Steve Pomerance

Building the U.S. 36 HOV lane is important, but the privatization approach is a huge mistake. CDOT is setting up a no-win situation: the goals of private business are to maximize revenues (from tolls); to minimize costs (on snow removal and maintenance); to limit risk (by financing its investment by selling bonds, and thus reduce its exposure); and to avoid downsides (by eliminating free HOV2, and obstructing innovation that might reduce toll revenues). The public’s goals are exactly the opposite. This arrangement is nothing like a multi-year lease for a restaurant, where the terms are pretty standard, good deals can be struck because competition is strong, and the leased space is not a critical public asset. This is a one-time 50-year no-exit monopoly on essential infrastructure. Worse, the concessionaire is collecting tolls on one lane but doing the maintenance on all lanes, creating an inherent conflict. With a 600-page Concession Agreement plus numerous side agreements (guarant...

In a number of states, the incumbent utilities are challenging the “net metering” that makes rooftop solar attractive to homeowners and businesses. A photovoltaic solar system generates energy when the sun is shining, but the owner may not consume all these kilowatt-hours as they are generated. So the excess energy goes onto the local circuit and is used by other buildings that don’t have solar. Net metering allows the owner to take credit for this energy by subtracting it from their total energy consumption, even thought it occurs at different times. The owner pays only for electricity used in excess of what is generated. Remember that vertically-integrated investor owned utilities are not like regular businesses. They make money by investing their capital in power plants, transmission lines, etc. and receiving an almost-guaranteed return (Xcel/PSCo’s is 10-plus percent.) They make additional profits on energy sales into the spot market. These two reward structures incent them to ...

This column was stimulated by a recent city of Boulder newspaper ad. It said, “Now Showing on Boulder’s Channel 8 — Is Building in Boulder Over?” The ad goes on to discuss Longs Gardens, a 25-acre parcel of agricultural land near Broadway and Iris Avenue, and asks whether this site is appropriate for “the ‘right kind of development’ that is not car dependent.” The show itself was basically a discussion about some of the more recent iterations of “new urbanism” (dense, mixed use areas that in theory promote alternatives to driving) versus the value of green space and urban agriculture (including its value to children as a learning experience). I found the presentations, which involved a sitting council member and a member of the Transportation Advisory Board, rather troubling. First, neither participant provided any context. Discussions about growth in Boulder need to start with the numbers: Under its current zoning, Boulder has the potential to add something like 60,000 more jobs t...

The Colorado state constitution gives cities the absolute right to create their own electric utilities. We now have had positive votes in three elections — replacement of the franchise fee in 2010, conditional authorization to create the muni and provisions for funding the process in 2011, and this year when Xcel, through surrogates, put its own item on the ballot. The next steps are negotiations and court proceedings over the price for the distribution system and how the parts will be separated between the two utilities. And there will be proceedings at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission over whether Boulder’s departure will “strand” any of Xcel’s generation facilities. The roots of this struggle go back about a century. Very briefly, to eliminate multiple sets of wires being run down streets and the resulting competition that dampened profits, both governments and electric companies opted for regulated monopoly status. The regulators were supposed to design rules that creat...

Congratulations to Mary Young, Matt Appelbaum, Sam Weaver, Andrew Shoemaker and Macon Cowles for their election to the Boulder City Council. Mary, Sam and Andrew, the three new members, all have served on the city planning board, so have a good start on the steep learning curve that occurs when new council members are faced with the myriad of issues that council deals with. Thanks to all the citizens who worked hard to support and oppose the various ballot issues. Participation is what makes democracy work, and the high level of involvement by Boulder citizens is what will keep Boulder such a great place. I especially appreciate the people at New Era Colorado, who did such a spectacular job of involving younger voters in the No on 310 campaign. For the older folks like me, it is heartening to see this level of engagement. It makes me hopeful that there will be people around to keep Boulder’s activist politics alive and well. The defeat of Ballot Question 310 by more than a 2 to...

