Posts tagged greenhouse
Boulder’s energy future is brighter
Nov 6th
City outlines implications for possible creation of electric utility
While some votes remain to be counted tonight, ballot measure 2E appears headed for a significant victory with a competing ballot measure 310 poised for defeat.
The approval of measure 2E, pending final results, will give the city flexibility in moving forward with the initial 2011 voter-approved path toward exploring the creation of a local electric utility while also recognizing concerns about unforeseen costs and customer representation. Specifically, measure 2E puts a limit on the amount the city can pay to acquire the system and clarifies some out-of-city service issues. The ballot measure includes the following:
- Setting a limit of $214 million for acquisition of Xcel’s assets and stranded costs, if stranded costs are paid in one lump sum.
- Allowing out-of-city customers, if any are included, to serve on the advisory board of a potential local electric utility.
- Facilitating utility choice on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis to potential out-of-city customers.
- Requiring rates of out-of-city customers to be the same as those in the same class of in-city customers.
- Limiting brokerage fees associated with acquiring debt to industry standards.
These requirements are in addition to criteria passed by voters as part of the Charter in 2011. These are:
- Rates must be equal or less than those offered by Xcel Energy at the time of acquisition.
- The utility must have sufficient revenue to cover operating costs and debt, plus carry a reserve of 25 percent of the debt amount, referred to as “Debt Service Coverage Ratio.”
- Reliability must remain comparable to that being offered by Xcel Energy.
- There must be a plan to increase renewable energy in the supply.
- There must be a plan to decrease greenhouse gas emissions that result from a fossil-fuel based electricity supply.
The original 2011 voter-approved Charter language on municipalization can be found at –http://www.colocode.com/boulder2/charter_articleXIII.htm. The provisions in 2E will be added to the existing Charter requirements.
“We are pleased with the results of today’s election concerning the municipalization ballot items,” said Heather Bailey, executive director of energy strategy and electric utility development. “The additional requirements set by 2E will address concerns about the unknown amounts of acquisition and stranded costs associated with forming a local utility and help define the path the community would like us to take towards creating the electric utility of the future right here in Boulder.”
The next steps in the municipalization exploration study will focus on the negotiation and acquisition process associated with obtaining the infrastructure the city would need to operate a safe and reliable local electric utility.
All information related to Boulder’s Energy Future and the municipalization study is available atwww.BoulderEnergyFuture.com.
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CU study: Global warming no hoax in the Eastern Canadian Arctic
Oct 23rd
Average summer temperatures in the Eastern Canadian Arctic during the last 100 years are higher now than during any century in the past 44,000 years and perhaps as long ago as 120,000 years, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study.
The study is the first direct evidence the present warmth in the Eastern Canadian Arctic exceeds the peak warmth there in the Early Holocene, when the amount of the sun’s energy reaching the Northern Hemisphere in summer was roughly 9 percent greater than today, said CU-Boulder geological sciences Professor Gifford Miller, study leader. The Holocene is a geological epoch that began after Earth’s last glacial period ended roughly 11,700 years ago and which continues today.
Miller and his colleagues used dead moss clumps emerging from receding ice caps on Baffin Island as tiny clocks. At four different ice caps, radiocarbon dates show the mosses had not been exposed to the elements since at least 44,000 to 51,000 years ago.
Since radiocarbon dating is only accurate to about 50,000 years and because Earth’s geological record shows it was in a glaciation stage prior to that time, the indications are that Canadian Arctic temperatures today have not been matched or exceeded for roughly 120,000 years, Miller said.
“The key piece here is just how unprecedented the warming of Arctic Canada is,” said Miller, also a fellow at CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. “This study really says the warming we are seeing is outside any kind of known natural variability, and it has to be due to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”
A paper on the subject appeared online Oct. 23 in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal published by the American Geophysical Union. Co-authors include CU-Boulder Senior Research Associate Scott Lehman, former CU-Boulder doctoral student and now Prescott College Professor Kurt Refsnider, University of California Irvine researcher John Southon and University of Wisconsin, Madison Research Associate Yafang Zhong. The National Science Foundation provided the primary funding for the study.
Miller and his colleagues compiled the age distribution of 145 radiocarbon-dated plants in the highlands of Baffin Island that were exposed by ice recession during the year they were collected by the researchers. All samples collected were within 1 meter of the ice caps, which are generally receding by 2 to 3 meters a year. “The oldest radiocarbon dates were a total shock to me,” said Miller.
