In Utah, the subject of global warming spurs heated debate. Our differing views, however, should not prevent us from uniting behind an important objective for Utah’s economic future.

Utah can and should be a leader in the new energy economy. We should leverage our natural resources and home-grown talent to take full advantage of exploding markets in renewable energy, clean technology, and next-generation fossil fuel technology.

No matter how the climate change debate turns out, the need for new energy sources isn’t going away.  The Energy Information Administration forecasts the worldwide demand for energy will increase by 44% by 2030. And the real driver of future energy demand is just starting to kick in. Almost six billion people reside in developing nations that are on a trajectory to increase their standard of living significantly, which means more cars, TVs, and computers.

Utah’s population and energy demand are also growing at a nation-leading rate. In recent regulatory filings, Utah utilities are projecting electricity demand will grow by over 1750 megawatts by 2016.

All this growth will strain the earth’s fossil fuel resources and lead to increasingly volatile energy prices. Clean technology, on the other hand, represents a trillion dollar economic opportunity to diversify our energy portfolio and ensure prosperity into the next century.  Nations from China to Germany have already begun aggressively investing in clean technology as a chance to improve their economies.

A recent Merrill Lynch Research Report highlighted the coming opportunity:

“History shows that technology revolutions occur about every 50 years.  We believe clean tech is at the beginning of a high-growth period much like computing was in the early 1970s.”

The flow of investment into clean technology has already started. Federal funding for renewable energy research has quadrupled since 2008.  And US venture capital investment in clean tech reached $6 billion in 2008.  That year, for example, Colorado benefited from $458 million in venture capital investment for clean tech.  Utah, by contrast, received only $20 million.

So far, Utah has had a modest role in the clean energy transformation.  One of the largest wind farms in the West recently started generating electricity in Milford. Provo’s Raser Technologies is one of the nation’s most active geo-thermal energy developers. Last year, the Utah legislature passed an aggressive Renewable Energy Development Incentive. Dozens of researchers, lead by the USTAR program, are innovating to solve future energy problems.

While these early success stories are encouraging, we cannot afford to be complacent or assume Utah will automatically benefit from new energy markets.

Utah’s economy has benefited in the past by embracing tech revolutions. Software, networking, digital imaging, medical devices, biotech, genetic diagnostics and e-commerce companies have created quality jobs and a powerful economic engine for our state.  It didn’t happen by accident.  The Utah Technology Council and many forward thinking elected leaders worked hard to post a big “welcome sign” on Utah for high tech and life science innovators.

A similar welcome sign, with tangible investment behind it, is needed to support the hundreds of Utah clean tech entrepreneurs now innovating technologies in solar, wind, biomass, energy efficiency, clean coal, geo thermal, and even hydrogen-based transportation fuels. Recently, the Utah Technology Council formed a new Clean Tech sector to represent this burgeoning industry.

The legislature can also help by passing legislation to even the playing field with neighboring states and take advantage of federal energy incentives and tax credits. Specifically, the legislature is considering two bills (HB 145 and SB 194) to support renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in Utah.  These bills would allow businesses, homeowners, non-profits, and government agencies to benefit from federal tax incentives.  They allow for innovative financing mechanisms that will bring valuable investment to Utah, without any money from Utah government. All of this would create valuable jobs in an important new industry, with little or no effort from government.

So although the topic of global warming has become a hot political issue, investment and development of clean technology should not be.  Utah simply can’t afford to opt out of the renewable energy and clean technology wave sweeping the globe. If we put aside our disagreements about climate change and support renewable energy and clean technology, the taxpayers and the economy of Utah will reap the benefits for generations to come.

Professor Nathan Furr teaches entrepreneurship at Brigham Young University. Todd Stevens manages Renewable Tech Ventures and is a co-chair of the Utah Technology Council’s new Clean Tech industry group. Josh Ewing is the editor of www.utahcleantech.org.

Submitted for publication in the Deseret News

In an editorial, the Salt Lake Tribune praised the effort but faulted Herbert for failing to mention climate change. But there’s no fault to be found for framing energy, especially renewable and alternative technologies, as an economic issue.Why waste energy on a contentious issue in Utah when we can all agree that Utah can benefit dramatically from investments in clean energy.

As Herbert pointed out, “few other states have the energy resources with which we, in Utah, have been blessed.”  Utah can be a leader in the new energy economy. And to do that means being a leader in renewable energy.  It also means truly investing in clean alternative technologies, such as carbon capture and storage, to utilize fossil fuels in a responsible manner. Even President Obama mentioned clean coal in his State of the Union speech.

