Complex environmental problems that take decades to solve — there’s a lot of ’em!
Two oldies but goodies came to mind from email blasts this week: ozone and “forever chemicals.”
Colorado issued three ozone alerts in the past four days. It’s beginning to seem like we can count on an ozone health alert anytime Front Range temperatures rise above 75 degrees. We’ll continue reporting on state efforts to control this intractable challenge, throughout the summer.
DIA, meanwhile, is making some progress ending the PFAS “forever chemicals” era that has contaminated so many Front Range water sources. Firefighting foam built on the slippery waterproofing chemicals has leaked off airport runways and firefighting training stations for decades, polluting local surface and groundwater.
DIA announced this week it has now replaced all the old PFAS foam with safer alternatives, and finished scouring out holding tanks to remove “98%” of PFAS-laden residue. That’s a good sign. Still, my editors and I wondered a couple of things: What happens to the “forever” cleanup residue, now polluting new holding tanks and waste streams? Does it get incinerated? Solidified into sludge and buried in landfills? We’ll be asking DIA that later this week.
Oh, and another thing — 98% clean? Must be truly impossible to get that last 2%. Forever is right.
Let’s continue on a brighter note: Today we’re discussing the once-intractable problem of burning fossil fuels for electricity. A new report makes it seem much more … tractable? Yes, it’s a word.
Surely if Kansas and Iowa can do it, we can, too.
Michael Booth
Reporter
TEMP CHECK
ENVIRONMENT
Actually, we’re No. 7 for renewable electricity
A pop-up map from Environment Colorado shows the current status of renewable electricity in each state, and how much it’s grown since 2015. Hover over your state here.“Great Plains wind is one of America’s great renewable energy sources.”
— Henry Stiles, Environment Colorado Research and Policy Center
183
Multiples of Colorado’s entire electricity need that could have been harnessed from solar and wind alone last year if technology was in place.
Coming in seventh out of 50, is that a standing ovation or a single slow clap? Or somewhere in between?
A muted victory, perhaps, as a new national ranking puts Colorado’s performance in switching to renewable, clean electricity at the seventh-best out of the 50 states.
“That puts it squarely in the leadership category,” said Henry Stiles, advocate with the Environment Colorado Research and Policy Center. The nonprofit group carried out Colorado research for a national report by the Environment America Research and Policy Center.
“That being said, given that in Colorado solar power alone could produce 183 times as much electricity as the state consumed in 2020, there’s still lots of room for renewable energy to grow,” Stiles acknowledged, in an email interview.
We have some more charts from the report below. The study adds up electricity generated by solar, wind and geothermal sources in each state, and compares how that has grown since 2015 as clean energy policies kicked in at the federal and state levels.
The report’s clever hover-over national map pops up Colorado with 43% of electricity needs generated by solar and wind in 2024, up from a mere 15% in 2015. That’s impressive growth, but you’ll notice some neighboring states, with perhaps a lesser reputation for environmental progressivism, are a healthier shade of red for renewables production.
Kansas generated 74% of its electricity needs with solar and wind in 2024. Iowa was at an astounding 83% last year.
“Great Plains wind is one of America’s great renewable energy sources,” Stiles said. “Kansas and Iowa started harnessing that resource more than a decade ago to produce pollution-free electricity and to this day, those states remain top leaders of wind energy production in America.”
Wind power in Iowa in 2024 produced enough electricity for more than 4 million homes, while wind in Kansas produced enough for 2.8 million homes. (Fun fact from a helpful editor: Kansas only has 1.2 million households! They’re winning!)
“Every state in America has enough renewable energy potential to meet its electricity demand in 2020, so lack of renewable energy resources isn’t the limiting factor,” Stiles said. “Generally, renewables have grown where supportive policies have encouraged them to thrive.”
What are those policies? Tune into ColoradoSun.com later this week for more details on the national study and what state policies help drive the transition to cleaner energy.
