And now we have the Camera asking Should the city take over the electrical distribution from Xcel Energy when the utility's franchise expires in 2010?
Well there are two strong sides to this argument. In the pro side we have the case that city owned utilities tend to have lower rates.
On the negative side we have the argument that if our city council cannot be financially responsible with 100K for channel 54 (a total boondoggle) then what happens if they are suddenly playing with real money?
On the negative side we also have to worry that the council would view this as a means to start making dumb decisions on trying to reduce our carbon footprint. For better or worse we have a coal fired plant here with a lot of life left in it and that must remain our primary power source. When individuals buy wind power they still get electricity generated from the coal plant (sorry to burst your bubble). But the council might try to actually lower output from the plant (causing another plant elsewhere to be built) or to ship the electricity from the plant here out and bring in power from wind farms, again increasing our carbon footprint (there is loss in sending power over lines).
So grading the answers an answer that shows a clear grasp of the issues and from that comes down in favor of either taking over the power system or leaving it with Xcel gets a good grade. However, an answer to reduce our carbon footprint, especially if it has nothing intelligent about how - bad grade.
Matt Applebaum C+ : Matt views the primary reason to take over the grid to be reducing our carbon footprint which is a recipe for higher rates and a net increase in carbon emissions. On the plus side, he is against taking over the grid.
Philip Bradley A : Short succinct spot-on answer. No details but he lays out the basic question perfectly.
Seth Brigham F : Seth is in favor of competition. Seth, no one is going to run a second set of power lines to each home. No one is going to build a second power plant here. Someone building that could never compete against Xcel who already has all this in place.
Shawn Coleman A+ : Excellent answer on why we should not take over.
Macon Cowles F- : Macon is a very smart environmental attorney so I assume he must know how poor his proposal is. Ok Macon, you're going to phase out electricity from the local coal plant - which means building 2 sets of transmission lines, one to take the present output from the plant to go elsewhere and another that runs from other sources to Boulder. At the end of that all we have done is increase our carbon output in extra power that needs to be generated to make up for line loss and the carbon emitted creating the material for the additional power lines. Disappointing in his lack of knowledge. (Also, while Macon wants to purchase from coal fired plants that store carbon - at present there is no way to store the captured carbon.)
Angelique Espinoza B+ : A bit light on the answer (as she almost always is) but doesn't think the city is capable of handling the power lines itself, which is a very reasonable conclusion.
Crystal Gray C : Very general statement that we need to evaluate this. Wants to buy from clean sources also which is a reasonable goal - but that is her only specific.
Andrew Harrison B : Why Andrew? I'm not disagreeing with your stand - but can you give us just a teensy weensy hint as to why you want to take it over?
Philip Hernandez B+ : Decent answer that we should wait for the conclusion of the present study and his inclination is no. But pretty light on the details.
Nabil Karkamaz A : Strong detailed answer as to why we should not do this.
Kathy Kramer B- : Ok, a clear answer that we should do it. But her one reason is comparing us to Longmont which could be totally irrelevant depending on how Longmont vs Xcel purchased power futures, what type of generation they use, even what upkeep costs they face.
Adam Massey A- : Interesting answer as to why we don't have to - that the Dem control of the state will lead to a better run PUC. And there is a reasonable chance of that occurring. Nothing outside of that point.
Lisa Morzel D+ : Lisa's answer scares me. This is going down the road of getting energy from the sources that make us feel good rather the sources that minimize our cost and the carbon cost overall. She also views this as a way to diversify the City's revenue which is another word for charge more to provide additional general fund revenue for the city. Can you say higher electricity bills?
Alan O'Hashi A+ : Since I endorsed Alan it's nice to have one of these where I agree with him. Very thoughtful points on why we can most of our desired carbon reductions without taking it over and why taking it over could be more expensive for us than for existing city owned systems.
Susan Osborne C : General statement that we need to study this (I swear Crystal & Susan mind-meld on issues) but does say she is skeptical of the idea. She wants new local power production - but nothing specific as to how. Maybe this means windmills on the Flatirons?
Eugene Pearson C- : Eugene's whole point is cleaner power without speaking as to how that would be accomplished. But he does end with this should only be done if we can also have a lower price.
Susan Peterson F : Susan is out in la-la land. First, the most inefficient power generation is small units we can put on buildings here. If it was efficient Xcel would do it. You want clean energy for Boulder - build a single nuclear power plant and you will get clean power for a lot less. Second, how do you store the excess power generated? That tends to be very expensive - the best way at present is pumping water to the top of dams and I don't see a nearby dam we could do that with.
Larry Quilling A- : A strong answer to not do it. And some good points on the details.
Tom Riley B- : Tom is all over the map on this. Lots of useful tidbits thrown out but no clear overall answer. On the flip side, his various points do show a good understanding of the tread-offs
Eric Rutherford A- : Really good strong answer about why we should not do this. Followed by a general vague comment that the city should get it's electricity from renewable sources.
Rob Smoke D : A clear answer that we should not do this but then promotes homes built off the grid. That is the most expensive method of power production as it requires both the friendly solar system and then a gas generator for evenings, cloudy days, etc. And those small generators are horribly inefficient compared to the giant ones Xcel uses.
Ken Wilson C- : Ok, Ken is up for whichever way lets us buy more renewable energy. As Ken points out, he's an engineer and so like Macon should understand this better. Only a C (instead of an F) because he doesn't say as many dumb things as Macon and does list some of the major issues of taking over the system.
Conclusion: And based on what I read from the candidates, my very strong inclination now is - don't do it. Very detailed compelling specifics from a number of the candidates on why this would be a bad idea.
Macon and/or Ken: You guys are both very smart, and very knowledgable on this subject. If I missed something on why your proposal would not be a total clusterfuck, please do post a comment here as to why.
Update: To reply to Liberal Libertarian's comment, you are correct that electrons don't know how they are charged (generated is a misnomer). However, no matter how they are generated, they have to then be run over transmission lines from the power plant (say a windmill) to the use point (say your house). Transmission lines have a finite capacity and the U.S. power grid runs close to capacity during peak usage.
So bringing in substantial amounts of power from elsewhere and having the power generated from the local coal plant run pushed out elsewhere would each require additional transmission lines. And as you said, the electrons don't know where we came from so we would build all these extra lines to get identical electrons.
