This morning I walked into a room in my 607sq condo and turned on a light.
I then turned it off immediately, well maybe not immediately.
My brain quickly tried to do a cost benefit analysis to determine if since I had already turned the light on and used that energy did it make more sense to just leave it on since I was only going to be in the room breifly or would the amount of wind (austensibly as I pay for 100% wind through the Xcel windsource about a 10% premium on my on average $40 utility bill though in reality the kilowats could be anything but likely some combination of coal and natural gas and if i'm lucky a touch of wind) used by the one compact floursent bulb in my bedroom for the 10 more seconds it was going to take grab a sweater would be less than the energy used to turn it on in the first place, and by leaving it on would I remain consistent with the argument I always gave my grandmother for why a light was on ...
And then the part of my brain that remembers the terror of those foot steps marching towards that room when I was 13 convinced my 33 year old brain that it does not have enough information to make an accurate decision based on facts in the time allotted and therefore the most consistent course of action is to remain afraid of my now deceased grandmother ... and turned the light off. This took about 5 seconds and if anyone reading this has the skill set to crunch the numbers I'd love to know if I made the most environmentally responsible choice or not.
What I used to tell my grandmother when I was in my teenage years and she would accuse me of "working for ConEd" (the electric utility where I grew up) was that it made more sense to leave the (at the time) incandecent light bulb on while I was practicing clarinet in the basement because the amount of energy used to turn it on far exceeded the amount used to power it all day.
I have no idea where I picked up that information, I suspect public school, nor did I verify it then or know if it was in fact the truth now. What I did know is that it sounded reasonable enough and what I needed was an argument against what was in my view an unreasonable outcome -that in order to save $x I should rely solely on natural light ... from a north facing basement window ... in New York, in December to practice. My Grandmother who was born in 1928 was not only a depression era baby, but black and poor so came from a world that I born in 1978 young enough to have missed the depression and living in a world where black kids went to Juilliard prep could not understand.
Oddly enough I now have the same obsessive compulsion to turn things off when not in use. This disorder isn't genetic and my granndmother and I though experieincing the same symptoms have very different compulsive diseases. She was frugal (i'd say irratioanlly cheap but thats a debate for another time) and I am a climate hawk.
I am totally out of touch. Where most people believe the biggest issues facing the country and the world right now are the economy, soveriegn and private debt crisisis and on-going international military conflicts, if I had my way, we would do nothing whether in Congress, research universities or corporate boardrooms than reform, research, develop and implement new energy policy. I am a dedicated climate hawk and I firmly believe that addressing energy, not only prevents the worst outcomes of climate change (or at least mitigates them as the avoidance ship may have already sailed) but also addresses all these other problems other people seem to be so hopped up about.
So take this opinion with a grain of salt becasue I am admittedly biased and out of the mainstream ... by a lot.
I have recently read two opinions about the City of Boulder questions 2B and 2C that I found very compelling. There are some who argue against 2B and 2C because they believe the City Council and the City Organization can't handle an electric utitlity. This is of course a ridiculous argument for 2 reasons.
1. The council never handles anything, they set policy which is then executed by CIty Manager, think of the Council as the Board of Directors and the City Mangaer as the C.E.O of ...
2. The corporaion that is the City of Boulder. Because that's exactly how it works. Council sets policy, staff does the work. And whether you agree with the implementation of policy by city staff, they are at least (as opposed to council members who generally are not nor actually need to be) experts in their line of work. The city would create a new division of the city governement that is the utility, populated with staff who have the technical expertise to do the job.
Distrust for the city is not enough reason to vote no on these measures.
County Commissoner Will Toor and Blake Jones opine that if at the end we don't end up with a municipal electric utility that our strongest barganing position with Xcel would be with passage of these two measures. I agree with that premise. Another way of making the case to those who do not support municipilization or those who actually believe that the best path forward is with Xcel is that sure, it would be better if this wasn't a ballot question at all but that being unavailable, the best place to be for your interests is back at the barganing table with the will of the people as evidenced by the ballot box in imporving the renewable energy side of the ledger. Again I agree and that is why I have struggled on how to vote on these measures.
Because the 13 year old part of my brain that is afraid of my grandmother has been lobbying my 33 year old brain against doing any math.
Fortunately people who are smarter than me have done the math ... much of which I even understand! And I actually believe that in the best possible outcome a municipal utitlity would have more renewable energy at a comparable if not slighlty lower cost to the ratepayer. And I definitely am convinced of the best barganing position argument. However these rosy outocmes are still only marginal if everything goes right. And when was the last time everything went right?
I know there are some earnest and sincere minds behind this municiplization effort but let's not pretend that political strategy is not exactly that. If you can build a coalition between true believers and pragmatic non-believers you can get anything accomplished (see 18th amendment). Looking at data from both sides its clear that under the best outcome municipliaztion is a slam dunk great idea, this holds true even under average to some worser case scenarios.