The Governor said he is assembling the “best minds in the state and charging them with creating a 10-year strategic energy plan.”  Here are a few reccomendations for people the Governor might consider to be part of the effort.

• BYU Proffessor Nathan Furr – a thought leader in renewable energy economics, particularly in the solar industry.
• Todd Stevens – Managing partner of Renewable Tech Ventures, a long-time leader in venture capital investing who is now focused in the renewable space
• UofU Professor Brian McPherson – an internationally recognized leader in carbon sequestration  and how it merges with other potential clean coal technologies.
• Tracy Livingston – CEO for Wasatch Wind and perhaps Utah’s most experienced wind developer
• Jeff Muhs – Leader of USU’s commercialization efforts in renewable energy, especially biomass from algae.

Of course there are dozens of other highly intelligent, involved leaders in the clean energy industry.  But  Governor Herbert would do well to give the above some thought as he puts together his team.

Here’s to a successful, cooperative effort to bolster Utah’s energy economy!

You can help influence the outcome by voting for the project on the award program’s website.

And, while you’re in the web 2.0 mood, head on over to facebook and become a fan of the new Utah Wind Pioneers group.  Looks like a great way to keep wind top-of-mind in the social media world.

Technology and green energy incubators have proven to be successful in other “rural” areas around the nation.  In fact, recent research suggests that businesses involved in an incubator are successful 87% of the time, compared to the less than 60% success rate for non-incubated companies.

The concept for the incubator was first explored as part of a SEED Dixie planning process in 2005, but the idea was something of a pipedream at the time.

“We thought it would be a long time coming due to the expensive office space market in Southern Utah,” said Jill Elliss, the ITRE Director. “Because of the change in the real estate market, we’ve been able to launch this center much earlier than expected.”

“We’ve seen in the last year the perils of our local economy being too focused on the real estate and construction industries,” continued Elliss. “This incubator is part of our effort to diversity the economic base and create quality, new jobs.”

Enjoying the new Office: True Scale Technologies' CTO Matt Excell, right and Software Engineer Zac Beatty

The incubator’s first tenant is an information technology company called Truescale Technologies, a cloud computing start-up with 4 pending patents. The company started with two employees and is already adding three more.

Elliss reports significant interest from a handful of renewable energy start-ups, with the most promising being a potential methane gas recovery company.

The center intends to be quite selective in choosing its tenants, requiring that companies agree to an aggressive mentoring program, which includes regular progress updates.

“For the most part, these will be companies with promising technologies and business plans that are just at the state of leaving the garage for a more professional setting,” said Elliss. “But they’ll already be hiring employees and be excited to participate in the incubation process.”

Tenants will rent space at approximately market rates, but get many free perks:

• Business mentoring from successful business executives
• Use of conference rooms and classrooms.
• Free high-speed internet courtesy of InfoWest.

Elliss already has plans for creating a satellite incubator of ITRE at Southern Utah Univeristy’s Business Reource Center in Cedar City, near Utah’s clean energy headquarters in Milford (home to Utah’s largest windfarm and a geothermal plant). But for now, she’s focused on making the ITRE’s first location a success.

“This incubator is just in its infancy,” said Elliss. “But we have great tools to get it if off the ground and help grow Southern Utah’s technology and green economic sectors.”

The ITRE is a collaborative effort of USTAR, the Dixie Business Alliance, the Small Business Development Center, Seed Dixie, Dixie State College, and Dixie Applied Technology College.

As of yet, Utah doesn’t have the big-time political support for the clean tech industry evidenced by Ritter’s focus in the area. But that doesn’t mean Utah’s highly diverse and energized industry can’t get organized. In fact, the Utah Technology Council (UTC) has just launched an effort to explore the creation of a new sector under its umbrella.

Already, the UTC represents two key components of Utah’s innovation economy – life sciences and high tech. More than 5500 companies are members of the Council, which is fairly unique in the nation combining more than one technology sector under its umbrella.

Last week, at a round table event hosted by Durham Jones & Pinegar, UTC CEO Rich Nelson explained some of the benefits of hosting multiple sectors under one larger organization. For one, UTC already has infrastructure, staff, and a system in place. UTC knows how to organize, listen to industry, and effectively advocate for tech businesses. In addition, the more than 5500 companies already in the game add legitimacy in policy making efforts and lobbying. This is particularly important in Utah, where it seems some politicians still need to be convinced that clean tech really is good economic development.

