 miles from Steamboat, in the pinyon-and-juniper country near Meeker, in northwest Colorado. But the bear got into trouble there, going after honey in a bee farmer\u2019s hive. That earned the 2-year-old a death sentence.<\/p>\n

Kris Middledorf, a wildlife manager for Colorado, told the Steamboat Pilot & Today that when bears cause agricultural damage, they must be killed, because the state must compensate the farmers and ranchers for their losses. It quickly becomes expensive.<\/p>\n

The Department of Parks and Wildlife has sometimes provided electric fencing, to keep the bears out of the apiaries. But there are just too many new apiaries in that area that popped up during the last 10 years, he said.<\/p>\n

Last year, 18 bears were relocated in northwestern Colorado, of which eight were subsequently killed because they got into trouble a second time.<\/p>\n

Biology professor writing a chapter for IPCC report<\/p>\n

DURANGO \u2014 An associate professor of biology at Fort Lewis College in Durango is working on a chapter for an upcoming special report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.<\/p>\n

Heidi Steltzer is responsible for the ecosystem section on high-mountain areas for the report, which is to be titled \u201cThe Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate.\u201d The cryosphere is the frozen part of the Earth. Think high mountains, Antarctica and, at least for much of the year, the Arctic Ocean.<\/p>\n

The Durango Telegraph explains that Steltzer first aspired to be a marine biologist, but got sea sick, then wanted to be a tropical biologist. Alas, the heat bothered her too much.<\/p>\n

Instead, she landed a spot in the early 1990s at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, near Crested Butte. One thing led to another \u2014 including a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado \u2014 and to her teaching post on the edge of the San Juan Mountains.<\/p>\n

While she may know a lot already, her job with the IPCC is to sift through what others know and distill it into a chapter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese places that are far away, cold or vast, we don\u2019t understand them well yet, and this is an effort to put that story together,\u201d she said. \u201cA focus of the report is on how less snow, retreating glaciers and thawing permafrost affect the water supply, hazards, ecosystems, and communities in mountain regions and adjacent lowlands.\u201d<\/p>\n

As berries ripen earlier, the impact to Banff\u2019s grizzly bears<\/p>\n

BANFF, Alberta \u2014 By 2080, warming temperatures may cause buffaloberries to ripen three weeks earlier than they do now in Alberta\u2019s Bow Valley. At higher elevations of Banff National Park, the earlier ripening could come 40 days earlier, according to a study by a University of Calgary researcher.<\/p>\n

That change could make life more difficult for grizzly bears, researcher David Laskin told the Rocky Mountain Outlook.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe buffaloberry crop \u2026 is a critical buffet for the bears late in the season, and it\u2019s an opportunity for them to gain a lot of weight before hibernation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A male grizzly can eat up to 220,000 berries in a single day.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir ability to reproduce relies on how much weight they can put on in summer. There\u2019s going to be a bigger gap between when bears eat berries and when they hibernate, and that may compromise their ability to gain weight.\u201d<\/p>\n

That could have implications, he adds for human-bear conflicts.<\/p>\n

In Whistler, there\u2019s concern about human-bear conflicts now. In September, the province temporarily closed an alpine trail network after two separate groups of hikers had a close call with a grizzly. Municipal officials tell Pique Newsmagazine that they will ramp up their public messaging about grizzly bears. In the past, the messages had been mostly about black bears.<\/p>\n

Manager accused of stealing $1 million in skis and so forth<\/p>\n

ASPEN \u2014 A member of the Aspen City Council from 2009 to 2013 has been accused of stealing more than $1 million worth of skis, snowboards, and other goods while working for the Aspen Skiing Co.<\/p>\n

The Aspen Times reports that Derek Johnson, 51, had been fired by the ski company in December. He had co-founded a snowboard shop, which was sold to Aspen Skiing in 2001. He was kept on as managing director of the company\u2019s retail-rental division.<\/p>\n

Court documents indicated that the security manager for the ski company told Aspen police about a tip. The tipster had said Johnson was stealing demo skis and selling them through an eBay account called \u201csportandski.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spreadsheets found on Johnson\u2019s computer at his home showed that between 2010 and 2018, he and his wife, Kerri Johnson, 48, listed $2.1 million in total sales from the eBay account, reported The Times, citing the court documents. With other mechanisms, the Johnson stole $2.4 million, according to the arrest warrant.<\/p>\n

The Times notes that Johnson was a community pillar. He had also served as a director of two local resort chamber associations and coached kids\u2019 hockey and football teams. At one point, he ran for mayor.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DURANGO \u2014 For sometimes years on end, directors of La Plata Electric Association could meet with scarcely anybody noticing. These are different times. Worries about greenhouse gas emissions and plunging opportunities for low-priced renewables have nearly all utilities examining their options. Directors of the Durango-based La Plata last week were told by consultants that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-795259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 01:11:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}