Denver relaunches popular e-bike vouchers and Polis proposes major new car-buying credits to promote clean electrification.
Will Toor
Colorado’s energy czar, wife are recovering after a 1,000-foot fall while climbing in Rocky Mountain National Park
Will Toor was thinking he was at the end. He was pretty sure his leg was broken. He was shivering uncontrollably in the snow high in the mountains. He’d watched his injured wife limp away to get help two hours earlier. Every few minutes he’d holler for help. Then, in the distance, he saw two […]
Colorado regulators approve 3 utilities’ clean energy plans despite environmentalists’ objections
Colorado regulators have signed off on clean energy plans from three utilities despite objections from environmental groups claiming the plans include vague promises of green electricity and didn’t account for nearly 200,000 tons of dirty coal emissions. State clean energy officials say they’re satisfied the plans from Colorado Springs Utilities, Holy Cross Energy and Platte […]
Budgets fat with fossil fuel revenue at odds with climate-change goals in states like Colorado
By Morgan Lee and Mead Gruver, The Associated Press SANTA FE, N.M. — Government budgets are booming in New Mexico: Teacher salaries are up, residents can go to an in-state college tuition-free, moms will get medical care for a year after childbirth, and criminal justice initiatives are being funded to reduce urban violence. The reason […]
Colorado EV sales grew a lot in 2021. But was it enough to counter the impact of red-hot gas SUVs?
Sales of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles grew fast enough in 2021 that Colorado is on track to meet climate change goals, according to year-end statistics and state Energy Office analysts. But the state calculation of last year’s EV market share is 25% higher than the Colorado Auto Dealers Association analysis. Meanwhile, the […]
Smells like a fossil fuel. Works like a fossil fuel. But these Colorado stations pump a gas with emissions less than zero.
The fuel that comes out of the gleaming pumps at X3CNG’s west Greeley station has the telltale smell of fossil fuel. It runs a big truck with the heavy-duty efficiency of a fossil fuel. But the impact of the transaction can be the opposite of burning fossil fuel. X3CNG and many of its competitors in […]
Effort to force Colorado to cut greenhouse emissions faster exposes exasperation with Polis administration
For more than a year, frustrated Colorado lawmakers and environmental groups have struggled to push the Polis administration to move faster to meet mandated cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Now they are advancing a bill to set emission caps and deadlines — over the objections of the governor. The Senate Transportation and Energy Committee moved […]
Here’s how Colorado’s free e-bike program fits into its plan to slow climate change
By Sam Brasch, Colorado Public Radio Growing up in Los Angeles, Shalon Bowens remembers looking forward to a new bicycle on Christmas morning. The gift was her ticket away from adults and out into the neighborhood, an excuse “to get outside and do something.” Bowens, who now lives in Denver, couldn’t help but recall that […]
The road to greenhouse gas cuts: Are Colorado drivers ready?
When Colorado’s greenhouse gas battle comes to her Wheat Ridge driveway, Jan Rose will be ready. Rose believes heart and soul that if the state wants to hit benchmarks of 90% cuts to polluting emissions by 2050, Coloradans will have to drive less, and if they do drive, use a clean electric car. Recent successful […]
Dollars, not politics, are driving Colorado’s accelerated embrace of solar energy
HUDSON — Standing in the shade of a massive, utility-scale array of solar panels on farmland east of Interstate 25, you don’t have to look far for real-time examples of renewable sun power supplanting fossil fuels in the arc of Colorado’s historical energy supply. Electricity generated by the Rattlesnake solar array uploads to United Power’s […]