AQCC Action Alert, The Firing of a CU Atmospheric Scientist, EV Vehicles on Colorado Roads, and More!
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ACTION ALERT:
Help Colorado Move Faster on GHG Emissions Reductions
Wednesday May 20, 2020 at the Air Quality Control Commission (“AQCC”)
4:30-7:30: Please mark your calendars. Register for this Zoom meeting
HERE
Colorado’s AQCC is charged with developing regulations to allow the state to meet the greenhouse gas reduction goals set by the 2019 legislature. The AQCC is moving forward, but the oil and gas industry is doing what they can to slow them down.
We need as many people as possible to tell the AQCC to keep moving quickly to address the climate crisis.
Register
here
to participate in this Zoom meeting. Information from the AQCC on their GHG rules is available
here
.
Comments from a coalition involving Clean Energy Action, 350 Colorado and the Colorado Coalition for a Livable Planet can be found
here.
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University of Colorado Abruptly Fires Respected Atmospheric Scientist Studying Air Pollution from Oil and Gas Industry
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Clean Energy Action, and many others, are concerned about the abrupt firing of University of Colorado’s Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Detlev Helmig. Dr. Helmig has monitored air quality in Boulder County and noted spikes of benzene and other volatile chemicals that very likely come from oil and gas operations in Weld County to the northeast.
After Dr. Helmig was abruptly fired in mid-April, the
first media story
about this, that Clean Energy Action knows of, appeared on the website of a Denver-based regional oil and gas association known as
Western Wire
.
A Boulder Daily Camera story about Dr. Helmig’s scientific findings was soon withdrawn. Then, acknowledging pressure from the oil and gas industry, the Daily Camera published a lengthy, but not terribly substantive set of
corrections
.
A slightly modified version of the original story reporting benzene spikes can be read in the
Broomfield Enterprise
.
A
response to the corrections
with detailed information on the Stamp well near the Union Reservoir was prepared by Longmont activist Karen Dike.
After Dr. Helmig was fired, Boulder State Senator Steve Fenberg and Boulder County Commissioner Elise Jones wrote an
op-ed
defending Dr. Helmig’s work, stressing the importance of the air monitoring he was doing.
Stay tuned, many are concerned about why this respected scientist was abruptly fired and what role pressure from the oil and gas industry might have played.
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Environmental Forum for Boulder County Commissioner Candidates
This will be an opportunity for collegial discussion and dialogue, with some pre-set questions that we will provide in advance, and time for some questions from the audience.
We hope to see you there!
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Colorado Energy Office Aiming for a Million EVs on the Road by 2030
According to the Colorado Department of Public Health, transportation will be Colorado’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in 2020. Those emissions will cost Coloradoans $1.5 billion dollars in health care and other costs. To address these issues, last month the Colorado Energy Office published their new
Electric Vehicle (EV) Plan
. This updated plan charts our current progress and the next steps needed to achieve their goal of 940,000 EVs on the road by 2030.
Colorado has made great progress thus far towards 940,000 EVs. From August 2017 to June 2019, the number of electric vehicles in Colorado more than doubled from 11,238 to 24,000. But even though we have made great progress, we will need to continue to increase EV sales by 50% every year to reach the 2030 goal. According to analysis by
Navigant
for the Colorado Energy Office, in a business as usual scenario we will have 720,000 EVs on the road by 2030. If we added a marketing campaign to the newly adopted Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) standard, we would get within 100,000 electric vehicles of our goal.
The Energy Office outlines a number of different policies that will be pursued to make up this gap, from increasing investments in charging stations to encouraging e-commerce and ride sharing services to electrify their fleets. In addition,
SB20-167
allows electric vehicle manufactures, such as Rivian, to sell directly to consumers. Colorado consumers should start to see additional electric vehicle choices this fall as manufacturers work to meet the new
Zero Emission Vehicle Standard
.
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PUC Rewriting Electric Resource Planning Rules
There is a LOT going on at the PUC these days. Importantly, the PUC is, after two years of work, finalizing a new set of rules that will apply to future Electric Resource Planning (“ERP”) proceedings. The most recent comments from CEA Board Member Leslie Glustrom can be read
here
. The comments of many other organizations can be found on the
PUC website
under Proceeding 19R-0096E.
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Tri State’s Largest Member Files a Fraud Lawsuit Against Tri-State
Much of rural Colorado (and Wyoming and New Mexico) is served by
Tri State Generation and Transmission
, based in Westminster. On Monday May 4, 2020, Tri State’s largest customer, United Power, filed a lawsuit claiming that Tri State had committed fraud in the development of a new rule that created an unusual class of members. This rule is designed to allow Tri State to seek Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regulation and pre-empt regulation by the Colorado PUC. It quickly gets complicated, but to see what energy activists in rural Colorado are concerned about, read the United Power lawsuit
here
. It is, for interested parties, most definitely a page-turner!
You can also read a short summary of what happened in the Denver Post
here.
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What We Are Reading - Technology
Automatic EV Charging
A new technology from Volterio
offers an elegant solution to the problems of contactless inductive charging. When inactive, the charger is an inconspicuous, only 6-cm high, structure on the floor. The car is then parked over it for charging. Next, a robot arm extends telescopically. At the end of this arm is a connector which seeks its counterpart on the car's underbody. The two components have previously exchanged information with each other via encrypted wireless communication. The connection is established in less than 15 seconds.
The charging capacity of a charger with home connection is 22 kilowatts, which means that even the largest car batteries can be fully charged in 4-5 hours. The technology itself is designed to handle up 100 kilowatts DC, which lowers the charging time to an hour.
More background on wireless charging can be found
here
.
NREL Solar Cell Sets New Efficiency Record
The six-junction solar cell now holds the world record for the highest solar conversion efficiency at 47.1%, which was measured under concentrated illumination. A variation of the same cell also set the efficiency record under one-sun illumination at 39.2%.
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Meet CEA Board Member
Nathan Sloat
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Nate came to Colorado in 2013 to study economics and history at CSU. After working at CDOT he joined the green economy selling residential solar systems, helping customers to reduce their carbon emissions and save money. He also works with
EnergyShouldBe.org
, a local nonprofit aiming to model different renewable energy scenarios, and advocate for energy policies. When he isn’t looking at spreadsheets, he enjoys backpacking and cross-country skiing.
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Connect with CEA on social media
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