A new clean tech wing of UTC would certainly be the smallest of three sectors, so one might legitimately worry about clean tech getting the attention and resources it needs to really get off the ground and succeed. But those worries are dwarfed by the challenges of starting a new organization from scratch. Heck, it can take a year just for the IRS to officially grant C4 status. Worries about playing third fiddle will also be dramatically reduced if some major, vocal players from Utah’s leading clean tech companies get involved in the effort.

For now, UTC has not committed to starting a new industry group in clean tech. But with the obvious growth coming to this sector and Utah’s already diverse clean tech community, good money is on UTC moving forward.

Companies that get in on the ground floor will have the greatest opportunity to influence how the clean tech industry evolves. The process is just getting started, so all clean tech companies are encouraged to get involved and help shape the future of green technology in Utah.

If you’d like to get involved, just drop me a line!

Here are 5 positive signs that Utah is poised to become a real player in the West’s wind-power landscape.

1. Boston-based First Wind chose Utah over other attractive options for it’s largest wind farm

Wind turbines at FirstWind's Milford wind farm. Photo courtesy of milfordwind.com

Arguably one of the smartest and most aggressive US companies in the wind generation businesses, First Wind, looked around the United States and chose Milford, in southern Utah, as the location for its largest wind farm. The company didn’t receive any incentives from the state for its 203 MW facility, which it hopes to expand into the largest farm in the US. And, it had plenty of options. Nevada, Idaho, and Wyoming all have great wind resources close enough to California, the source of the real demand for renewable energy in the West.

The company plays it coy when asked why it chose Utah. Sure, there’s the great story about the “wind kids” at Milford High. They helped identify the wind resource at Milford. But, it’s hard to swallow that a company as sophisticated as First Wind threw down $376 million just because the students had did a little leg work for them. There are also rumors that the winds at Milford are unique in that they blow strongest during the day, when power is needed the most.

But even that would likely not be enough to sway such an important decision. First Wind has staked its future on Milford, and before you make an investment like that, you analyze a lot of complex factors: transmission costs, operating costs, land leasing costs, and incentives. But there were no incentives.

The bottom line: Utah is an attractive and cost-competitive location for wind farm development.

2. Utah now has one of the most competitive incentive programs for renewable energy development

Approved in the 2009 legislative session, Utah’s Renewable Energy Development Incentive program offers up to 100% tax rebates to companies that develop commercial-scale renewable energy generation projects, such as wind farms. The incentive went into effect this summer, and Utah has already had a great deal of interest from large wind producers. Although it’s unlikely that a full 100% rebate would be granted, rebates in the 50-80% range would still be very significant to wind developers.  The state’s portion of sales taxes spent on the project, income taxes from worker salaries, and corporate income taxes can all be rebated.

Remember, First Wind chose Utah without any incentive. So, the incentive really should be the icing on the cake for other companies looking to site wind farms within easy transmission range of the California marketplace.

3. Community support for to wind development is building

As we’ve seen around the country, communities are often fearful of wind development. They’re anxious about noise issues, view impacts, and property values. But when projects go in, and those fears don’t come to life, support grows. Take for instance the Spanish Fork wind park by Wasatch Wind. The conservative community there has embraced the farm and is now branding their community with a renewable image. The folks in Milford have seen the jobs created and the economic value of the state’s largest wind farm.

4. Utah has innovative research and academic leaders hot on the case

Until recently, Utah’s academic and research communities were not focusing on wind. Now several leading thinkers are working full-time to advance Utah’s position in the renewable space. Cathy Hartman and Edwin Stafford have started the Center for the Market Diffusion of Renewable Energy and Clean Technology at USU. They’re working to help create a “rural renaissance” in Utah, bringing the economic benefits of wind development to rural areas. The team recently released a compelling economic study of the impacts of a potential new wind farm in Summit County at a location called Porcupine Ridge.  And the two have been working on a documentary called “Harnessing Canyon Winds,” which they hope to release next spring. In short, we now have reputable business minds helping to tackle the economic and political challenges to wind development.

USU is also home to the Center for Active Sensing and Imaging (CASI).  With the help of USTAR, the CASI team is developing an intriguing set of tools to “map the wind” with lasers.  If successful at creating an economically viable service, CASI will be well on the way to helping wind farms increase their productivity by 10-30%. This sort of productivty improvement would have a dramatic impact on increasing wind’s economic competitiveness and helping developers finance projects.

