Testimony on Monday to Colorado’s public utilities commissioners ended within two minutes of the allotted two hours. Rarely is testimony so punctual.

The video session was about Xcel Energy’s proposed electric resource plan. It’s sort of nicknamed the just transition ERP because Xcel is supposed to be studying how new generation might be possible in Pueblo and Hayden to benefit them as Xcel retires its coal-fired units in those two communities.

The commissioners had previously traveled to Pueblo on April 17 to hear testimony there.

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Key takeaways from the session?

• A few people still think that all the talk about climate change constitutes fear-mongering.
• Lots of people want it known that they oppose nuclear, even though it’s not on the table. It was mentioned 35 times during the two-hour session.
• As many people or more testified that the PUC commissioners should reject Xcel’s bid to build massive amounts of new natural gas generation as a replacement for the coal-fired generation. Gas plants were mentioned about 70 times.
• Data centers were mentioned 23 times. Several people advised the PUC commissioners to take a hard stand against Xcel building massive amounts of new generation from whatever source to meet the demand of data centers.

Along the way, I heard a few comments that intrigued me more than others. They mostly came from those already engaged in the PUC process. That began in mid-October with the filing by Xcel of its proposal to spend $14 billion to $15 billion on new generation to meet rapid growth in demand in the next five to six years, roughly two-thirds of it for data centers.

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At times, this electric resource plan has been called the “Pueblo Just Transition” plan, but the larger impact may actually be in Hayden and Routt County as well as nearby Craig (in Moffat County), where many of the coal miners and power plant workers live. The communities are smaller than Pueblo, the impact proportionately larger, as I pointed out in this piece from 2020.

I was unable to attend the Pueblo session. My contacts in Pueblo had expected a lot of speakers to turn out in support of a nuclear plant. Indeed, among the 50 to 60 who testified, a few called for a nuclear plant.

The transcript of the meeting comments at the PUC website contained comments of Eppie Griego, who said he helped build Comanche and was convinced that “wind and solar is not going to cut it.”

“We need energy infrastructure that replaces what is going away. Not just in power, but in people, paychecks, and purpose. That means giving Xcel the flexibility to bring in technologies that are ready now like natural gas and carbon capture and the options that are coming fast like advanced nuclear. Don’t close the door on those. We need every tool available.”

But Griego and a few other nuclear speakers were dwarfed in the volume of testimony by those who called for an investigation of an alternative idea, an energy park. Leading off the testimony for that idea was another native son, Miles Lucero, a Pueblo County commissioner.

“I believe the Pueblo Renewable Energy Park represents a practical near-term step for addressing our generation needs., It leverages resources we already have: solar, wind and battery storage, and can be deployed on the timeline that meets the urgency of the Comanche transition. I believe it is a credible part of the solution.”

The basic idea of the renewable energy park is to congregate renewables. Comanche is already an island amid solar panels, and it will be on a great electrical highway of wind energy, in particular, from the plains of eastern Colorado. The idea, as I understand it, is to emphasize energy storage (through hydrogen, I believe) and also draw energy-intensive industries to the park. That would, in theory, leave Pueblo relatively whole without adding new generation.

If still a fuzzy concept to me, the idea was further supported in the public testimony to the PUC commissioners on Monday.

The backstory: A committee appointed by Xcel Energy with a few select community leaders deliberated for seven sessions before issuing a report in early 2024 that recommended a nuclear plant as a suitable replacement for the tax base and jobs provided by the Comanche Generating Station.

A distant second in the report by Pueblo Innovative Energy Advisory Committee was the idea of a natural gas plant at Pueblo coupled with carbon capture and sequestration.

The executive summary said this: “After reviewing and studying the possible exciting new clean energy technologies that could be available by 2034, the Committee recommends that Xcel Energy consider constructing in Pueblo in the future advanced nuclear including small nuclear modules and or a new combined cycle gas plant with carbon capture. A new gas plant with carbon capture will not make Pueblo whole. It provides only 20 to 25 jobs with a salary range of $80,000 to $120,000 and tax payments of approximately $16.5 million a year. Of all of the technologies that we studied, only advanced nuclear generation will make Pueblo whole and also provide a path to prosperity. Advanced nuclear provides 200 to 300 jobs with a salary range of $60,000 to $200,000 and tax payments of $95.29 million a year.

Xcel does not propose nuclear — not now, at least. It did say that it could foresee nuclear energy becoming cost-effective by around 2035-2037. It operates two nuclear plants in Minnesota.

Last to testify at Monday’s video hearing was Laura Getts, who lives in Pueblo and has been a member of Pueblo energy groups. The Xcel committee, she said, “Does not speak for the entire community of Pueblo. That committee did not even include a representative from the City of Pueblo and did not allow for ample community wide discussion or appointment of a truly diverse set of stakeholders.”

But yes, she said, the loss of Comanche in 2030 and its taxes in 2040 ($31 million in property taxes) will pose a “real crisis for our community, our libraries, our school districts. It will be devastating to Pueblo.”

No silver bullet likely exists, she said, and Pueblo needs to be careful about thinking it has one.”Pueblo certainly has the reputation of being Pew-town, and we do not want anything to further reinforce this image,” she said.

