We Did It Again! Coal Miners, Communities, Low Income Consumers and Labor Rally at State Capitol - Protest Xcel, Ritter Gas Giveaway

More than 250 miners, low income consumers, and others gathered from all corners of the state of Colorado to rally for affordable energy at the State Capitol here in Denver. On a beautiful and clear sunny afternoon, CMA President Stuart Sanderson urged the crowd to tell the Public Utilities Commission to “keep coal in the energy mix.”

And he took direct aim at the statements by anti-mining special interests who would seek to displace affordable energy in Colorado with high priced natural gas from outside the state. “Since the 1970s, coal use has tripled, but the air has gotten cleaner, and emissions are down by more than 60%,” he told the crowd. “But state lawmakers didn’t care; they were too busy cozying up to the natural gas interests who are trying to take your jobs and raise your electricity rates,” he added.

And he was not alone.

Rich Chirco, Manager of Corporate Relations, Food Bank of the Rockies, told the crowd that “49% of clients served by the Food Bank report that they must choose between paying for food and paying their electric bills.” The burden of electricity rates falls hardest on those who can least afford to pay.

Minorities and low income consumers would be harshly impacted, said Bishop Phillip Porter, a local pastor. We should instead tell the PUC to retrofit the power plants at a fraction of the cost of switching to natural gas.

"We need to do everything we can to create more jobs, not take them away," added Veronica Wylie, a member of his congregation.

That’s a shame, and shame on those who would eliminate coal from the energy mix, said several of the speakers. State Senator Shawn Mitchell told the group that government should not be meddling in what has been traditional free market decisions about energy use. “It, government, should not be dictating fuel choices for electricity consumers.” Former Senator Jack Taylor predicted that the bill, which would end coal use at most of Xcel’s generating stations along the Front Range, would not only rob Colorado coal mines of more than 2.5 million tons annually; it would discourage future coal mine developments and expansions in the state and in his district, one of the state’s most prolific mining areas.

Stuart Sanderson, CMA president said this means that Colorado’s economy will decline. “Lost coal means a miner out of work, lost taxes for local governments and a public school system without taxes and royalties to support it.” That should not be allowed to happen, he added. Xcel’s plan will add only a handful of jobs, and it will eliminate thousands in the coal and related industries.

WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE! GRAND JUNCTION RALLY DRAWS OVER 300; NEXT STOP DENVER, SEPTEMBER 23 AT 2 P.M. (WEST STEPS – STATE CAPITOL)!

On Monday, August 30, in Grand Junction, more than 300 people, including coal miners, state and local officials, citizens and businesses that rely on mining, showed up to urge the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to reject plans to replace coal in the electric generating mix. At issue is Xcel’s proposal, adopted pursuant to House Bill 1365, to retire 900 megawatts of coal generation in favor of high cost natural gas. The legislation, and Xcel’s plan, were the product of closed door negotiations to which the industry, consumers and the public were excluded.

According to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the commission heard dozens of speakers in an impromptu outdoor hearing set up on the east side of the old Mesa County Courthouse after audience members in an overflow room couldn’t hear proceedings in the main public hearing room.

The Sentinel further reported that more than 300 miners, fearful that their jobs are on the line (and they have reason to be), showed up to protest the impact that this plan would have on businesses and small communities throughout northwest Colorado

Routt County would see 16.4 percent of its tax base imperiled, former Colorado State Sen. Jack Taylor, R-Steamboat Springs, told the commission. And that is only the beginning. Other counties could suffer similar losses, Taylor said, while consumers now are looking at the prospect of higher rates as a result of the changes. State Senator Al White also sent a letter outlining his concerns and Rep. Randy Baumgardner also spoke at the rally.

As many as 200 direct jobs and 1,600 indirect jobs are at stake, Gene DiClaudio, president of Arch Western Bituminous Group, told the commission, stressing that those jobs are not hypothetical ones.

“These are real people who are standing before you tonight,” DeClaudio said.

