Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Colorado Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act

A recent article on www.enn.com focuses on new legislation in Colorado regarding clean energy. This past week governor Bill Ritter signed into law the Colorado Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act. The law requires Xcel Energy to cut nitrogen oxide emissions by "up to 80% from several Front Range coal plants by the end of 2017." The language used in the article did not seem concrete so I went to Governor Ritter's site but found that the article quoted the "up to 80%" verbatim.

Xcel will reach this goal by working with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment in order to create a plan to retrofit 900 megawatts of coal-fired capacity. The deadline for submitting a proposal is August 15th. The law will help Colorado keep regional haze legislation within the state rather then delegating it to the EPA. As a part of the federal Clean Air Act, Colorado must submit a plan addressing regional haze by 2011 or the EPA will be given authority to write it.

One interesting thing I noticed was that Xcel's chairman and CEO Dick Kelly actually supported this bill (House Bill 1365) and was present at the signing ceremony. This act is a step forward for Xcel, but also allows them to maintain autonomy over their emissions regulations.

Link to the article
http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/41253

Link to Governor Ritter's press release on HB 1365
http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite/GovRitter/GOVR/1251573927379

8 comments:

  1. What might be interesting is to look into what energy sources/ technology they will be using to cut the emissions; i.e. do they already have feasible technology to retrofit 900 megawatts of energy?

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  2. This Clean Air-Clean Job act sounds like a great move towards lower NO emissions. Xcel has time to find the best plan of action before their deadline and we're able to look forward to a move towards cleaner energy.

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  3. It is a nice change of pace to see an energy company attempting do something useful for the community and the environment.

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  4. I think that Xcel as a company needs to put more time into renewable energies. Reducing 80% of Nitrogen Oxide is a huge stride for the company to take. All of these actions show that Xcel is actually jumping on the "green bandwagon." Being such a prominent energy company, this needs to be done to create a change within our country. Once these big corporations start taking actions, there becomes this needed promise that something is being done to improve our current situation.

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  5. Its great to see that such a large companies like Xcel Energy are finally starting to jump on the green bandwagon and start protecting the environment. Although I do think Xcel has some other sort of motivation behind their actions, any progress towards green jobs and protecting the environment is a step in the right direction. I hope to be proven wrong and that we see huge corporations like Xcel genuinely are taking concern in protecting our planet.

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  6. I agree, any action is better than no action at all. Companies that provide energy primarily through the burning of fossil fuels are sort of backed into a corner at this point since most of their energy is coming from fossil fuels. I think these companies are doing the right thing by taking one small step at a time.

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  7. My question is that if there is available technology to reduce NOX emissions by 80%, then why has it taken this long to reduce NOX emissions? My guess is that there must be some sort of incentive coming from governor Ritter to do so. Hopefully this trend catches on with other energy companies.

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  8. I was very happy to hear of HR 1001, as the guest speaker mentioned the other day, it will be a boon to Colorado's economy, and it helps Excel manage future risk if carbon tax is implemented.

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