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Help Wanted (and Fast): The Alarming Talent shortage in Colorado’s Energy Sector

The next major pipeline the energy industry in Colorado (and the entire world) must confront is a talent pipeline. Today’s real energy challenge is to find and recruit the professional talent needed for a huge increase in renewable energy projects alongside new roles that engineers, geologists and other essential traditional energy workers will take on as new clean fuels become available. 

READ: America’s Energy Future Depends on Cultivating the Next Generation of Talent

The talent needed for the growing energy industry is staggering, and it’s one of Colorado’s major industries. Globally, the World Economic Forum estimates that the evolution into clean energy is expected to generate 10.3 million new jobs by 2030 alone.

As such, the renewables industry will need to quadruple its workforce by 2030 to develop, build and maintain the planned projects. Blue- and white-collar employees are needed, with an estimated 1.1 million more blue-collar workers to build water and solar plants and another 1.7 million to operate and maintain them, a McKinsey study indicates. 

Add in the jobs that will be needed under the Future Fuels Act (FFA) for clean fuels like hydrogen, low-carbon biofuels, sustainable transportation fuels and more, and we’re looking at even more jobs that don’t exist yet. Overall, even with these additions, the WEF anticipates that most of the jobs will be in electrical efficiency, power generation and the transportation sector. 

READ: Understanding ESG & Colorado’s Energy Transformation

Which means more skilled labor will be needed too — from construction laborers, operating engineers, electricians, project developers and managers, to finance and legal experts. And they must be forward-thinking leaders who can deliver affordable, abundant, reliable and cleaner energy to fuel expected economic growth in our state, country and the world. 

In Colorado, where the labor market already is the tightest on record, the need is equally great because, thanks to the federal legislation adopted last year, billions in federal dollars and private investment are flowing to the state for its clean energy transition. As of 2021, Colorado employed over 146,000 direct jobs in energy. Meanwhile. Colorado’s advanced energy industry — advanced fuels, electricity generation, grid and energy storage and the like — employed 66,000 workers. Still, that number is expected become much greater very soon.

Energy experts note that renewable energy projects are helping the state lead a fast-growing bevy of green-development states. A growing number of large projects are being financed by lucrative tax credits and grants from the federal Inflation Reduction Act, among other legislation adopted in 2022. Plus, the state’s utilities are replacing or soon will be their coal-burning facilities with solar, wind and other renewable energy sources. 

READ: Becoming a Zero-Emissions State — How Alternative Fuels Are Transforming Transportation in Colorado

Consider the need simply for construction and extraction jobs, which, according to the 2022 Colorado Talent Pipeline Report, is among the fastest-growing occupations in the state. Over the next decade, a 17.2% growth rate for such occupations, which already employ over 165,000, is expected, with nearly 20,000 openings annually at a medium yearly salary of $48,650.

Plus, while jobs in the traditional energy industry — oil, natural gas and coal — are declining due to the transition to renewables, that sector still needs skilled workers and managers. Again, the talent outlook is worrisome since an estimated 50% of the nation’s 10 million oil and gas workers are expected to retire by 2027.

What’s it going to take to seek and retain the generations of talent the energy industry demands in Colorado? Talent strategy. For the industry, and for the state and federal government. 

Besides the usual training and reskilling needed, it’s important that potential talent think about the energy sector as early as middle school. This means taking advantage of the push for STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) education underway in a growing number of communities.

Energy companies and their trade associations must begin to interest youth through STEM initiatives and events that spark their curiosity in energy, including summer camps and the annual Energy Day, where students can enjoy hands-on demonstrations.

in mid-2021, Governor Polis signed a bill that helps ensure employers in the renewables sector specifically will get the talent they need long-term as the state seeks to transition 100% to renewables by 2040. 

This legislation requires the creation of an energy sector career pathway that’s underway by several state departments and the Colorado Workforce Development Council, which will increase training, apprenticeship and education programs to equip workers with the skills needed in the energy sector. 

Increasing access and opportunity to allow Colorado youth to consider energy as a profession has never been more necessary. STEM education is just one way for our state to build a talent pipeline the workforce of the future will need. Otherwise, the energy talent shortage will persist, hurting not only our state’s energy progress but our economy too. 