What was she talking about? I grew up in Colorado, and I remember hearing vaguely about a place called Pee-u. the sound you make when you screw up your face in disgust. I consulted a couple of Pueblo natives, who said it was a reference to the sometimes smoky haze that hung over the town when the steel mill — then called CF&I or Colorado Fuel and Iron — used coal in the smelting process. In 1973, it began using electric-arc furnaces.

Also of note in the testimony were the comments of several people about whether Xcel should be required to contribute monetary payments to the local communities in Hayden — and Craig, too — as it has agreed to do in Pueblo. (And which Tri-State has agreed to do for Craig and Moffat County.)

The commissioners, said Craig Mayor Chris Nichols, should disregard Xcel’s argument that it should be shielded from providing Moffat County and Craig with just transition assistance. The commission should find that “Xcel is both statutorily and morally required to provide community assistance to our community based on its ownership interests in Craig Station and Hayden Station. Tri-State is not the sole owner at Craig Station.” He said Xcel should be required to provide total community assistance of $28.8 million.

Among the other comments I found most interesting all came from Boulder County residents (and, in full disclosure, people I have occasional conversations with).

Chris Hoffman — in addition to echoing Nichols’ statements about just transition payments to Craig and Hayden — urged the commissioners to “not allow Xcel to over-build for data centers.”

He also said this: “Please do not make large investments in transmission that may not withstand extreme weather, Local storage may be more expensive upfront, but will likely be the best long-term investment. Please do ensure that increased loads are shifted toward daytime use. Please do minimize the acquisition of new gas turbines. We already have over $1 billion in stranded coal assets. Let’s not allow the same thing to happen with gas.”

Leslie Glustrom, also of Boulder, may be without peer in her watch-dogging of Xcel. She owns stock in the company so that she can attend company meetings for investors from time to time. She has frequently filed in all manner of Xcel cases before the PUC. She thinks that Xcel gets away with far too much.

Glustrom’s testimony focused in part on who should bear the risks. “Xcel had $780.2 million in after-tax net income from Colorado (in 2024),” she told the PUC commissioners. “We don’t need to let them have $500 million to go out and buy a bunch of gas turbines that we shouldn’t be building and transformers. If they want to do that, they can take the risk if they’re going to earn over 9% on their equity. We should not also be putting the risk for this complicated supply chain situation on to customers.”

Data centers should bear the risks associated with the uncertainty of their projected demands, she said, not Xcel’s existing customers.

And she, too, supported the PUC requiring Xcel come up with just transition payments to Hayden and Craig. Whatever the final figure, it will be small potatoes in this big story.

Her parting message was delivered via in an analogy. “It’s a little bit like the medical profession, where you end up with a really complicated case coming in through the emergency room or whatever. But the doctors try to remember to do no harm. And I would ask in this case that you bring that same kind of thought process to this,” she said.

“Don’t overreach. We’ll have another ERP (electric resource plan) in just a couple years. So you don’t need to solve all those future problems right now.”

Eric Frankowski, who lives on the Boulder side of Longmont, also supported the request by Hayden and Routt County officials for $89 million in transition assistance, “which will provide a decade of support as they rebuild their post-coal economies.”

But he also objected to what he called Xcel’s proposal to have a $100 million” slush fund,” now expanded to $500 million, to be able to buy costly gas plant and other equipment in advance.

“These slush fund proposals completely negate the whole intent of the resource planning process and give Xcel the ability to do what it wants, charge customers for all of it without an ounce of risk to shareholders,” he said.

From Michigan, Scott Larson told commissioners he was planning to become a full-time Routt County resident after being a part-timer for 30 years. And he echoed an earlier speaker’s testimony about climate. “And to think that we as a human species can bring (the earth) to its knees in the course of 200 years of the Industrial Revolution, I think is a bit egotistical and reflecting self-importance.”

Larson, who identified himself as a physician, said his beliefs are based on objective evidence. “I understand logic and reason,” he said. But while supportive of renewable energy, “I just don’t want to not be able to heat my house when it doesn’t work. And I don’t want another example of Texas when people’s homes were destroyed because they couldn’t have a power grid that had backup.”

(Actually, he had the story in Texas about Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 almost entirely backward. Texas utilities had failed to winterize their natural gas plants. Or, as this story in the Texas Tribune summarized in this lead: “In the state’s power grid, electricity and natural gas are co-dependent. Here’s how the winter storm last year broke the system.” That’s not to say that there aren’t very good questions about those times when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun shines weakly. Tri-State Generation & Transmission Association resorted to burning oil to produce electricity.).

Later came another speaker from Routt County, John Spezia, a full-time resident for 52 years. He said solar panels on his house have provided most of his home’s electricity for the last 13 years. That includes air-source heat pumps, “which work really well in this climate.”

Spezia said he has a background in meteorology, including a master’s degree, and taught at Colorado Mountain College about climate change. “I used to teach both sides of climate change,” he said. “But after a number of years, I ran out of accurate, true data to suggest there was no climate change.”

“Many folks are talking about coal plants being stranded assets. Natural gas turbines will be the same way, and we’ll be paying for them for a long time. What we should focus on is batteries, wind, solar and geothermal. And what’s really nice about geothermal is that many of the skills that the employees at the power plant and at the mines use, we can use for geothermal.”