Bob Barson recently outlined CASI’s plans at a recent “Leonardo After Hours” event. CASI’s first technology, which has already been deployed on a test scale, is called “Valid Wind.” The team floats inexpensive air balloons with special reflective tape in the wind stream.  Then, they bounce lasers off the balloons allowing them to precisely map the wind flow. Currently, the technology is quite “low tech,” requiring manual tracking of the balloons with laser range finders. However, the team is working to automate the process.  When this is completed, the technology will allow wind companies to validate their own anemometer testing results, quickly and inexpensively, making sure they don’t miss crucial wind flows. CASI’s second generation wind-mapping technology, which is still “on the bench,” is called “Volume Wind.” This system will use more sophisticated laser measuring systems, currently used for air quality testing, to create a large 3-D map of airflow in an area.  When completed, this technology has the potential to totally revolutionize wind farm siting, reducing the need for expensive anemometers and dramatically decreasing the time needed to test a location.

5. So far, Utah has avoided significant resistance to wind development

This final observation falls in the “knock on wood” category. But so far, Utah has avoided the sort of controversy that is building around wind development in surrounding states, particularly Wyoming. High Country News recently published an in-depth story explaining the surprising resistance to wind development in Wyoming. In particular, traditional energy interests are resisting development because it tends to block off their routes to drill for fossil fuel sources. On the other side of the coin, environmentalists are raising concerns of sage grouse populations they say are threatened by development. Fortunately, Utah’s geology may help us avoid many of these problems. Our basin-and-range geography places the best wind sites away from fossil fuel sites (for the most part). And, so far, the best wind sites seem to have no serious wildlife habitat concerns. We’ll  watch this issue closely, but hope that Utah can avoid the pitfalls seen elsewhere and perhaps even benefit from developers coming to Utah, who don’t want to deal with the issues in Wyoming.

Standing in front of solar panels at a Florida sun farm, President Obama announced $3.4 billion in smart grid funding to be spent in 49 states.  Clean energy enthusiasts and clean tech investors applauded the investment.  And it was a big story in the national green energy press.

Of course the logical question in Utah was: “How much of the funding will Utah get?”

Unfortunately, there’s no clear answer to that question. Only time will tell how much direct funding hits Utah.  But here’s what we know now.

The Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) will receive $53.9 million of the smart grid funding for its Western Interconnection Synchrophasor Program (WISP). The funding will be used across the west in 14 states, including Utah.  The federal funding from the Smart Grid Investment Grant initiative will be leveraged 1:1 with matching dollars from utility companies, for a total project estimated at $107.8 million. Details about the Smart Grid Investment Grant program can be found on WECC’s website.

Unbeknownst to many Utahns, the WECC is based right here in Salt Lake City (in Research Park), employing more than 50 Utahns to help ensure the reliability of the west’s power grid.

According to Rachel Sherrard, Director of Communications for WECC, the funding will be primarily used to install new or upgrade existing synchophasor units, which provide real-time information to grid operators about the status of the bulk electric system.  In all, more than 250 phasor measurement units (PMUs) will be upgraded or purchased and installed by electrical utilities, including PacifiCorp, the parent company of Utah’s Rocky Mountain Power.

PacifiCorp, as a participating member with several other western utilities, is contributing $800,000 in funding and resources  to the PMU installation project. (Not all that money will be spent in Utah, as PacifiCorp serves several states.) A preliminary map of PMU locations shows seven potential synchrophasors being installed within Utah, with two near First Wind’s major new wind farm near Milford.

Fortunately, even those PMUs installed outside the state still benefit Utah.  The synchrophasors provide increased “visibility” of the grid, meaning operators can manage the entire system more effectively and efficiently, saving energy and preventing outages and downtime.

The smart grid investment will have particular value to alternative energy development.  Because wind and solar generation output varies with the weather (and time of day), those operating the grid must now manage a more complicated system.  However, if operators can “see” what is happening at the wind farm, they can make adjustments to accommodate increased generation.  Eventually, operators may even use this visibility to decrease fossil fuel generation at fossil fuel burning plants when the wind is blowing hard or the sun is shining brightly.

