As of writing, the Tri-State Generation and Transmission homepage has a total of eight wind turbines on it; a curious number considering it is eight more than they have on their entire grid. This seems an oddity considering the tremendous wind energy resource within their sprawling service territory. But this is most likely about to change, as Colorado's co-ops are now required to come up with 10% of their energy from renewable sources.
It is unfortunate that Tri-State has resisted developing their excellent wind resource for so long. Now that there is a real danger of another lapse in federal renewable energy tax credits, wind energy developers will not exactly be lining up at Tri-State's Westminster, Colorado headquarters.
Tri-State Generation and Transmission provides power to 44 co-ops spread across 250,000 square miles of Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming and New Mexico. Tri-State is itself a co-op (sort of). Maybe a better way of looking at the organization is that it is a co-op of co-ops; Tri-State is owned by the 44 co-ops it serves. And this institutional structure is not exactly conducive to change.
April 9, 2008
Greenwashing Your Electricity
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colorado,
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greenwashing,
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REA,
tri-state,
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April 1, 2008
Blognod: Mashing-Up the Coal Industry's PR Campaign
The folks over at desmogblog have put together a very cool cartographic mash-up of the coal industry's front group, Americans For Balanced Energy Choices', massive public relations campaign. The interactive Google Map is designed to highlight the nationwide campaign that has become an omnipresent part of this campaign season, as can be attested by the numerous presidential debates the organization has underwritten (debates which included nary a mention of global warming or climate change).
Emily Murgatroyd refers to the mash-up as a sort of 'geo-blog,'
"Designed to keep track of the PR, advertising and lobbying efforts being undertaken by "Americans for Balanced Energy Choices," (ABEC) as they spend a reported $40 million on behalf of the coal industry to sell the virtues of "clean coal" in the run-up to the 2008 Presidential election.The map is a work in progress and users are invited to add in their own ABEC stories and sitings. It should be interesting to see what the map ends up looking like.
March 25, 2008
The World According to the Blogosphere
This very interesting cartographic tool from L'Observatoire des Medias below creates flash cartograms that distorts the size of a particular size of a country based upon how much attention it received from various media outlets.
Fascinating stuff.
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blogging,
blogs,
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press,
social media,
web 2.0
February 16, 2008
Data: US Electricity Rates Vary. But, They're All going Up
The differences between what people pay for electricity across the country are substantial. But one thing that nearly ratepayer knows is that electricity rates are on the rise. The table below shows just how wide the disparity (source: JEA - the electric utility for Jacksonville, FL). There are certainly rates higher and lower than these, but this is only a survey and I do not know the methodology. What I find most striking is the high price of electricity in Alaska which is an indicator of the high price transmission. If there were more microgrids and distributed generation, Alaska would have cheaper rates. (Note: to determine the price per kilowatthour just move the decimal three places to the left - i.e. Fairbanks pays $0.178/kwh)
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February 13, 2008
Greening of the USA: An Ecopolitical Animation
(Click on image for animation) From the US Department of Energy's Wind Powering America Year End Wind Capacity maps of the U.S. from 1999-2007. Excellent visual representation of where wind energy is being developed, along with the rate and intensity of that development.
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maps,
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