 

Andrew Browning HeadshotAndrew Browning is the chief operating officer of Consumer Energy Alliance and the organizer of Colorado’s Energy Day festival.

Tech Startup — Skyhook Solar: Solar-powered Charging Stations for E-bikes and Electric Cars

Skyhook Solar  

WHERE: Carbondale

WEBSITE: www.skyhooksolar.com

FOUNDED: 2019 

 

INITIAL LIGHTBULB  

With a background in the Aspen hotel business, President and CEO Daniel Delano came out of a brief retirement to co-found Skyhook Solar with Chief Product Officer William Gilmore. He didn’t want to sit on the sidelines in the face of climate change. 

“I became increasingly concerned about climate change, and that led me to look at the solar energy space and ultimately to Skyhook Solar,” Delano says. “We created the Skyhook Solar Station, and initially that was used to charge EVs in prototype. A year later, we deployed the first EV-charging solar station at a public school.” 

That station is still operational, but Skyhook has since focused on e-bikes, working with PBSC Urban Solutions to supply solar stations for WE-cycle’s bike-sharing program in the Aspen area beginning in 2021. 

READ: Tech Startup — OneClock is Your Solution for a Tech-free Bedroom

IN A NUTSHELL 

Skyhook’s D4 Solar Stations (which sell for $28,000, minus a 30 percent federal tax credit) in Aspen and Basalt were “the first solar-powered e-bike docks anywhere,” Delano says. “The solar stations include a microcomputer and large batteries that allow us to charge when the sun’s not shining.” 

“In 2020, we introduced e-bikes into our fleet,” says Mirte Mallory, co-founder and executive director of WE-Cycle. “At that point in time, we were changing batteries back at the shop, and it became very apparent that it wasn’t scalable. It was not cost-effective or operationally efficient.” 

But Skyhook’s technology was eminently scalable. WE-Cycle now shares 420 bikes (153 of them e-bikes) at about 80 stations in the Roaring Fork Valley. For 2023, 10 of those stations are solar-powered Skyhook products from Aspen to Carbondale.  

“It went from impossible to scale and not value-aligned to possible to scale and mission-aligned,” Mallory says. “Our e-bikes are now 100 percent solar-powered by the Colorado sun.” 

Skyhook Solar currently assembles its products in Carbondale, but Delano says he is looking to open a manufacturing facility in Grand Junction. The company is in growth mode as it looks to supply municipalities as well as bike-sharing companies and
nonprofits. 

“We’re in a number of other cities now on a pilot basis, including Detroit and Montreal,” Delano says. “The transition is just beginning in bike-share to electric bikes, so we see Skyhook Solar being in many cities in the U.S. and Canada in the next couple years. We’re also looking at expansion into Europe.” 

Skyhook is releasing a new EV-charging station with a three-kilowatt solar array in 2023 that’s 50 percent larger than the D4 Solar Station. 

“The EV transition is absolutely necessary if we’re going to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, and one of the necessities of that transition is the infrastructure,” Delano says. “In many places, it may be easy to add a plug or two to a parking lot to charge EVs, but in other places, it’s very expensive to connect to the grid if you have to dig trenches across sidewalks and streets.” 

He also notes that the stations are great for remote areas without electrical service, or where connection costs are high, and installation is notably user-friendly. “It deploys in an hour and it can be moved, so it has flexibility if you need to move it.” 

THE MARKET 

“We haven’t gotten to the point where EVs are dominant in the market, but California and New York have fairly strict laws that mean EV sales will be phased into 100 percent by law by 2035,” Delano says. “There is a need to convert from gas-powered transportation to electric, and there’s a need for infrastructure. It’s a matter of all hands on deck now.” 

FINANCING 

Delano says Skyhook has raised funds from friends, family and angel investors. The company began pursuing a seed round of $2.5 million when it graduated from the Endless Frontier Labs program at the Sterns School of Business at New York University in May.  

Inside the Colorado Mining Industry: Impact of Broken Regulations for US

In the United States, our regulatory regime for mining project development is broken.

