By Glenn Fieldman
Governor Polis has sometimes wobbled on implementing the all-important (and state-mandated) reduction of Colorado’s climate emissions to net-zero by 2050. So we are very pleased that he’s come out swinging against Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s order to repair and restart the ailing, expensive-to-operate Craig Unit 1 plant, which was supposed to stop operating December 31. Wright’s order is the latest in a series of such mandates to continue operating, or even re-start, coal-fired power plants in several states, including Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Washington. These obsolete “dinosaur” power generators are, climate-wise, the very worst way to generate electricity, and subject their host and neighboring communities to health-destroying co-pollutants. As ice shelves in Antarctica near collapse, as vital ocean circulation patterns are disrupted, as much of the western US endures yet another cruel drought, nothing is more important than putting the dinosaur plants to bed. The governor was unsparing in his criticism of Wright’s order, saying that the plant is “broken” and “not needed.” He pointed out that repairing it will cost ratepayers millions of dollars, not to mention the additional millions it will cost to operate.
Plans to close Craig Unit 1, including $70 million in “just transition” provisions for the plant’s employees and to replace its tax revenue, have been in the works for years. While the state’s climate goals are one reason, another is simple economics: coal plants like this one are more expensive to operate than renewable sources like wind and solar plus battery storage, even when they are running smoothly. But they are also notoriously and expensively unreliable as they age; Craig Unit 1 is 45 years old. On top of that, the mines that have supplied Unit 1’s coal are closing, so the order to repair and restart may require plant operators to find a different, and potentially more expensive, source of coal.
Secretary Wright says that the dirty electricity from coal-fired plants is needed to meet “energy emergencies” in the several states affected, but Colorado authorities from Governor Polis on down have said there’s no such thing. (Other states have similarly resisted re-start orders, saying that energy emergencies don’t exist in their states.) Rather, this whole series of re-start orders from the federal government is likely motivated by a different type of emergency altogether; that is, the “emergency” of falling coal company profits, which have resulted in several bankruptcies. The Trump administration has embraced dirty fossil energy as the centerpiece of its energy policy, erecting all kinds of barriers to renewables and championing its fossil fuel buddies at every opportunity. It is now extending that favoritism, apparently, to foreign policy as well.
Unfortunately, the federal order to re-start the Craig plant is likely not the last such order to affect Colorado. Pueblo county commissioners and Congressman Jeff Hurd wrote to Wright last fall asking him to require the coal-fired Comanche plants—also scheduled for closure—to continue to operate. Three Colorado legislators (Senators Snyder and Exum; Representative Paschal) are expected to introduce a bill this session to keep Colorado Springs’s Nixon coal-fired plant going. And in the first week of this new year, Energy Secretary Wright rejected the state’s haze-reduction plan, saying that coal plant closures were not needed and the state must go back to the drawing board. In short, regulatory chaos is in store.
These additional attempts to force Coloradans to accept, and pay through the nose for, dirty coal-fired electricity, will force Governor Polis to confront the Trump administration again to try to keep Colorado on its path toward a just transition from fossil fuels. Governor Polis has earned our gratitude for stepping up to the plate and lambasting the feds for requiring Craig Unit 1 to keep operating. It’s likely that he will need to step up again and again. We are counting on him.
To thank the governor for his stand against reopening Craig Unit 1, and to encourage him to show similar spine in the face of further challenges to climate sanity, you can contact his office at https://governorsoffice.colorado.gov/governor/contact-us.
About the author: Glenn Fieldman earned her PhD from the Graduate School of International Studies (now the Korbel School) at the University of Denver in 1990. Now an Emerita Associate Professor of Environmental Studies (San Francisco State University) she enjoys spending some of her spare time being a thorn in the side of authorities who aren’t doing the right thing.