CU study says Romney will be Pres
Oct 4th
Updated election forecasting model
still points to Romney win,
University of Colorado study says
still points to Romney win,
University of Colorado study says
An update to an election forecasting model announced by two University of Colorado professors in August continues to project that Mitt Romney will win the 2012 presidential election.
According to their updated analysis, Romney is projected to receive 330 of the total 538 Electoral College votes. President Barack Obama is expected to receive 208 votes — down five votes from their initial prediction — and short of the 270 needed to win.
The new forecast by political science professors Kenneth Bickers of CU-Boulder and Michael Berry of CU Denver is based on more recent economic data than their original Aug. 22 prediction. The model itself did not change.
“We continue to show that the economic conditions favor Romney even though many polls show the president in the lead,” Bickers said. “Other published models point to the same result, but they looked at the national popular vote, while we stress state-level economic data.”
While many election forecast models are based on the popular vote, the model developed by Bickers and Berry is based on the Electoral College and is the only one of its type to include more than one state-level measure of economic conditions. They included economic data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Their original prediction model was one of 13 published in August in PS: Political Science & Politics, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Political Science Association. The journal has published collections of presidential election models every four years since 1996, but this year the models showed the widest split in outcomes, Berry said. Five predicted an Obama win, five forecast a Romney win, and three rated the 2012 race as a toss-up.
The Bickers and Berry model includes both state and national unemployment figures as well as changes in real per capita income, among other factors. The new analysis includes unemployment rates from August rather than May, and changes in per capita income from the end of June rather than March. It is the last update they will release before the election.
Of the 13 battleground states identified in the model, the only one to change in the update was New Mexico — now seen as a narrow victory for Romney. The model foresees Romney carrying New Mexico, North Carolina, Virginia, Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida. Obama is predicted to win Michigan and Nevada.
In Colorado, which Obama won in 2008, the model predicts that Romney will receive 53.3 percent of the vote to Obama’s 46.7 percent, with only the two major parties considered.
While national polls continue to show the president in the lead, “the president seems to be reaching a ceiling at or below 50 percent in many of these states,” Bickers said. “Polls typically tighten up in October as people start paying attention and there are fewer undecided voters.”
The state-by-state economic data used in their model have been available since 1980. When these data were applied retroactively to each election year, the model correctly classifies all presidential election winners, including the two years when independent candidates ran strongly: 1980 and 1992. It also correctly estimates the outcome in 2000, when Al Gore won the popular vote but George W. Bush won the election through the Electoral College.
In addition to state and national unemployment rates, the authors analyzed changes in personal income from the time of the prior presidential election. Research shows that these two factors affect the major parties differently: Voters hold Democrats more responsible for unemployment rates, while Republicans are held more responsible for fluctuations in personal income.
Accordingly — and depending largely on which party is in the White House at the time — each factor can either help or hurt the major parties disproportionately.
In an examination of other factors, the authors found that none of the following had a statistically significant effect on whether a state ultimately went for a particular candidate: The location of a party’s national convention, the home state of the vice president or the partisanship of state governors.
The authors also provided caveats. Their model had an average error rate of five states and 28 Electoral College votes. Factors they said may affect their prediction include the timeframe of the economic data used in the study and that states very close to a 50-50 split may fall in an unexpected direction due to factors not included in the model.
“As scholars and pundits well know, each election has unique elements that could lead one or more states to behave in ways in a particular election that the model is unable to correctly predict,” they wrote.
All 13 election models can be viewed on the PS: Political Science & Politics website at http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=PSC.
CU to host workshop on student identity theft Oct. 10
Oct 4th
The University of Colorado Boulder will hold a student workshop with help from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation on the prevention of identity theft in the college-age population on Oct. 10.
The workshop, hosted by CU Money Sense, is open to all CU-Boulder students and will be held in University Memorial Center room 245 from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Students planning to attend should email CUmoneysense@colorado.edu.
Colorado consistently ranks in the top 15 states for identity theft and fraud, with several Colorado cities ranking in the top 10 cities in the nation, according to Erin Foster, communication specialist with CU Money Sense, CU-Boulder’s financial education program for students.
“Our guest speaker from CBI will talk about the real-life impact that identity theft can have on students’ lives,” said Foster. “We want to heighten student awareness about this issue.”
Hazel Heckers of CBI will discuss why students are particularly appealing to identity thieves and what they can do to protect themselves.
Other upcoming CU Money Sense events include:
- “Check Your Credit Report – Drop-in Help from CU Money Sense,” Wednesday, Oct. 17, noon. Email to make an appointment at CUmoneysense@colorado.edu.
- “Living Off-Campus – Everything First-timers Need to Know,” Jan. 24 (time and location to be determined).