It takes between 7 and 10 years to get the necessary permits to operate in the U.S. This makes it incredibly difficult for U.S. mines to compete on a global scale and to get the investment necessary to start in the first place. In Australia and Canada, this same step takes on average 2 years.

These issues are important for Colorado because of the state’s significant mineral endowment. Colorado has historically been a major producer of gold, silver, molybdenum, lead, zinc, uranium and tungsten, and has deposits of a litany of other critical minerals. A new paper from the Institute for Energy Research, The Economic and Strategic Importance of Domestic Mineral Production, explores these issues and offers pathways to unlocking potential mineral resources in Colorado and elsewhere.

The market for critical minerals is only expanding at present. Because of new net zero policies that favor investment in wind, solar and electric vehicle technologies, the demand for these materials is ever-increasing. Currently, a majority of critical minerals are controlled by China in some way, whether that be the mining itself, or the refining process.

READ: Becoming a Zero-Emissions State — How Alternative Fuels Are Transforming Transportation in Colorado

An important illustration of both the price concern and the worry over China’s outsized control of minerals production is lithium. Due to its role in EV’s and as well as other technologies like cell phone batteries, the demand for lithium has skyrocketed in recent years. Lithium prices were below $10 per Kilogram(kg) in 2020, rose to a staggering high over $80 per kg in late 2022, and settled back down at around $45 per kg in March of this year. Price spikes like this and overall price increases are becoming all too common for critical minerals as demand scales up far more quickly than supply. China controls the majority of the world’s lithium output with sizable mines located in South America and Australia as well. Although the U.S has 3 percent of the world’s lithium deposits, it nonetheless produces very little.

That’s not to say there are no lithium projects underway in the United States. There are: Pioneer Ltd’s lithium mine and the Thacker Pass Lithium mine, both under development in Nevada, will produce significant amounts of lithium once they are allowed to open. But both of these projects have been through lengthy permitting and approvals processes and have been held up along the way by additional factors. Thacker Pass alone could produce a quarter of global lithium demand once opened.

The motivation to produce these minerals domestically exists, but a measure of regulatory certainty is necessary to encourage further development. When developers can expect 7 to 10-year waits and unforeseen additional delays and hurdles, money that would otherwise be used to develop critical minerals supplies will inevitably be used to do so elsewhere or used for other purposes entirely. NEPA reform and other measures are necessary for international security as our dependence on China for these minerals becomes an increasing concern, as well as for economic reasons as prices rise and supply of these materials becomes tighter.

Paige LambermontPaige Lambermont is a Policy Associate at the Institute for Energy Research. In her role, she writes about the impacts of government policy on energy markets. She has a bachelor’s degree in political science from American University and is from Butler, Pennsylvania.

Revolutionizing Agriculture with Machine Learning: Achieving Sustainability for a Healthier Planet

In an era of a rapidly changing climate, achieving agricultural sustainability is critical to ensure the health and well-being of our planet. With limited resources and an ever-increasing population, traditional farming practices can no longer support a sustainable food system.

Fortunately, the current technological advances in machine learning offer a promising path toward more sustainable agricultural practices. By leveraging computer vision and predictive analytics, farmers can reduce water usage, control pests with fewer resources, and optimize fertilizer usage to lessen their negative environmental impact. In this article, we will explore the environmental benefits of using machine learning in agriculture and how it can help achieve more sustainable farming.

READ: Taming Agriculture’s Energy Hogs 

An Overview of Challenges Agriculture is Facing Today

One of the major challenges facing agriculture today is the increasing demand for food to feed a growing population that will reach 9.7 billion people by 2050, according to IMF. Given that agricultural land is already stretched to its limits, there is an urgent need to find new and more efficient ways to produce food while preserving and protecting the environment. Climate change is also a major threat, with extreme weather conditions such as floods, droughts, and storms causing widespread damage to crops and livestock. Finally, there is the challenge of dwindling natural resources like water and soil fertility, exacerbated by unsustainable farming practices.

How Machine Learning (ML) can help agriculture

Reducing water usage

Traditional farming often consumes excessive amounts of water, and this has had a devastating impact on the environment. For instance, decades of over-irrigation in California’s Central Valley have caused hazardous levels of salt accumulation in the soil and made certain areas incapable of growing crops. In other parts of the world, such as India and China, farmers have resorted to over-pumping groundwater that is not replenished quickly enough, leading to water shortages and degraded soil.