One of them, 26-year-old Jeremy Guarasci, showed the commission the pick and shovel he tattooed on his neck to display how much he loves his job mining at Twenty Mile Mine near Craig.

“I’m certainly not too hopeful” that he’ll be able to keep his job and care for his family, including 5-month-old daughter, Guarasci said.

Yet the effort by the gas industry, working in concert with Xcel and the anti-coal community, to seek government action to take over markets served by reliable and affordable coal, continues. So does the misinformation campaign.

Stuart Sanderson, CMA President, took issue with two of the major arguments underpinning 1365. First is the completely false assumption that this bill would promote jobs in the gas industry on Colorado’s western slope. “In fact,” he pointed out, “Xcel’s plan itself projects the addition of only 16 jobs in the gas industry in the entire state.” Second, no legislation is needed to avoid a federal takeover of air quality regulations. No such action is threatened or even contemplated, he added. More than 36 other states are in the same boat and none have proposed to end coal use. “And don’t think for a minute that the EPA will ignore mobile sources of pollution,” he said.

If the prospects of EPA regulation were so great, then why didn’t the state begin this process and inform stakeholders a full year in advance, when they first became aware of the problem? Why did they push this deal through the legislature in a mere 17 days without further study of the impact this bill would have on jobs and Colorado’s economy?

More than 300 miners are waiting for an answer.

In the meantime, we need your support in Denver at the next rally for affordable energy. Show up at the West Steps of the Capitol at 2 p.m. September 23 to show your support for coal!

(Excerpts of this blog are based on news reports in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel)

Colorado Regulators and Xcel Energy Craft Fuel Switching Strategy - In Secret!

Consumers, workers, businesses, and local governments are up in arms over Xcel Energy’s cozy relationship with state regulators, as witnessed by the events unfolding before the Colorado Air Quality Control Division. House Bill 1365 requires state regulators to consult in good faith with Public Service Company (Xcel) to design an emissions reduction plan to “meet the current and reasonably foreseeable requirements of the Clean Air Act and state law in a cost-effective and flexible manner.” Now the bureaucrats charged with seeing to the fair and balanced implementation of the law are fighting a petition by local governments that would allow the public to attend and participate in what are now closed door meetings, and allow for public access to the records from these meetings.

The reason given by the Air Pollution Control Division, incredibly, is the claim that it is not a “state public body,” as defined by the Colorado Open Meetings Law. The Division is seeking to keep consumers in the dark as they discuss with Xcel critical energy choices that will have a substantial impact on the rates that consumers pay for electricity. As part of the emissions reduction plan the utility is required to submit per HB 1365, Xcel is expected to propose very soon that it will shutter several coal fired power plants and switch to high cost natural gas to generate electricity for Colorado electricity consumers. Among the parties that will be affected by this plan are the local governments of northwest Colorado – whose citizens and the communities in which they live will suffer from the lost jobs and economic development that comes from coal mining in northwest Colorado. Xcel Energy - once again – is defining the rules behind closed doors that will allow them to make high cost energy choices for consumers.

The electricity consumers of Colorado deserve better. These back room discussions between Xcel and the Air Pollution Control Division will ultimately form the basis for the assessment of the costs that electricity consumers will have to bear once the emission reduction plan is approved. If the Division is allowed to make these decisions behind closed doors they will not have the benefit of public input and discussion to provide them with critical information that they will need to assess the true costs associated with regulating emissions from coal versus the true cost of natural gas emissions.

The Colorado Mining Association (CMA) has already pointed out several flaws in Xcel’s modeling scenarios of costs, as Xcel – in pleadings filed with the Public Utilities Commission - has already overstated the costs of continued coal use and underestimated the costs associated with natural gas. For example, Xcel’s modeling ignores the fact that switching its existing coal units to natural gas would cost Colorado ratepayers roughly $100-140/ton avoided CO2 emissions. These fuel switching costs are far higher than then the projected costs to implement federal Green House Gas regulation ($15-30/ton), Department of Energy projected Carbon Capture and Sequestration costs ($65-75/ton), and other alternatives that would allow for the continued use of coal.

