COLORADO SPRINGS – Colorado’s Proposition 112, that would have required 2,500 foot buffers between new oil and gas drilling sites and occupied buildings such as homes and schools, failed last week in the state’s general election. Industry lobbyists and campaigners spent $30 million arguing that the grassroots ballot measure threatened to significantly limit the extraction…
COLORADO SPRINGS — America runs on electricity. It powers our phones, turns the gears in our machines, and keeps our homes cool in sweltering heat. The United States consumes around 18 percent of the world’s energy supply, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Only 17 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources.…
COLORADO SPRINGS – Nearly the center of the country sits Colorado Springs, a city grappling with the same energy debate the whole country faces. For some Americans, coal symbolizes the country’s position as a global industry powerhouse. For others, coal represents decades of irresponsible energy consumption and pollution that has poisoned the environment. Colorado Springs…
SUMMITVILLE MINE — At the top of a snowy peak in the middle of the San Juan Mountain Range in Rio Grande county Colorado sit piles of toxic orange sludge covered in fresh white snow. The sludge, dirt, and heavy metals removed from the creek water has been moved here as part of a United…
WELD COUNTY – Scattered brick houses sit amid tidy farm fields in politically-conservative Weld County, the heart of Colorado’s oil and gas drilling boom. Here, fossil fuel companies regularly tout their adherence to golden rule principles – treating your neighbor as you would want to be treated. The companies claim they want to be good…
COLORADO SPRINGS – A large, blue generator sits in the middle of an empty industrial floor. The side is adorned with a faded Colorado Springs Utilities sign. The 297,000 horsepower General Electric turbine emits a constant roar, bouncing sound off a maze of pipes and echoing of the high cement ceiling. While the generator room…
ERIE- Erie resident Amanda Harper stands by the road in front of her house, the sun sinking towards the Rockies, wondering whether voters will help her pass a statewide set back rule on oil and gas next week Her dog circles around her nudging a dirt caked ball. She throws the ball and the dog…
ERIE — Across the plains of Weld County, Colorado, metal towers splinter the blue skyline: oil rigs in every direction. One sits next to a high school in Erie. Another operates in a green public park where children shoot down playground slides. Others extract oil and gas within a few hundred feet of homes. They…
COLORADO SPRINGS — Colorado Springs Utilities officials are embarking on major shifts in the way they are producing electricity for a growing city. With the planned closing of the coal-fired Martin Drake Power Station by 2035, and a wide public backlash to coal, utility officials say they are looking towards renewables. “But we will never…
COLORADO SPRINGS—Colorado Springs Utilities electricity providers still rely largely on coal but say they increasingly will rely on natural gas and solar. “We’re not all the media portrays us to be,” public relations chief Amy Trinidad said during a recent visit. The latest efforts are focused on implementing more solar panels. Solar energy currently costs twice as much per megawatt…
