Xcel Energy is positioning itself as a national leader among utilities in calling for action on greenhouse-gas emissions and global warming.
Xcel is backing draft legislation in Congress that would require electric utilities to acquire 20 percent of their power from nonpolluting sources by 2025.
The proposal would have utilities use a combination of renewable energy, clean coal-burning technologies, nuclear power and conservation to achieve reductions in carbon emissions. Many scientists say those emissions are a primary contributor to global warming.
Environmental groups are divided on the plan. They salute Xcel’s initiative and leadership but object to elements of the draft legislation that would strip state and federal governments from regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant.
“I do believe Xcel is changing its tune,” said Matt Baker, director of the advocacy group Environment Colorado. “This is not the same Xcel we’ve been fighting the past decade over virtually every environmental issue.
“It’s extremely significant that the CEO of one of the nation’s largest utilities is saying that we need a plan on carbon.”
Xcel Energy chief executive Dick Kelly said the proposal signals the utility’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions as a way to limit global warming.
“My personal philosophy is we’re done discussing it. We need to move to action,” Kelly told The Denver Post in an interview at Xcel’s regional headquarters in Denver.
The Xcel initiative occurs during an unprecedented boom in development of coal-fired power plants. Power generators are planning 153 new coal plants in the next quarter century. Most propose to use conventional technology that allows carbon dioxide to escape into the atmosphere.
An exception is Xcel’s proposal for a Colorado plant that would convert coal to a gas. If approved, construction would start in 2009 and allow the utility to capture the produced carbon and inject it into spent mines and wells.
“Xcel clearly is pushing faster than many other utilities are” on environmental initiatives, said Ron Binz, a Denver-based utility consultant. “Their significant reliance on wind energy in Colorado is evidence of their commitment.”
Minneapolis-based Xcel is Colorado’s largest power provider, serving 1.5 million gas and electric customers. The utility is the nation’s largest purchaser of wind power, according to the American Wind Energy Association. It also operates two nuclear power plants in Minnesota.
Because of its wind, nuclear and hydropower facilities, Xcel would be well-positioned to meet the standards under the draft legislation proposed by Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn.
The legislation would require utilities to generate up to 10 percent of their power from sources that don’t emit carbon by 2020, increasing to 20 percent by 2025. Utilities would receive carbon- offset credits for renewables such as wind and solar power, coal-gasification plants, nuclear power and programs that encourage efficiency and conservation by consumers.
The Xcel-backed plan differs from a number of other proposals calling for mandatory caps or a carbon tax proposal by the National Commission on Energy Policy, a plan supported by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M.
“Technology fixes this problem, not a tax,” Kelly said. “You get more carbon reduction at less cost by going through the technology side.”
Xcel declined to detail that research.
Baker, of Environment Colorado, said he sees merit in the proposal from Xcel and Coleman, although he’s concerned about provisions that would eliminate state regulation of carbon dioxide and that specify that carbon dioxide would not be considered a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act.
Those provisions make the proposal dangerous because states would be unable to regulate carbon emissions from vehicles and power plants, said Monique Sullivan, a Minnesota organizer for U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a consumer-advocacy organization.
“It’s great that Xcel is out there, but we really need to examine the policies they’re looking at,” she said. “There’s a difference between saying we need to limit greenhouse-gas emissions and finding the appropriate ways to do that.”
Staff writer Steve Raabe can be reached at 303-954-1948 or sraabe@denverpost.com.
