President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Kamala Harris
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
50%
50%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
70%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
December 14, 2008 07:37 AM UTC
18 Comments
Does that mean your mom will be making a layover in Denver on her way to our nation’s capitol?
I smell live blog!
Between her schedule, ours, and the fact that this happened last minute – it’s fly straight out there and back.
But knowing my mom, by the time she’s doen talking to them, we’ll be using wave energy generators here in Colorado.
I’ll try to get her to post the results here.
They’re gonna wire up Invesco and Coors Fields?:)
Obama’s “greenies” have done more to hurt the U.S. auto industry than the UAW, and they’re going to make sure that our depressed economy will stay depressed as long as possible.
Anything to reduce carbon emissions, ya know.
Seeing as how the big 3 kept building gas hogs over the objections of the greenies. And it’s that dependence on gas hogs that’s killing them.
He’s not even in the White House yet, AS. If you want to elevate him to godhood through proof of pre-emptive power, go ahead – but I’m not a believer in that religion.
When you burn your home in an attempt to get warm, you end up homeless (and cold).
With every renewable energy resource there is one constant: the need for fossil fuels. The reason for this is simple, we don’t control nature, and thus, don’t control when power is being produced. The nameplate generation capacity for any resource may seem high, but the importance is when you can use that energy and when you need it. Renewable Energy is simply not reliable, especially at Peak times, you can’t tell God at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, when everyone comes home from work (turns on their TV, Computer, air conditioning etc.) to turn on the tides.
Fossil Fuels are needed to back up the Renewable Energy for peak loading times.
fossil fuels are needed to back up fossil fuels during down times and peak loading.
DIVERSITY is needed with a renewable energy strategy.
Wind power from a single wind farm is not always going to be there. But wind power from wind farms across the Rocky Mountain region will average out to a relatively fixed amount. Also, wind above a certain height is reasonably constant; “tidal power” is usually derived from reasonably deep water wave action that is also pretty constant. Solar is obviously more variable, but even on cloudy days solar panels and concentrators can produce some energy.
The same thing happens with fossil fuels and nuclear power; plants are taken offline for maintenance or emergency, and other plants pick up the slack during the downtime.
We do not need to rely on fossil fuels just because Mother Nature is a bit variable – but we can’t centralize in some mega wind farm and expect it alone to solve our problems.
So you are saying that taking a Nuclear or Fossil Fuels plant offline is the same as the ‘sun not shinning? or the wind ‘not blowing?’ When you can’t turn on your lights, we’ll discuss whether or not ‘mother nature’ is reliable…
ps What you mean by ‘CENTRALIZE’ is transmission lines, but do you want more transmission lines?
So how high should we build Wind Farms? Are they supposed to be a 2 miles high? 3 miles high?
PR you provided no actual evidence that I was wrong, please produce your evidence and make it in kw/h please.
such as NERC etc.
So I can’t provide you with a kw/h answer.
I can provide you with reliability numbers, average load numbers, current plant size numbers… None of those answer your point about reliability. As only 1% of U.S. power is currently produced by wind, I can’t provide you with a useful reliability number for this country. In the Netherlands, 20% of their power is generated by wind, with a minimal backup system; our grids cover far larger areas, which would result in corresponding increases in reliability and decreases in required backup power.
When the wind doesn’t blow, it’s not like the entire Earth has calm weather. In fact, it’s not even usually statewide. The wind farm outside of Lamar may be unavailable, but the wind farm up by Pawnee Buttes will likely still be functioning. In this respect, yes, it’s very much like a coal plant going offline, and much less disruptive than a nuclear plant coming down for maintenance.
For specifics… A Minnesota study indicates that they can fill up to 25% of their electrical capacity with wind power before requiring any “back-up” capacity. Colorado probably has a slightly tolerance – perhaps 35% – because our winds are more reliable. In fact, this is better than nuclear power; because nuclear plants are such a single-source, on-off construction, utilities have to over-budget their capacity by the size of their largest nuclear plant.
Diversification in renewable fuels isn’t limited to wind and solar, BTW. Biomass and waste gas power (e.g. from the power plant in Colorado run by methane from cow manure…), are capable of filling fast-reaction peak capacity requirements, while geothermal and hydroelectric plants provide more stable energy sources. Considering the rapid development of these types of power, I have no doubt we will be able to fill even more gaps in our future power infrastructure soon.
As to transmission lines… A modest increase in transmission lines is probably called for already, considering the seemingly fragile nature of our electrical network. And a transition from coal and natural gas plants to wind, solar, geothermal, and other plants will result in a change in our electrical grid but not necessarily much of an increase in lines. We don’t park all of our coal plants in the same location any more than we do our wind farms.