The point is simple: The Air Pollution Control Division, which will play a critical role in assessing the “reasonably foreseeable costs” associated with various fuel options, should open its process to public review and scrutiny. To continue to conduct these discussions behind closed doors violates both the letter and spirit of the Colorado Open Meetings Law. The underlying legislation – House Bill 1365 – was itself the product of closed door negotiations between the Governor, Xcel Energy, the natural gas lobby, and anti-coal interests. Unfortunately, the secretive process continues, and if it is not made subject to the light of day, Colorado ratepayers will pay the ultimate price. That is just plain wrong.
Stuart A. Sanderson, President

Energy Bill is a Trojan Horse for Higher Rates, Unemployment

A prior version of this article appeared in the Denver Business Journal, April 2-9, 2010.

ENERGY BILL IS A TROJAN HORSE FOR HIGHER RATES, UNEMPLOYMENT

House Bill 1365, the so-called Clean Energy and Jobs Act, made its way through the legislature in record time; the result of a closed door deal brokered by oil and gas lobbyists, Xcel Energy, and the Governor. Anyone who might have voiced a concern about this bill – other utilities, electricity consumers, labor, and the business community, were deliberately shut out. We need to pass this bill immediately, state officials say, or the sky will fall.

Such false claims of urgency were simply a pretext to ram a bill through the legislature before the public could discover all of its flaws. As Coloradans will soon find out, HB 1365 is a Trojan Horse for higher unemployment and dramatically higher electricity rates from natural gas, which costs 300% more than coal. It also won’t deliver what it promises, a reasonable solution to Colorado’s air quality problems because it fails to examine readily available lower cost alternatives.

Speaking of the Trojan Horse, the mythical underpinnings of HB 1365 are set out below.

Myth Number 1 – “We need to convert coal power plants to natural gas in order to deal with oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions.” According to a study by Thomas Hewson just released by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, switching to natural gas will cost Colorado energy consumers $2.3 billion during the period 2015-2020; retrofitting the existing power stations with additional NOx controls while continuing to use coal would cost less than $134 million. That’s a difference of $2 billion!

Myth Number 2 – “Pass the bill or the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will slap us with emissions controls and fines from Hell.” Only they don’t tell you what these emissions controls are likely to be, and that is because the federal government has not yet adopted new stricter standards for ozone, just to name one example. Meanwhile, emissions contributing to regional haze have declined in Colorado, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Even if EPA intervenes, at most Colorado might have to submit a compliance plan. That’s it; no fines, no fire and brimstone. Colorado is not alone; 36 other states are facing the same challenge and none are proposing such radical changes in energy policy.

Myth Number 3 – “Cutting out coal use along the Front Range will solve our air quality problems.” But Colorado must address emissions from mobile sources like automobiles. Don’t think for a minute that EPA will let Colorado off the hook just because it ends coal use.

Myth Number 4 – “Colorado’s coal industry won’t be hurt because the plants only burn Wyoming coal.” Not true. The Cherokee and Valmont stations burn almost exclusively Colorado coal, about 2.6 million tons annually. Can we make this up on the export market? No way. Colorado’s export coal market has declined by more than 20% in the past five years. It doesn’t take an expert to figure out you can’t sell that amount of coal into a down market. And Xcel’s new plant, Comanche 3, will only use coal from Wyoming.

Myth Number 5 – “The bill will only require the Public Utilities Commission to study alternatives and is not an anti-coal bill.” If that were true, then Xcel could have accomplished its objectives without legislation. By tilting the playing field in favor of natural gas, the legislation allows Xcel to stick ratepayers with all of the increased energy costs.

