Coloradans vote to embrace alternative sources of energy

From the New York Times:

Coloradans Vote to Embrace Alternative Sources of Energy
By KIRK JOHNSON

FORT COLLINS, Colo. - Colorado utilities will have to sell a lot more electricity from wind power in years to come under a statewide ballot initiative approved by voters on Nov. 2, and if they want some pointers they might talk to Adam T. Kremers, a 19-year-old sophomore at Colorado State University here. He has been there and done that.

Mr. Kremers sold wind power to the occupants of individual dormitory rooms this fall, under an agreement between the university and the local utility that environmentalists describe as one of the first such programs in the nation.

(snip)

Colorado voters said much the same thing when they approved, over the vehement objections of most energy companies, a proposal mandating that 10 percent of the state's electricity must come from wind and solar power by 2015.

The law, Amendment 37, makes Colorado the 18th state with an environmentally friendly energy standard, but the first one to have bypassed the Legislature and put the rule into place through referendum. An energy bill similar to the one the voters approved was defeated by Colorado's Legislature three times in the last three years.

"Because it's a conservative Western state with a strong fossil-fuel industry, as well as the first one passed by a popular referendum, Colorado represents something of a breakthrough," said Alan Nogee, the energy program director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit research and advocacy group based in Cambridge, Mass.

(snip)

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/24/national/24energy.html

for tree hugging. Count on it.

"embracing". 90% will still be non-renewable. 10 years from now. How very radical...

Can't get past 10% until you get to 10%.

low our standards are. You can bet the Republicans will be wailing about how over-the-top this plan is. Back in the real world, we are likely to regret that we didn't do far more, by the time 2015 does roll around.

there is no way that a majority of people demanded renewable energy and voted for bush.
its just too much doublethink even for americans.