Located just east of Greenland, the 196,000-square-mile Baffin Island is the fifth largest island in the world. Most of it lies above the Arctic Circle. Many of the ice caps on the highlands of Baffin Island rest on relatively flat terrain, usually frozen to their beds. “Where the ice is cold and thin, it doesn’t flow, so the ancient landscape on which they formed is preserved pretty much intact,” said Miller.
To reconstruct the past climate of Baffin Island beyond the limit of radiocarbon dating, Miller and his team used data from ice cores previously retrieved by international teams from the nearby Greenland Ice Sheet.
The ice cores showed that the youngest time interval from which summer temperatures in the Arctic were plausibly as warm as today is about 120,000 years ago, near the end of the last interglacial period. “We suggest this is the most likely age of these samples,” said Miller.
The new study also showed summer temperatures cooled in the Canadian Arctic by about 5 degrees Fahrenheit from roughly 5,000 years ago to about 100 years ago – a period that included the Little Ice Age from 1275 to about 1900.
“Although the Arctic has been warming since about 1900, the most significant warming in the Baffin Island region didn’t really start until the 1970s,” said Miller. “And it is really in the past 20 years that the warming signal from that region has been just stunning. All of Baffin Island is melting, and we expect all of the ice caps to eventually disappear, even if there is no additional warming.”
Temperatures across the Arctic have been rising substantially in recent decades as a result of the buildup of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere. Studies by CU-Boulder researchers in Greenland indicate temperatures on the ice sheet have climbed 7 degrees Fahrenheit since 1991.
A 2012 study by Miller and colleagues using radiocarbon-dated mosses that emerged from under the Baffin Island ice caps and sediment cores from Iceland suggested that the trigger for the Little Ice Age was likely a combination of exploding tropical volcanoes – which ejected tiny aerosols that reflected sunlight back into space – and a decrease in solar radiation.
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Role of natural gas in municipal power generation to be examined
Oct 10th
Boulder to convene community working group on the future role of natural gas in local energy supply
The City of Boulder announced today that it will create a community working group of industry specialists and local stakeholders to explore concerns and opportunities related to the use of natural gas to generate electricity for the City of Boulder, should it decide to form a local electric utility. Natural gas will likely play a significant role in Boulder’s energy portfolio, whether the community continues to be served by Xcel Energy or by a municipal utility. The focus of the group’s work will be to examine issues and concerns related to fracking and methane releases and to explore current and possible industry best practices.
On Nov. 5, Boulder voters will be asked to weigh in on a ballot measure that would institute a five-year moratorium on fracking in Boulder and on Boulder-owned open space property. However, given the tremendous growth in natural gas production in Colorado, the current and future use of natural gas as an energy source for Boulder customers has raised concerns over fracking — a process that uses a pressurized water mixture to release oil or natural gas from deep underground.
In addition to discussing concerns over fracking, the community group will also discuss the issue of methane leakage. While it is widely accepted that burning natural gas emits significantly less carbon dioxide than burning coal, recent studies have found that using natural gas may actually release more greenhouse gases over its lifecycle. That’s because quantities of raw methane, a major component of natural gas, can escape into the atmosphere during natural gas extraction, production and distribution.
“If Boulder chooses to municipalize, before we commit to a particular energy portfolio, we want to address concerns around the use of natural gas supplied from fracking and how we can minimize the negative impacts through best practices or other means,” said Heather Bailey, executive director of energy strategy and electric utility development. “Natural gas is likely to be a necessary transition energy source as Boulder makes what we hope will be a dramatic shift away from coal and other fossil fuels toward renewable sources. Recognizing this, we have been working on what we can do as a municipal utility to influence the development of responsibly sourced gas that limits or eliminates the harmful impacts of fracking and methane release.”
Executive Director Bailey also commented that the city has a “unique opportunity” to benefit from a discussion with local experts on the feasibility of a future municipal utility to push aggressively towards responsible development of natural gas. Expertise from the University of Colorado, federal labs, as well as the numerous local companies and entrepreneurs developing leading-edge energy technologies could help Boulder in its work to curb climate change and support a robust clean energy market.
The city’s Energy Future team anticipates holding the first meeting of the natural gas community working group shortly after the Nov. 5 election. Members of the community, stakeholders and industry personnel who are interested in participating are encouraged to contact Heather Bailey at 303-441-1923 or baileyh@bouldercolorado.gov.
More information about the Energy Future project and associated municipalization exploration study is available at www.BoulderEnergyFuture.com.
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