Just Say No to Xcess Energy

Anne B Butterfield, April 28, 2009

We’re grown ups, right? So do we sit by idly when a car speeds the wrong way onto the freeway? No. We grab that cell phone and call the authorities.

The car now racing against the flow of history is Xcel Energy, ramping up their legalistic stonewalling to force Coloradoans to pay for their new billion dollar 750 megawatt, unneeded, coal-fired power plant in Pueblo called Comanche 3, to be paid through a series of rate hikes.

The first proposed rate hike of 5% was tentatively and privately settled last week to start being charged to us this July for a plant that fires up in November. It doesn’t matter if you buy all WindSource; it’s in the basic service.

But there’s more: the coal costs will get passed straight through as an extra "ECA" charge. Remember, the United States Geological Survey and other federal agencies have stated that America's supply of cheap coal will last as little as 20 years, and this year the spot price of coal doubled. So we can expect volatility and not price comfort from coal.

Before coal prices can maim our economy though, Comanche 3 will lure big office buildings and more to continue wasting energy by staying lit up at 4 am on a Saturday or 8pm on Easter. Don’t you want to pay more, and add 130 pounds of mercury to the world each year, so we can light up outer space?

Comanche 3 is estimated to cost a billion dollars per decade to run, with most of that cash going to Wyoming for the coal, Minnesota for Xcel’s executive compensation, and Washington DC for the carbon costs when they kick in. We could use that money instead to reap power from wind, solar and demand reduction to the point where Colorado could export clean energy to other states, but no, we’re being saddled up to export oodles of cash.

Yeah that’s dumb in a state crimped by TABOR, and you haven’t heard the best part yet:

Even by Xcel's documentation, for the first several years Comanche 3 will provide many hundreds of megawatts of excess capacity over the 16% safety margin required by law. Xcel announced in March that with the shrunken economy and efficiency measures power demand will drop by nearly 500 megawatts until 2015, and thus Xcel will delay acquisitions of 900 megawatts of solar and wind.

More effectively, Xcel just proved that we don’t need Comanche 3.

To add emphasis to the excess, the Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Jon Wellinghoff, has boldly stated that new coal and nuclear base load plants are unneeded generally, and that the craze for rigid base load power is a sacred cow that will be beat out by the flexibility of efficiency and renewable power.

So far, our appointed representatives in Colorado have been lifting compromise with Xcel to a sacramental art, allowing Xcel to argue in motions language that is often incoherent that the 2003 permit to build the plant should have “closure” and never be subjected to evidence of its imprudence. Xcel has even argued that in spite of rules to the contrary, evidence brought by scores of savvy ratepayers at a Public Utilities Commission hearing last week should be stricken from the record.

All of this gives such a warm feeling, don’t you want Boulder to renew their franchise agreement with Xcel?

Governor Ritter has ventured to say that Comanche 3 is not Xcel’s best choice. But we put him into office for his New Energy Economy -- and part of that means saying no to a power plant that runs on rocks while exporting our wealth.

It’s not unheard of to stand up to a company saying, “Your venture is a mistake and we’re not adding a penny to its operation.” It’s the same courage mustered by the bride who’s paid dearly for a lavish wedding only to cancel because her groom resumed his addictive and risky ways.

It’s sad but it’s what real grown ups do. They make tough calls when terrific plans are proven to bring costly peril. The least Xcel could do, and the Governor should demand, is to delay the start of Comanche 3 and its rate hikes until many of Xcel's small coal plants have be retired, as they plan to do in the next few years.

People can alert the Governor of their concerns about Comanche 3 by calling his office at 303-866-2471