Solar arrays are rapidly covering Colorado rooftops, but a battle over their future is looming at the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.

Xcel Energy, which runs the state’s largest rooftop solar program, has suggested deep cuts in the incentives it offers for solar in a filing to the utilities commission.

The commission is slated to have its first meeting on Xcel’s proposed renewable-energy plan Wednesday.

‘This is a an existential struggle,’ said Blake Jones, president of Boulder-based installer Namaste Solar.

‘The utility industry sees rooftop solar as a threat to its business model,’ Jones said. ‘For the solar industry in Colorado, it is a question of survival.’

Xcel sees it differently.

The
Blog: The Balance Sheet

The Denver Post’s reporters and editors offer news, analysis and commentary on the latest business, real estate, tourism, gambling and technology news in Colorado.
problem, said David Eves, chief executive officer of Xcel’s Colorado subsidiary, is that the benefits of rooftop solar do not cover the program’s costs.

‘This is not about putting the brakes on solar,’ Eves said. ‘It’s about having an honest discussion about costs and benefits.’

If changes aren’t made, however, Xcel said it wants to cut back its Solar Reward program to 6 megawatts of new solar arrays from a […]

No Comments

Images of tech entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs are continually thrown at us by politicians, economists, and the media. The message is that innovation is best left in the hands of these individuals and the wider private sector, and that the state-bureaucratic and sluggish-should keep out. A telling 2012 article in the Economist claimed that, to be innovative, governments must ‘stick to the basics’ such as spending on infrastructure, education, and skills, leaving the rest to the revolutionary garage tinkerers.

Yet it is ideology, not evidence, that fuels this image. A quick look at the pioneering technologies of the past century points to the state, not the private sector, as the most decisive player in the game.

Whether an innovation will be a success is uncertain, and it can take longer than traditional banks or venture capitalists are willing to wait. In countries such as the United States, China, Singapore, and Denmark, the state has provided the kind of patient and long-term finance new technologies need to get off the ground. Investments of this kind have often been driven by big missions, from putting a human on the moon to solving climate change. This has required not only funding […]

No Comments

The cancer researchers Glenn Begley and Lee Ellis made a rather remarkable claim last year. In a commentary that analyzed the dearth of efficacious novel cancer therapies, they revealed that scientists at the biotechnology company Amgen were unable to replicate the vast majority of published pre-clinical research studies. Only 6 out of 53 landmark cancer studies could be replicated, a dismal success rate of 11%! The Amgen researchers had deliberately chosen highly innovative cancer research papers, hoping that these would form the scientific basis for future cancer therapies that they could develop. It should not come as a surprise that progress in developing new cancer treatments is so sluggish. New clinical treatments are often based on innovative scientific concepts derived from pre-clinical laboratory research. However, if the pre-clinical scientific experiments cannot be replicated, it would be folly to expect that clinical treatments based on these questionable scientific concepts would succeed.

Reproducibility of research findings is the cornerstone of science. Peer-reviewed scientific journals generally require that scientists conduct multiple repeat experiments and report the variability of their findings before publishing them. However, it is not uncommon for researchers to successfully repeat experiments and publish a paper, only to learn that colleagues at […]

No Comments

There’s been a sharp spike in radiation levels measured in the pipes and containers holding water at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan.

But the company in charge of cleaning it up says that only a single drop of the highly contaminated water escaped the holding tanks.

Tokyo Electric Power Company said it is confident it can provide safety for workers dealing with the problem.

‘We will find out the cause of this issue and make proper counter measures immediately, and continue to make every effort to secure safety of workers,’ the company said in a statement released Sunday.

TEPCO found high radiation readings at the contaminated water storage tanks and pipe Saturday. The four locations are the bottom of three tanks and a pipe connecting tanks in separate area.

The highest reading as 1800 millisieverts per hour at the bottom fringe of the tank. 220 and 70 mSv were measured at the bottom of other two tanks. And TEPCO said they found a dried stain under the pipe with 230 mSv/h radiation measurement.

One drop of liquid fell when a staff member pressed on insulation material around the pipe. But TEPCO said no contaminated water leak is expected as there were no change […]

No Comments

Giant bank holding companies now own airports, toll roads, and ports; control power plants; and store and hoard vast quantities of commodities of all sorts. They are systematically buying up or gaining control of the essential lifelines of the economy. How have they pulled this off, and where have they gotten the money?

In a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke dated June 27, 2013, US Representative Alan Grayson and three co-signers expressed concern about the expansion of large banks into what have traditionally been non-financial commercial spheres. Specifically:

[W]e are concerned about how large banks have recently expanded their businesses into such fields as electric power production, oil refining and distribution, owning and operating of public assets such as ports and airports, and even uranium mining.

After listing some disturbing examples, they observed:

According to legal scholar Saule Omarova, over the past five years, there has been a ‘quiet transformation of U.S. financial holding companies.

No Comments