Myth Number 6 – “Passage of this bill will add “clean energy” jobs in the gas industry in Colorado.” But at what cost? According to the Hewson study, the retirement of the coal plants would result in a net loss of 523 jobs at the mines, the railroads and the power plants. The bill robs Peter to pay Paul, eliminating good mining jobs in the process that pay wages and benefits in excess of $96,000 annually. And, by the way, there is no guarantee that the gas jobs or production will come from Colorado. Why do you think the American Natural Gas Alliance – an organization headquartered in Washington, DC – ran all of those ads urging HB 1365’s passage?

Colorado’s electricity consumers are among the biggest losers. Converting the plants to natural gas will cause rates to increase substantially, possibly as high as $14 per megawatt hour (MWh), according to the Hewson study. Retrofitting existing stations with NOx controls would cost less than $2 per MWh. Isn’t that reason enough to study this matter further? But a solution will only emerge if Colorado lawmakers and the Governor let the public have a say, not just the special interests that will reap the windfall that this Trojan Horse will create.

Stuart Sanderson, President
Colorado Mining Association

Lawrence Solomon - No Cap and Trade; No Carbon Tax

Lawrence Solomon, author of “The Deniers,” a comprehensive study challenging the “consensus” that mankind is responsible for global warming, addressed the Colorado Mining Association’s 112th National Western Mining Conference & Exhibition February 10 – and what he had to say was startling.

“There won’t be a cap and trade bill; there won’t be a national carbon tax; there won’t be national legislation of any significance,” he told hundreds of resource professionals at the conference.

And just for emphasis, he added – “Not in the U. S. and not anywhere in other countries that have not yet adopted greenhouse gas legislation.”

The reason: ClimateGate, which has laid bare the manipulation of the data by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “the body that has orchestrated the global warming doomsaying for more than two decades now.”

In case you’re wondering, Solomon is not a cheerleader for the mining industry; he’s a journalist with a long history of environmental activism.

His speech identified the following flaws in the science underlying global warming theories:

- Destruction of temperature data, as the e-mails admit, now makes it impossible to confirm that the planet has been warming over the past 150 years;

- The Himalayan glaciers won’t melt by 2035, as the IPCC had previously claimed since 1999;

- The scientists at the University of East Anglia complained that the data was not fitting the preordained conclusions that the earth should be warming, as models had predicted.

While the debate is far from over, this much is clear. There will undoubtedly be a much more robust debate, discussion and investigation of the claims by what Solomon refers to as “the doomsayers.” In fact, six separate investigations are now underway.

You can see that doubts about the science are again creeping into the political arena. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper – who is also running for Governor of Colorado as the Democratic Party’s candidate – even admitted to misgivings about man’s influence on climate when he addressed conference attendees by phone later that same day. Apparently a snowstorm in Washington, DC had delayed the Mayor’s return to Denver.

This much is also clear – those who dare question the science of global warming will no longer have to roam in the wilderness. As Solomon outlines in his book, they have plenty of good company – Freeman Dyson, eminent physicist at Princeton, who has repeatedly challenged computer modeling predictive capabilities; Claude Allegre, one of France’s best known scientists, and Edward Wegman, one of the top statisticians in the U. S., whose careful analysis blew the cover on the “hockey stick” theory. The hockey stick THEORY alleged that earth’s temperatures rose dramatically during the past 100 years, due to man’s activities in emitting carbon.

And these analyses do not even begin to cover the costs associated with cap and trade. Given ClimateGate, given the dramatic costs associated with climate legislation, are we reaching a tipping point here?

Stuart Sanderson, President, Colorado Mining Association

Great Myth Number One of Energy Independence - Renewables Will Wean Us Off Foreign Oil

Renewable energy advocates say that greater use of wind and solar energy would reduce U. S. dependence on foreign oil, including oil imports from Venezuela, the Middle East and other unfriendly nations. Echoed by political leaders – including President Obama, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Governor Bill Ritter, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory – it is no surprise that this myth is gaining greater public acceptance.
I knew that the myth had come home to rest in Colorado when the Craig Daily Press – in the heart of coal country – published a recent article “Renewable Energy Education Comes to Colorado” – making the same claim.