An additional benefit for wind power development will be an increase in transmission capacity. Vickie VanZandt, the WISP Project Manager, estimates that up to 100 megawatts of additional transmission capacity will be added to transport electricity from states like Utah to California and the west coast.  The project accomplishes this increase in the “size of the pipe” by more efficiently using existing infrastructure.  For alternative energy transmission to achieve the real scale needed to combat climate change, significantly more transmission lines will need to be constructed.

A study commissioned by WECC estimated economic benefit of the smart grid investments, over 40 years, to be more than $630 million for reduced capacity cost for intermittent energy generation and increased usage of alternative generation technologies.

Clean energy supporters would be well served to learn more about WECC, which is responsible for coordinating the reliability aspects of the energy grid for most of the western US, part of Canada, and a small portion of Mexico.  This public-private partnership operates two reliability monitoring centers, one in Vancouver, Washington and the other in Loveland, Colorado.  These two centers back each other up in the case of a major disruption and provide visibility to the largest geographic area of any electricity coordinating entity. (There are eight, including WECC, across the US.)

With the grid being one of the largest limiting factors in alternative energy development, WECC will play a large role in the coming years as more and more dispersed generation sites connect to our distribution system.

The National Governor’s Association recently released a profile on each state’s green economy. While these profiles were by no means exhaustive (each profile really only has two meaningful pages of data), the Utah profile does provide some insights into where Utah enjoys competitive advantages and where it needs to get to work.

The first analysis in the profile consists of a breakdown of Utah’s green workforce by segment.  The report shows the rough number of jobs in each segment, as well as the per-capita concentration of jobs compared to national averages.

Workforce analysis from the National Governor's Association profile of Utah's Green Economy

The most obvious take away from this analysis is that Utah’s greatest strength is in the concentration of people and companies working on green projects in the Advance Materials arena.  This may come as a surprise to some; however, Utah’s overall advance materials/composites industry is quite strong.  Although much advance materials work isn’t directly intended to be “green,” many environmental applications of the technology are offshoots.  For example, strong, lightweight materials for wind turbine blades are very much in demand with the current boom in wind farm development.

The segments with the largest number of jobs are the “water and wastewater” segments and the “recycling and waste” segments.  However, one might note that the concentrations in these industries are not significantly greater than the national average.

Perhaps the most glaring weakness is the low concentration of “energy generation” jobs.  With Utah’s alternative energy resources (geothermal, wind, solar, etc), Utah should be well above the national average in concentration of these jobs. With focus and investment, Utah’s existing 450 jobs in this area should grow exponentially.

Further evidence Utah should focus on improving its weakness in energy generation comes from another component of the report profiling venture capital investment in clean tech business.  The report highlights that 59% of all VC investment in green technology came in the energy generation sector.  In 2008, the report shows $20 million in VC investment in green business in Utah.  This is a significant improvement over previous years, almost three times the 2007 number. However, this $20 million represents only three tenths of one percent of the total US VC investment.  Utah can and should attract much larger amounts of VC investment in its clean tech industry.  For example, Colorado received $458 million in VC investment in green companies and California received a whopping $3.5 billion in 2008.

Another area of concern gleaned from the report comes from a moderate decline in the number of environmentally related patents filed by Utah inventors.  The report shows a downward trend in patent filings from 1994-2008.  Between 1994 and 1996, 18 patents were filed.  Between 2006 and 2008, only 12 patent were recorded for green technologies.

These top line “take aways” from the report should be just a start for analyzing Utah’s green economy opportunities and challenges. In the next few months, we’ll explore more clean tech segments and data from this report.  And, we encourage Utah economic leaders to invest in further study of Utah’s green economy.

While Utah still makes national headlines for elected officials who deny the science of global warming, BlueSource has longed moved past the debate, and found it quite profitable to do so. The company is a major player in the voluntary carbon trading market and calls itself “North America’s Leading Climate Change Portfolio.” Founded in 2001 by Bill Townsend and Greg Spencer, BlueSource is headquartered in Holladay, although it has eight offices from San Francisco to New York, including two in Canada.

So what does BlueSource do?  Simply put, the company develops or supports projects that keep greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere and then monetizes the carbon credits generated by selling them on the voluntary market to companies who want to offset their own carbon footprint.  BlueSource has projects under development in all of the lower 48 states and Canada.  Projects range from capturing carbon at the vent-stacks of industrial facilities to methane management projects at landfills, wastewater treatment plants, and large dairy farms.

