{"id":1297,"date":"2024-03-25T05:46:06","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T11:46:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yrn.pfg.mybluehost.me\/?p=1297"},"modified":"2024-03-26T15:33:13","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T21:33:13","slug":"for-all-the-talk-about-renewables-coal-is-still-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottkjames.com\/website_d4298829\/2024\/03\/for-all-the-talk-about-renewables-coal-is-still-king\/","title":{"rendered":"For all the talk about renewables, coal is still king"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"\">The Guv and the state legislature set many loft goals of 100% renewables by 2040. I agree with the phasing out of coal. But the leap to renewables in such a short time &#8211; well, you just can&#8217;t get there from here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The state legislature seems hell bent in mandating electrification and renewable usage. It&#8217;s not consumer or market driven. It&#8217;s governmental mandates and it&#8217;s wrong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The vast majority of the improvement in air quality experienced in this state can be credited to improvements in technology and the addition of natural gas as a fuel in electricity generation. And if the Colorado Legislature has electrification stars in their eyes, we should be robustly talking about nuclear power generation. But they don&#8217;t consider the cleanest, safest form of electricity generation &#8211; nuclear &#8211; to be green or renewable. Their legislative output says so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Turn to <a href=\"https:\/\/i2i.org\/fast-facts-about-electricity-in-colorado-in-2023\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">this article<\/a> by the incredible bright <a href=\"https:\/\/i2i.org\/author\/jake_f\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Jake Fogleman<\/a>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Colorado&#8217;s electricity sector experienced considerable changes in 2023 according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Coal remained the king, generating a third of Colorado&#8217;s annual electricity despite a decrease from 37% in 2022. Natural gas production saw a surge, contributing to 30% of the state&#8217;s electricity. Wind generation decreased slightly at approximately 28% while output from Solar PV more than doubled, contributing to over 6% of the state&#8217;s annual electricity. The average retail price of electricity for residential ratepayers slightly increased from 14.19 \u00a2 \/ kWh in 2022 to 14.32 \u00a2 \/ kWh in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Bottom line &#8211; a state legislature hell bent on mandating a power market will do nothing but increase cost and decrease reliability for consumers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Guv and the state legislature set many loft goals of 100% renewables by 2040. I agree with the phasing out of coal. But the leap to renewables in such a short time &#8211; well, you just can&#8217;t get there from here. The state legislature seems hell bent in mandating electrification and renewable usage. It&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,58,1],"tags":[60,78,80,77,79],"class_list":["post-1297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","category-bully_pulpit","category-latest","tag-copolitics","tag-coal","tag-energy","tag-natural-gas","tag-nuclear"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scottkjames.com\/website_d4298829\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/tractor-at-coal-hill-.jpg?fit=2000%2C1335&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottkjames.com\/website_d4298829\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottkjames.com\/website_d4298829\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottkjames.com\/website_d4298829\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottkjames.com\/website_d4298829\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottkjames.com\/website_d4298829\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1297"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/scottkjames.com\/website_d4298829\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1324,"href":"https:\/\/scottkjames.com\/website_d4298829\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297\/revisions\/1324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottkjames.com\/website_d4298829\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottkjames.com\/website_d4298829\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottkjames.com\/website_d4298829\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottkjames.com\/website_d4298829\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}