Q: Why are customer disconnects due to delinquent utility-bill payments on the rise in Colorado and nationwide?
A: It’s a symptom of a much more serious under-lying problem with the economy. We’re in a fragile economy with regard to people losing their jobs while facing higher bills — food bills, gasoline and increasingly utility bills because of natural-gas prices.
Q: How bad is the problem for IREA customers?
A: It’s the worst that we have seen ever. In the last two years, we’ ve seen more bankruptcies than we’d seen in the previous 13 years. We understand that the natural-gas prices are going to continue to rise, so we know that our automatic flow-through of power costs is going to continue to increase.
I’m very concerned when on top of all these problems, they start talking about the possibility of a carbon tax or cap-and-trade program. Even the governor’s goal of 20 percent reduction of CO2 by 2020, that’s going to have impacts on families and on the economy.
Q: Has IREA’s growth slowed amid the sluggish economy?
A: Six years ago when we hit our peak, we connected about 9,000 customers. An average year for us would be right about 4,000 to 5,000 new customers. This year, we’ll be lucky if we connect 1,500. It’s primarily because of the housing market. We have nobody really developing land. There’s hardly anything going on.
Q: Which direction do you think the country should go in terms of power generation amid growing concerns over carbon dioxide emissions?
A: We need to use the existing sources of energy that we have, i.e. we need to continue to use coal. Everybody is saying, ‘Well, we can get off of fossil fuel by going to wind and solar.’ What they forget is that you need to back up wind and solar because of the intermittent nature.
On wind, which is predominantly what’s going on, you can’t back it up with a coal-fired plant because when wind goes down, you need to bring up another generation source real fast, and you only can do that with natural gas.
What happens is, we bring in more renewables, we bring in more gas plants, and the more demand that we’ve got on natural gas, the higher the price goes. So it’s almost a death spiral with regard to the costs.
At some point, whether it’s 500 years from now, 1,000 years from now or 50 years from now, we are not going to use fossil fuels. We will have no fossil fuels. So we’re going to end up having to rely on the sun and wind. Wind and solar are great if you can store this stuff. I would rather spend the money on research and development.
Q: What are your views on nuclear power?
A: You need to take a look at nuclear. I understand people have a problem with nuclear, but if you really believe that CO2 is the biggest problem this nation is faced with, then go to nuclear.
We currently have 94 nuclear plants in the United States. We’ve never lost a life in any one of those plants. You need to look at which is the lesser of the two evils. And in the case of nuclear, it is safe. You’ve got foreign countries that get a substantial portion of their energy from nuclear.
Q: What do you think of T. Boone Pickens’ energy plan, which calls for a substantial ramp-up in the production of wind farms to replace natural gas as a primary power generation source, and using natural gas as a transportation fuel?
A: His problem is that, as smart as the guy is supposed to be, I don’t understand when he says we ought to stop using natural gas for generation and use wind. Doesn’t he understand that you need to back that up with a gas-fired plant? That’s one of the fallacies he has.
The other fallacy is that wind farms usually are in areas that aren’t anywhere near a population center or near the grid, so you need to build significant, costly transmission to get that wind into the system.
The problem also is when I build a transmission line, I’m going to load that line up to 90 to 95 percent. When you’re building a line strictly to bring in wind, it’s only being utilized 25 to 30 percent of the time, possibly up to 40 percent. His plan from the electric end of it is just not going to work.
Edited for length and clarity from an interview by staff writer Andy Vuong.