- “How to Apply for Financial Aid” (time, date and location to be determined).
For more information about CU Money Sense visit http://bursar.colorado.edu/cumoneysense/.
Boulder completes project to modernize historic hydroelectric facility
Oct 4th
The City of Boulder recently completed a 2.5-year modernization project of its historic Boulder Canyon Hydroelectric (BCH) facility with the help of a $1.18 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Originally built in 1910, the BCH facility was in need of upgrading if it was to continue to be operable. Without a new turbine and generator, operation of the facility was expected to cease within five years or less.
“Hydropower resources are an important part of President Obama’s all-of-the-above energy strategy to develop all of America’s energy resources. The completion of this important water power project in Colorado demonstrates how investments in America’s clean energy economy are helping to create jobs, diversify America’s energy portfolio and strengthen American energy security,” said David Danielson, assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy at the U.S. Energy Department.
Boulder’s historic hydrppower plant
The BCH facility was originally built by the Central Colorado Power Company for the sole purpose of hydroelectric power production as part of the Boulder Canyon Hydroelectric System. The system began delivering water for Boulder’s municipal water supply in the 1950s. Over the years, the system was owned and operated by numerous companies, and in 2001, the City of Boulder purchased the system from Public Service Co. of Colorado and incorporated it into its hydroelectric program.
“The Boulder Canyon Hydro Facility is extremely unique due to its age, its history, and where and how it was constructed,” said Director of Public Works for Utilities Jeff Arthur. “The effort to upgrade the turbines was arduous and complex. Obviously, the city was concerned with continuing operations at the facility, increasing power generation, and improving safety, but equally as important, was preserving the historical significance of the plant itself. This is a facility the community should be proud to own.”
The modernization project included removing one of two pre-existing 10 megawatt turbine/generators and replacing it with a new five megawatt turbine/generator. The new five megawatt turbine/generator is more appropriately sized for the plant’s power generation and will generate up to 583,000,000 kilowatt hours of electricity during its 50-year lifespan. This will, in effect displace the need to burn more than 300,000 tons of coal (the amount needed in a traditional coal-fired plant to produce the same amount of energy). Despite its smaller size, it should also generate up to 30 percent more energy because it is more efficient. The pre-existing turbine/generators were more than 70 years old. One of the original turbine/generators failed in 2000 and was not repaired at that time, but it will remain on site for historical purposes.
Other improvements to the facility included enhanced lightning protection; removal and replacement of aging transformers and an old oil storage tank; upgraded wiring; installation of a state-of-the-art turbine isolation valve; and installing remote monitoring and operation equipment.
The total project cost was approximately $5.155 million and was funded by city water utility funds in addition to the ARRA grant. The ARRA funding was announced by the DOE in November 2009 when it awarded grants to seven different hydropower projects throughout the country.
Approximately 35,000 new work hours were created as a result of the project, or approximately seven full-time jobs. This number does not include the hours needed by subcontractors or the associated work hours created or preserved by using materials that are manufactured in the United States, as this project did.
“The city is grateful for the funding support we received from the Department of Energy,” said City Manager Jane Brautigam. “Without that support, completing this complex project would have been difficult, if not impossible. As with most of our capital projects, Boulder places a high level of importance on leveraging local funds with other funding sources so that we can make improvements that appeal to the greater good of the community. We are all proud of this project and expect to see this facility continue its important role of providing our community with clean energy well into the future.”
Boulder’s Hydro Program
Beginning in the early 1980s, Boulder recognized the potential for hydroelectric energy generation within its water system and began developing facilities to produce electricity as a by-product of its water utility operations. Today, Boulder owns and operates eight hydroelectric facilities. These hydroelectric plants produce environmentally friendly hydroelectricity by making use of pressure developed in the water supply pipelines due to the large elevation drop between the city’s water sources in the mountains and delivery points on the plains. This pressure must be reduced to treat and deliver the water and would otherwise be wasted through pressure-reducing valves. Revenue from the sale of the electricity produced by the hydro plants allows the city to maintain lower water rates for its customers.
By the end of 2011, the city had generated approximately 612,531,577 kilowatt hours (kwh) of electricity since its first hydroelectric project began operation in 1985. Sale of this power has produced approximately $27,095,110 of revenue and has also provided environmental benefits by displacing the need to burn approximately 306,266 tons of coal, preventing the greenhouse gas emissions that would have resulted from traditional coal-fired power generation facilities.
The BCH facility is located on Boulder Creek west of the city. The plant’s power is generated using water diverted at Barker Reservoir that is transported approximately 11.5 miles in the Barker Gravity Pipeline and experiences a 1,800-foot elevation drop to the BCH building.