A few months ago, I discussed “Disruptive Challenges,” a paper published by the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), the research arm of a large group of investor-owned utilities. The paper accurately describes renewable energy as potentially disrupting the business model used by these utilities to extract high profits with little risk. Disruption is now manifesting in Europe, where the growth of renewables has been extremely rapid. Apparently the initial subsidies led to lots of installations, which reduced overall costs, which then allowed subsidies to be reduced. According to a recent article in The Economist entitled “How to lose a half a trillion euros,” market valuation of European utilities has dropped by over half since 2008. One major factor is the inability of their coal-powered generation plants to integrate with the variable output of renewables. Because the Europeans require utilities to accept all the renewable energy generated, these slow-ramping plants are becoming fo...

Voters will face numerous ballot items, a slate of new council candidates, and an initiated charter amendment, Ballot Question 310, aka the “Xcel Profit Protection Plan.” The big tax issues are quite complicated. Ballot Question 2C extends the existing 0.33 percent sales tax for open space that expires in 2018, but converts it into a 0.22 percent tax for open space that would drop to 0.10 percent in 2035, with the remaining 0.11 percent through 2035 and 0.23 percent thereafter going to the general fund. Both of these would be permanent taxes thereafter. Ballot Issue 2B would increase sales taxes by an additional 0.15 percent from 2014 through 2019 to pay for transportation maintenance, transit, etc. Ballot Question 2D would convert the other temporary 0.15 percent open space tax that expires in 2019 to fund transportation infrastructure from then through 2029 and then be an undedicated tax through 2039. You might wonder why the tax extension for open space is on the ballot now,...

Last Friday, after we checked for flood damage, I emailed pictures of the flood to my brother, who was at a National Academy of Science workshop in Maryland. The scientists there were discussing the effects of the loss of arctic sea ice on the exact type of weather patterns that we were experiencing. In brief, the loss of ice cover has allowed more heat to be absorbed, reducing the temperature differential between the arctic and temperate latitudes. This has led to “blocking” of the jet stream, creating stalled weather patterns like the week of rain we experienced. And we can expect more extended periods of rain, drought, etc. in the future. In the vein of not letting a crisis go to waste, and as I suggested to the city manager last week, Boulder should hold neighborhood and area meetings to do a retrospective on Boulder’s flood preparations. When I was on the council, we put in place an extensive program to improve the carrying capacity of our floodways and remove a number of at-r...

A group of citizens called East Boulder County United has put what they are calling the Community Bill of Rights on the November ballot in Lafayette. Although this charter amendment focuses on limiting fracking in Lafayette, the implications are potentially game-changing in how we view the rights of people versus the rights of corporations. As you might expect, this threat to corporate profits has not gone unnoticed, and the Colorado Oil and Gas Association is pulling out all the stops to prevent its passage. Their tactics will be familiar to many readers. For example, according to Cliff Willmeng, spokesperson for EBCU, apparently COGA had someone register to vote and then file a complaint against the amendment a day later. The complaint was quashed by the city clerk, so then came the inevitable innuendos. As noted in this week’s Daily Camera, COGA implied that existing gas supplies to Lafayette might be affected, presumably referencing the language in paragraph i-3 in the amendmen...

Both of the announced candidates to replace term-limited State Rep. Claire Levy have asked me what I thought were the pressing state issues. It’s always nice to be asked for one’s opinion, but the more I thought about it, the longer the list has become. Here’s an abbreviated version: Roads and Schools – The proposed 0.7-cent state sales tax for transportation is exactly the wrong way to go. The legislature needs to impose statewide impact fees on new development to fund all new capacity needs, whether roads or transit. For the small remaining deficit, which is mostly maintenance costs, do some form of user fee (gas tax and/or VMT tax), as it is the most equitable and efficient. The proposed statewide school tax increase only addresses operating costs. So put impact fees in place to raise the money to build the new schools for the millions of additional residents expected over the next decades; that way existing residents don’t have to pay over and over. And get rid of the 2001 capi...