BlueSource has yet to finalize a major project in Utah, having focused to date on larger industrial areas. However, Kevin Townsend (son of founder Bill) promises more than one project is under development.  The company is actively pursuing several large-scale projects in Utah and hopes to make announcements soon.

The seed for BlueSource started with a company called PetroSource, which focused on capturing CO2 to be used for enhanced oil recovery.  This technique for improving oil production has been in use for decades.  BlueSource continues an emphasis on enhanced oil recovery.  But instead of using natural CO2 from underground, BlueSource pipes in CO2 captured from man-made sources. BlueSource’s expertise in this area adds to a major developing strength in Utah’s clean tech industry.  USTAR’s Dr. Brian McPherson, Headwaters,  and BlueSource are all helping to make Utah a leader in carbon capture and storage.

The future appears bright for this privately-held company. BlueSource recently partnered with Och-Ziff Capital Management Group, which will provide capital and financing up to $500 million to develop new CO2 pipeline infrastructure and carbon management projects.

So, what if Congress fails to pass meaningful legislation limiting carbon emissions or creating a cap-and-trade system?

BlueScource has been growing and thriving without government mandates by focusing on the voluntary market, which is quite strong.  According to an annual report by Ecosystem Marketplace, approximately 53% of global voluntary purchases of carbon offsets are made by buyers in Europe, despite mandates in place for carbon emissions.

“The voluntary market is driven by the country’s desire to take action, despite inaction from the government,” said Kevin Townsend, VP of Portfolio Development.

Let’s hope for action, but plan for inaction. And BlueSource will continue to lead the way, either way.

Wyoming wind farm that sells "renewable energy certificates" to Rocky Mountain Power

Being a relatively astute consumer, I’ve always known that my Blue Sky dollars aren’t really sending clean wind power to my home.  That’s not how the system works.  There’s no way for the power company to direct the small percentage of clean energy in the system to particular homes or businesses.  Not everyone gets this point, as was made evident in an interesting story on NPR last week as part of it’s “How Green Is It?” series.

What I did learn from the NPR story, which rocked my boat a bit, was that my Blue Sky dollars aren’t going to purchase wind power directly or even at all.  Rocky Mountain Power uses Blue Sky funds to buy “renewable energy certificates on your behalf.”  Renewable energy certificates are sold by wind power (and other renewable operators) in addition to selling their power.  Essentially, certificates are a way for operators to make more money to offset the additional cost of production, without having to sell their power at rates that disallow power companies from buying. (Many states mandate power companies buy from the cheapest sources, without regard to the environmental costs of production).

So, even though Rocky Mountain Power says it’s buying certificates from Wyoming wind farms, that doesn’t mean the company is buying power from those farms.  Now Rocky Mountain Power appears to have an aggressive approach to actually buying and developing renewables as part of their portfolio, so they are probably buying the power too, but not necessarily.  In fact, many programs around the country, like Blue Sky, don’t purchase the renewable power. It’s too far away or to logistically challenging to get the power to their grid. So, they just purchase the certificates.

Blue Sky works because some customers want to support renewable energy, and they are not too concerned with the details. It’s a voluntary program, so nobody is forced into participating.  But that’s also the program’s biggest downfall.  Only a relatively few people will voluntarily pay more for their electricity.  These folks realize that the “retail” price of electricity doesn’t really include all the costs of the environmental impacts of our electricity production.

Rocky Mountain Power and other electric companies, tout renewable energy programs, like Blue Sky, as evidence that they really want to support alternative energy development. But the true test of their commitment to clean energy is coming with a system that attempts to include the environmental costs of production, like the Waxman/Markey legislation that recently passed the US House of Representatives. Will Rocky Mountain Power embrace the challenge of producing 20% of its power from renewables by 2020?  Or will in resist the change?  I personally hope the company will not take the easy route and blame the feds for raising energy prices. Why not take a positive approach and help people understand that the increases in theeir power bill are serving to help fight climate change and ensure future generations enjoy the land we enjoy.

Unfortunately, the early signs are not good for Rocky Mountain Power’s messaging strategy.  Last week, the company’s CEO, Richard Walje, told a Utah legislative committee, “The legislation that has currently been passed in the (U.S.) House of Representatives is going to impose large costs on our customers that we do not have any near-term way to avoid.”  Now I know he was talking to the conservative Utah legislature, but I’m hopeful in the future the language will be tinged with cooperation and laced with language supporting the advance of clean tech.