A new report on climate emissions and solutions in rural America unveils a picture Colorado knows all too well.
The country’s least populated places play a pivotal role in America’s energy system, generating far more electricity than they consume, because they contain a disproportionate share of things such as coal plants, oil wells and natural gas storage.
As a result, they kick out an inordinate amount of fossil fuel emissions. But they also contain most of the nation’s carbon sinks — forests, grasslands and agricultural lands, when managed sustainably. And they’re where the majority of clean energy generation already occurs and will need to be built.
In 2024, Colorado was the fourth-largest oil-producing state, the eighth-largest natural gas-producing state, and the eighth-ranked state for coal in the ground, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration.
It also ranked around 11th nationally for installed solar capacity and generation, around sixth or seventh for wind capacity and generation, and it has significant yet largely untapped geothermal potential in the Upper Arkansas Valley, the San Luis Valley and the Piceance and Raton basins, in northwestern and southeastern Colorado, respectively.
Bottom line: Decarbonizing the U.S. energy sector is going to play out across rural America and Colorado.
But the resistance in some rural communities is real. And the report says while climate conversations often center cities, “no meaningful path to solving climate change can avoid working directly with rural communities.”
Colorado’s commitment to clean energy
Like it or not, rural America is where the land resources exist to build utility-scale clean energy projects, says the creator of the report, the Rural Climate Partnership.
That goes for Colorado where 93% of the land is rural, 45% of electric power emissions are rural and 89% of zero-emission clean energy generation is already produced rurally, the report says.
But those facts bring challenges.
Colorado has the second-highest number of active coal-fired power plants in the Rockies with six, right behind Wyoming, with 10. Even though there are less than half as many here as there were in 2005, exposure to the emissions spewing out of them is still associated with adverse health effects including asthma, bronchitis, heart attacks and premature death.
Yet shuttering the coal plants brings local pain to rural communities — loss of jobs and tax revenue plus community disruption and cultural upheaval. And even with state mandates and economic diversification, public and philanthropic climate funding remains overwhelmingly urban-focused and has not kept pace with rural potential, the report says.
Colorado continues to push forward in the switch to clean energy through its Office of Just Transition, with geothermal projects upcoming or online from Carbondale to Pierce; large operational wind farms stretching from Kit Carson County to Weld County; and solar arrays shining from Bighorn and Sun Mountain near Pueblo to Highlands Community Solar in Windsor.
In 2024, renewable sources of energy accounted for 43% of Colorado’s total in-state electricity net generation, a record high, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. And Colorado is home to 67,000 clean energy jobs boosted by nearly $500 million in private investments to build new large-scale clean energy projects across Colorado since the passage of the federal Inflation Reduction Act.
But decisions on where consequential climate solutions will live are largely up to town councils, county commissions and rural electric cooperative boards that are shaped by the communities they represent, says the report.
And some Colorado counties have said “not through my community’s backyard” when Front Range wind, solar and transmission projects come calling.
Not in my county’s backyard
El Paso and Elbert counties said no thank you when Xcel Energy asked to build a $1.7 billion Power Pathway high-voltage transmission line across their land to bring power from wind and solar to farms on the eastern plains. The counties cited concerns over wildfires, impacts on ranching and property values and the company’s intent to use eminent domain.
Logan County and Phillips County recently enacted moratoria on utility scale wind or solar projects and battery storage to support data centers, a turn from Montrose and other counties that have lifted their no-gos on large scale renewable energy projects.
And even in progressive Pitkin County, where Aspen has a 100% renewable electricity supply, Caroline Llanes, climate reporter for Rocky Mountain Community Radio, says she has seen tensions among groups wanting different things.
Llanes lives in Glenwood Springs and most of her work centers on the Western Slope, where she said “there’s a lot of diversity in feelings about being the landing spots for clean energy policies.”
From a purely consumer standpoint, rooftop solar has had “quite a lot of uptake,” she said. “But when it comes to places like Rifle and Parachute, when you get to the utility-scale project, I think there’s much more hesitance to talk about those, especially in agricultural communities. So I think a lot of folks like to use the phrase ‘all of the above’ when it comes to energy,” because “the economics of green energy, I think, is something that really can’t be denied.”
But in Pitkin County, Llanes says she’s seen conflicts even among environmentalists “who want more green energy but are conflicted over where to build it,” she added. “Is this disrupting habitat? Is this disrupting, for our resort economy, our sight lines and the scenic vistas that people come out to see? I think in general, people do like solar, they like geothermal, but where they’re struggling is, where is this appropriate?”
And while education about these kinds of projects is key, it might not be the kind of education you think.
Greening the conversation
The Colorado Solar and Energy Storage Association has held several “Solar in Your Community” events in rural communities. But they recently decided to host one on the Front Range.
Instead of explaining what renewable energy is or how coal works, they found themselves talking to Front Range residents about how the renewable energy for policies they want passed have to come from somewhere.
Rural counties come to mind, but a county might feel like its getting the impact without the benefit. And with new Trump administration’s policies, blocking development has become easier.
When climate funding was canceled in One Big, Beautiful Bill Act cuts, getting access to sites for renewable energy on public lands became much more difficult, and fossil fuel restrictions in some locations were loosened, says the report. And during the government shutdown in October, Colorado learned it would lose $550 million in federal clean energy grants in cuts targeted to primarily Democratic-controlled states.
But the report says some public funding earmarked for clean energy in the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is anticipated to continue forward, including nearly $10 billion for rural electric cooperatives to advance clean energy. And the Rural Climate Partnership says “support for clean energy development from trusted local messengers, clean energy education, and positive, benefit-forward communications can help beneficial projects move forward.”
That’s best achieved when rural communities are given the tools and opportunities to benefit from nonextractive industries and advance clean energy projects “designed with and for them that create benefits in their communities,” like tax revenue to support public infrastructure for libraries, schools and roads; job creation from new projects; and supplemental revenue for family farmers who lease part of their land for solar or deploy agrivoltaics, said Maria Doerr, program officer at the Rural Climate Partnership and lead author of the report.
Several entities in Colorado are doing this work, including the Colorado Agrivoltaics Learning Center, a national leader in demonstrating how solar energy generation and agriculture can coexist on the same land.
The center also launched a Solar Array Lands Supporting Agribusinesses program, to give rural, immigrant and Latine farmers access to land within existing solar arrays for food production.
And several urban centers are doing their part, too, through things like Fort Collins’ microgrid-powered community center, Boulder’s pilot program that combines electric vehicles with affordable housing and Denver’s newly announced methane conversion project at the city landfill.