Xcel Energy Wants Blockage Of Climate Testimony During Coal Plant Hearings

[hatrack]

Xcel Energy doesn't want the issue of global warming allowed at hearings to decide the future of its local electricity generation — despite its plans to build a $1.3 billion coal plant that would emit million of tons of carbon dioxide a year.

At the same time, Xcel's financial plans for the coal plant include scenarios that assess regulatory penalties of between $6 per ton and $12 per ton of carbon dioxide released. Xcel estimates the plant will emit about 6.5 million tons of the greenhouse gas each year. The associated costs represent an increase in costs of between about 10 percent and 25 percent. Xcel's proposed 750-megawatt Comanche 3 coal-fired power plant in Pueblo would generate enough electricity for about 750,000 households once completed in 2009. Xcel says it needs the plant to feed the Front Range's growing hunger for electricity. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission will take up the matter in hearings beginning Monday.

Xcel attorneys asked the Public Utilities Commission Friday to strike from the hearings the testimony of James White, director of the Environmental Center at the University of Colorado . White is a geology professor who studies the ancient climate through ice cores. His testimony addresses the evidence of global warming and humanity's role in it. There was no reference to Xcel or power generation. "It's nothing controversial," White said. "It was, 'All right, folks, we're changing the climate. Let's grow up, be adults for once and admit it.'"

Xcel said in its request the commission had already ruled that "the issue of climate change, similar or identical in thrust of Mr. White's testimony, is outside the scope of this case and of the (Least Cost Plan) rules." Xcel also protested the testimony on procedural grounds."

EDIT

http://www.bouldernews.com/bdc/state_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2419_3281539,00.html

[patrice]

1. We need more ways to respond to this sort of thing.

Xcel and others like them will continue to do whatever, whenever, under ANY administration they can.

I love what happened to Sinclair. Is that kind of leverage possible in cases like this?

I'm tired of just emailing when I see this stuff. How do you boycott an energy company? . . . especially one that isn't in your own state? How can we help Colorado-environmentalist do something about this?

[phantom power]

2. Harder to do this, than with Sinclair

The reason there was so much leverage against Sinclair, is that they get their money from advertisers, and so making a bunch of noise to the companies that advertise with Sinclair hurts them bad.

It's a lot harder to boycott an energy company. Even if you could get enough people to use less energy, it's all mixed together. Hard to boycott one without boycotting all of them.

I suppose it might be possible to identify a short list of Xcel's biggest customers, and hit those somehow.

[NNadir]

3. Short of conserving to the point of living in the dark, there's not much

we can do except to support energy options which are less polluting than coal (which includes every known form or energy).

We could also agitate for a law requiring the inclusion of global warming potential in new plant applications, but that obviously would require a new administration, something for which all of us actively thirst.

If we end up with a citizen responsive gov't - and I'm optimistic that we will - then we as citizens need to be responsible about the alternatives and to be willing to make and support difficult decisions.

In spite of all the bullshit going on, it's very clear to me that the number one threat to our future has nothing to do with terrorism or war. It has to do with the climate. We all have responsibility.