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1 week ago | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
by Andrew CarpenterI’d never heard of “net metering” until my electric bill hit $600 last February. Desperate for a way to reduce utility costs that skyrocket in the winter because we use electric heaters, I started getting quotes for rooftop solar power. That’s when I learned about a state law that requires Colorado utilities to credit homeowners who send power back to the grid at the same rate they would pay to buy power from the power company.
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2 weeks ago | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
by Allen BestFederal funds for climate-change-related projects in Colorado have started arriving in almost perfect concert with the spring thaw. Among the applications for the hundreds of millions of dollars will be:energy efficiency work in southwestern Colorado communities,curbing methane emissions from old coal mines west of Carbondale, and,preparation of a climate action plan for the Yampa Valley. Among the smaller grants, $187,605 went to Salida and Chaffee County.
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2 weeks ago | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
by Dave MarstonWhen La Plata County in southwestern Colorado needed a director of emergency management in 2021, they found a winner in Shawna Legarza. An experienced firefighter, her career has spanned battling big fires on the ground to overseeing federal firefighting across several states. Now, she’s helping Durango, population 19,000, and others in the county to prepare for the inevitable approach of wildfire.
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1 month ago | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
by Allen BestThe Ray Nixon Power Plant south of Colorado Springs burns both natural gas and coal, and the coal component was scheduled several years ago to close by 2030. That would have allowed the operator, Colorado Springs Utilities, to meet Colorado’s 2030 emissions reduction goals for the electric sector. Now, CSU – as the utility is known – has initiated talks with state officials about keeping the coal portion of the Nixon plant open for a few more years.
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1 month ago | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
\In late February, Tri-State Generation and Transmission began sending electricity across a 230-kilovolt transmission line between Burlington and Lamar, along Colorado’s windy eastern tier. What does this do for Tri-State as it prepares to further pivot away from coal?
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1 month ago | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
by Allen BestMike Nelson retired in early December after delivering three-minute weather reports on Denver television stations for 33 years. His voice of middle America, sturdy but friendly, fills any room, his sentences rising and momentarily pausing to emphasize key ideas with practiced precision. He was trained as a meteorologist, but working in television made him a communicator. Long ago, Nelson also became engaged in addressing climate change.
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2 months ago | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
by Allen BestLauren Boebert in 2020 was running a gun-themed restaurant in Rifle called Shooters Grill and Smokehouse. A political unknown, having never been elected to so much as a town board, she defeated Scott Tipton, the incumbent representing Colorado’s Third Congressional District in the Republican primary. She was 34 years old. Her ascendancy shocked many. It had a precedent of sorts, as was noted during a panel discussion during the Colorado Water Congress annual conference in late January.
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2 months ago | 
bigpivots.com | Jerd Smith
Back in the 1970s, farmers in the Lower Arkansas Valley and across the nation, channeled anger and frustration over low farm prices into a series of large-scale protests, eventually driving their tractors to Washington, D.C., plowing across the national mall. The American Agriculture Movement, as it was called, was founded in 1977 in Campo, a town in far southeastern Colorado. Now, a new wave of activism is emerging, with Lower Arkansas Valley farmers once again organizing protests and speeches.
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Jan 24, 2025 | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
During the fourth quarter of 2024, electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids constituted 31.5% of all new car sales in Colorado, according to the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association. As of mid-January, according to Atlas Public Policy, Colorado had 169,117 EVs and plug-in hybrids on the road. Colorado has a goal of 940,000 EVS by 2030. Pueblo is getting $11.5 million in federal grants for installation of 260 EV charging ports near low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.
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Jan 24, 2025 | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
by Allen BestXcel Energy has a problem in some of the mountain communities where it sells natural gas. It’s part of a much broader problem across Colorado. The specific problem Xcel has to solve in a strip of communities from Leadville to Grand Lake is how to meet the needs of existing and new customers dependent on natural gas without spending money on assets that will be stranded. Colorado, after all, has goals for achieving net-zero emissions in its economy by 2050.