Section by Michael Booth | Reporter
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SUNFEST
Tell our audience about the lovely parting gifts
“We can grow crops, or we can grow houses.”
— Lower Ark Valley agriculture expert Michael Bartolo, as part of our Colorado SunFest water, growth and agriculture session
Do not tell the Accountz Reeceevable Krew but we have blown the budget on some great participation gifts for the bold Colorado SunFest attendees who step up for our recycling quiz show Friday at the University of Denver. If you fancy yourself part of a take-no-prisoners Komposting Krew who knows exactly how AAA batteries should be sorted, you could win a Starbucks gift card.
Our recycling and composting quiz, with backup answers provided by experts, is at 10 a.m. We’d love to see you there and have you step up to the microphone to take the environmental challenge. And bring your most obscure object of recycling wonder to stump our panel.
Save one of your afternoon sessions for our 1:15 p.m. roundtable on the future of water, agriculture, homebuilding and the rural way of life in Colorado.
Who deserves Colorado’s precious water more? Fourth and fifth generation farmers in historic Lower Arkansas Valley communities feeding a hungry nation? Or the 5.2 million urban residents of the Front Range? Vital Colorado agriculture uses 85% of the available water, yet 85% of the state’s population lives in cities. Explore this growing tension with the makers of an award-winning documentary about Pueblo farms and leading Colorado water and agriculture experts.
We provide hall passes to go see Temperature co-anchor John Ingold at 10 a.m., where he’ll be talking about the New Science of Happiness with Dr. June Gruber. You really can’t go wrong no matter which room you pick at Colorado SunFest — see you there.
Section by Michael Booth | Reporter
MORE ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH NEWS
Southern Utes unhappy about gasoline spill cleanup. Colorado health officials say they are working closely with a pipeline company to suck up 23,000 gallons of gasoline from a broken pipeline near Durango, but local tribal officials fear benzene is headed toward the Animas River, a few hundred feet down a mesa from the accident. Did a Weld County well blowout expose neighbors to benzene? An April well blowout sent water, petroleum and other material shooting across rural Colorado and the small town of Galeton, Mark Jaffe reports. Colorado State University researchers drove through the plume and recorded dangerous toxins, but state health officials say their measurements are different. Jeffco “clean iron” plant gets a go-ahead with $8 million from state. Electra, a Boulder-based startup, has a low-heat process to purify and process iron for steelmaking and other uses that would save huge amounts of energy from the traditional smelting furnace method. They will now build a bigger demonstration factory with the initial industrial green tax credits from Colorado. Trump administration ending “cost of carbon.” When issuing new environmental regulations, it’s been standard for decades to judge the benefits against a set per-ton cost to the environment of emitting more carbon. It’s how businesses and regulators decide whether new rules or equipment are “worth it” in the big picture. Trump will end that. — NYTCHART OF THE WEEK
EV purchases shot up from 2021 to 2023, possibly reaching a “point of no return” where carmakers will keep ramping up production. But Trump administration vows to cut electrification subsidies could challenge the curve.Today’s charts from the above-mentioned renewable energy report could wind up looking like the end of the beginning.
The first image reflects how EV sales shot up with the help of $7,500 federal subsidies during the Biden administration, frequently combined with major state incentives in early EV adopters like Colorado. Below, utility-scale battery arrays have come online to provide power backup for large wind and solar farms that allow the closures of dirty coal plants.
Those same subsidies, and state policies promoting clean electrification of the economy, are a big target for the second Trump administration and many Republicans in Congress.
If consumer and industry subsidies are indeed rolled back and/or clawed back, the next few years of these charts will shape into plateaus.
Battery storage took off sharply in recent years as utilities added backup power storage to solar arrays and homeowners took advantage of technology like Tesla power walls.Section by Michael Booth | Reporter
Hope to see you Friday at SunFest, fresh off a Nuggets series-evening win Thursday night (he said optimistically).
— Michael & John
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