The problem is not the goodness of the outcome it's the likeliness of the outcome. And the most likely outcome is that even with passage of these measures, in 3 years the City of Boulder will be in a new franchise agreement with Xcel energy that is marginally better than it would have been without this exercise.
The best case scenario for municipliaztion over a 20 year term is only marginally better than the outcome staying with Xcel. This is a very expensive barganing chip for very little bang at the end.
Further we invent a middleman.
I think the future of energy distribution will be micro-generation with macro-brokerage. That is to say once we figure out micro-generation, storage (i.e. batteries) and distribution (figuring out to allow micro-generators and batteries electric cars to cellphones) to return unused electricity to the grid, the role of an electric "utility" will be to direct traffic. Utilities will broker energy transfer, maintain distribution infrastructure and compensate producers with revenues generated from energy purchasers -in other words EXACTLY what a City of Boulder Utility would do!
However we are not there yet, and for the foreseable future energy will continue to be a vertically integrated industry (as all the public utilities supporters of this cite are). And in a vertically intergrated business model the money is made on the production side. If energy wasn't vertically intergrated then renewable energy adoption would be much easier and much faster I agree but that isn't possible until the infrastructure of micro-generation (where we have made tremendous progess) and storage (hear the crickets?) are in place and no amount of money the city can spend can accelerate that research and development (R&D valued in the $billions is out of reach of a City budget that in its entirety is in the $200 millions). A utility that does not produce energy must buy it which turns the traditional revenue center into a cost. Now some would argue that this is absorbed by a municipal utility not having to pay shareholders or turn a profit , TRUE but unknown if the offest is enough to not have to be satisfied in some part by generating the revenues on the distribution side (i.e. higher rates).
My interest is adoption of the plan that makes the most sense. The plan that encourages adoption of renewable energy whether directly in micro-generation for those with the means to do it and voluntary susidy of the renewable energy infrastructure to increase supply (read carbon credits or for Xcel customers "windsource") and does so with comparable pricing so that the price premium doesn't scare off adopters. And if the goal is the maximum adoption of the maximum amount of renewable energy by the broadest base, today and after the passage of 2B and 2C that path is with Xcel energy and mandated by ammendment 37.
And then there are people outside of Boulder's political class. People who simply want reliable electricity (which we have) at a reasonable price (debateable) who maybe would buy renewable energy if it were cheap enough but they don't care enough when there is a premium. In Boulder if you use windsource as a guide that amounts to about 88% of ratepayers. This is Boulder so I suspsect that price is not the only reason for the anemic 12% adoption of windsource but if definitely raises questions in my mind as to whether our residents, the majority of whom will not vote in this election really believe this is an appropriate undertaking for the City.
I think about what most people are concered with today and temper that with my agenda and conclude that though well intentioned and in some ways the ideal of what I think a utility -public or private SHOULD be and I arrive at the following conclusions:
1. In the most likely scenario the best opportunity to a. continue with the renewable energy people are using today b. increase adoption and c. retain reasonable costs for those who are early adopters is to stay with Xcel energy.
2. The only way to get other communities, but more importantly individuals in other communities to adopt reneawble energy is to work collaboritvely which is easier to do from within a network than without.
3.While I agree that passing these measures would increase our leverage for renewables in an agreement with Xcel so would a large increase of windsource customers as it is the same data point (customers want renewable energy and are willing to pay for it).
4. You don't have to be wrong to be sued. This one is important, while increasing the amount of windsource participation would send the same message to Xcel it would have a minimal costs to those who want to send the message and no cost to those who do not. Maybe the City won't be on the hook for going concern and stranded costs etc. but only a judge can decide that and it's not going to be free to find out.
IF 2B and 2C pass and we do end up with a municipal utility I will be very happy to have been on the wrong side of history. I will be the first to point out my own lack of vision and will welcome the resulting increased renewable energy that results because at the end of the day renewable energy adoption is my interest, doesn't matter how we get there. Knowing Boulder politics I also suspect that 2B and 2C will pass, but I still think the result will only have been an expensive path to a marginally better franchise.
However I think the interests of the fastest adoption of renewables by the largest base still lies in a regional effort where we lead by example and as a customer can influence Xcel and it's other customer communities. As person that incorporates carbon emissions and climate change into more of my relevant behavioral decisions than most people I believe that further pursuit of a municipal utility as planned at this point is exactly like trying to decide whether or not to turn the uneeded light back of ... In so doing you miss the teachable moment where next time you would remember not to turn the light on in the first place (or walk instead of drive or to throw your orange peel out the window instead of into the trash -you know methane in landfills ...).
Vote no on 2B and 2C and while you're at it sign up for windsource here
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