There’s only one problem – it’s not true! Wind and solar have limited potential for the generation of electricity (at much higher cost, of course, to electricity consumers), but they won’t do a thing to wean us off foreign oil. Why? Because the United States only uses oil to meet a tiny fraction – about 2.5 per cent - of the nation’s electricity needs. In fact, aside from New York (where electricity costs exceed 10 cents per kilowatt hour) Hawaii, and a handful of other states, oil accounted for less than 1% of electricity generation in 31 states; and twenty-six of those were under one-half of one percent! See, Glenn Schleede, Wind Energy Will Not Reduce U. S. Oil Dependence (2004).

Face it folks, oil is used primarily as a transportation fuel, in fact, motor vehicles account for about two-thirds of oil consumption. While it may be possible to use renewable energy to meet a small portion of the electricity used in hybrid vehicles, that will not occur for years to come, and only at substantial cost to taxpayers and electricity consumers. And this doesn’t even begin to contemplate the infrastructure changes that will be required – i.e., converting the fleet to hybrid vehicles and constructing charging stations.

Even with mandates for renewable energy, we will be using oil for years to come.

We have much lower cost and abundant sources of electricity – like coal and uranium – capable of meeting our transportation needs, if the government would ever get off the dime and support them. The point is – politicians claim to be displacing the ancient evil – foreign oil – when their real intent is to end coal use. Ending coal use, however, would cause severe economic dislocation and undermine our nation’s energy security for the long run.

And by the way, where are you going to get the minerals – the limestone in the pads, the metals in the wind turbines and towers, the silver in concentrated solar power – unless they are mined here in the United States? The fact is that the U. S. is increasingly reliant on minerals imported from foreign nations, like silver. Thus, wind and solar could create a new import dependency – on the very minerals used to construct them.

Energy policy is too important to be played as a zero sum game; it’s time to tell our elected leaders that we need all sources of electricity; quit favoring one over the other.

Irony of Ironies

Irony of Ironies - New Climate Supercomputer will Run on Coal

The Denver Post reported recently that the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) will build its new climate modeling supercomputer – not in Colorado – but in Wyoming. Why? Because of the huge amounts of comparatively inexpensive ELECTRICITY and space required for the $500 million computer upgrade. Well, I can certainly understand why space in Wyoming (outside of Jackson Hole) might be a bit less expensive than the real estate in Boulder, but the other even more significant reason for the relocation is the relatively low cost of electricity in our neighbor to the north – a state that gets 94% of its electricity from COAL.

So in other words, the climate supercomputer, certainly a part of the New Energy Economy, will not be built in Colorado. Instead, we will export the jobs associated with running the project to Wyoming – in fact, NCAR so acknowledges in the article. Technicians from the Table Mesa laboratory will move to Wyoming soon; I imagine they are thrilled at the prospect.

“Cheaper and more plentiful electricity from Wyoming’s relatively untapped grid, including wind power, is a key factor,” said an NCAR spokesman. Who are they kidding? Wind accounts for an insignificant portion of Wyoming’s electricity. It’s coal that is responsible for keeping rates at about 6.03 cents per kilowatt-hour in Wyoming; as opposed to Colorado, where the rates are above 8 cents, according to the article. In fact, here is a map showing that states that use coal to generate the bulk of their electricity needs enjoy lower rates:



Colorado still uses coal to generate about two-thirds of its electricity; and that is the only reason why rates have not shot much higher. Coal mining has also been a mainstay of Colorado’s economy since 1864. Meanwhile, Vestas Wind Systems has announced its decision to lay off 500 workers at its Windsor plant – despite tax credits, subsidies and stimulus money. Notwithstanding the so-called promises of the “new” energy economy, unemployment is a very old problem, especially if it’s your job that’s on the chopping block. It’s time to send our elected leaders a strong message – energy policy is not a zero sum game; Colorado needs all the power it can get and we should not favor one energy source over another.