In addition to causing natural resources like water and soil to be depleted, excessive water usage also has an economic impact. Farmers are often forced to pay high prices for irrigation systems or use inefficient methods that require a lot of water with minimal yields.

With machine learning-enabled remote sensing technology in place, farmers can monitor soil moisture levels or set up automated sensors that detect when crops need additional water. These strategies can help make water usage more efficient, reduce overall farming costs, and ensure that natural resources are not wasted. In addition, machine learning can be used to detect drought-resistant crops and find optimal planting patterns based on soil type and climate conditions. All of these measures can help make agricultural production more sustainable in the long run.

READ: Colorado Proud Promotes the Future of Farming and Agriculture

Optimizing pesticides usage

Pests are a major problem for most farmers, as they can cause considerable damage to crops and significantly reduce yields. Traditional solutions to this problem involve the use of pesticides which have negative environmental impacts and are not considered sustainable.

Machine learning presents an alternative solution that enables farmers to better monitor and control pests with fewer resources. By leveraging computer vision and predictive analytics, farmers can automatically detect pests and monitor crops in real-time. This allows them to take an effective, targeted approach to pest control and dramatically reduce reliance on pesticides. Additionally, machine learning algorithms can be used to monitor water levels and soil conditions, which enables farmers to accurately determine when pests are most likely to appear and take preventive measures.

Optimizing fertilizer usage

While extremely beneficial to crop yields, the use of synthetic fertilizers in agriculture is detrimental to our environment. In general, most farmers apply synthetic fertilizers equally to the whole field, meaning that in areas where the soil already has a high nutrient content, fertilization is applied excessively. This often causes nutrients to overflow into the nearest rivers, lakes, and oceans, which causes algae to bloom excessively. This, in turn, significantly decreases the oxygen levels in the water and can cause fish and other aquatic organisms to die.

Moreover, fertilizers often cause soil acidification, which can negatively impact biodiversity. What’s even more daunting, the production of synthetic fertilizers is also the cause of 2.1% of annual CO2 emissions, according to a recent study by the Greenpeace Research Laboratories.

Machine learning can help lessen the negative environmental impact associated with these practices. By using precision agriculture techniques such as automated data collection and analysis, farmers can monitor soil conditions in real-time and apply fertilizer only where it’s needed and in optimal amounts. This helps reduce nutrient overflow into rivers and lakes and promotes a healthier aquatic ecosystem and preserves biodiversity.

Machine Learning to the Rescue

It is clear that machine learning has the potential to revolutionize agriculture and make it more sustainable. By leveraging automated technologies such as computer vision and predictive analytics, farmers can conserve natural resources while boosting crop yields. This can help reduce the negative environmental impact caused by traditional farming practices, including water usage, pesticide usage, and fertilizer usage.

As machine learning technologies become more advanced and mainstream, there is no doubt that these methods will become a staple in the agricultural industry. Ultimately, through the help of modern technology, we can ensure better administering of our planet’s natural resources and create a more sustainable future for generations to come.

 

Andrey Koptelov is an Innovation Analyst at Itransition, a custom software development company headquartered in Denver. With a profound experience in IT, he writes about new disruptive technologies and innovations.

How the Colorado Chamber of Commerce is Breaking New Ground in Environmental Sustainability

Employers throughout our great state have long been invested in a clean environment for the communities where they operate for the future of Colorado. We’ve worked closely with our members at the Colorado Chamber of Commerce to address environmental policy, and we’ve seen firsthand how committed the business community is in regards to promoting sustainability within their companies and industries.

READ: Becoming a Zero-Emissions State — How Alternative Fuels Are Transforming Transportation in Colorado

From the construction of our buildings to energy infrastructure to sustainable products, it is primarily up to businesses to develop, finance and build the infrastructure of the future to improve our environment. Many employers have developed innovative solutions that not only address current climate concerns but also improve the environment for their communities. We know from experience that any industry can be a critical leader in this space when given the flexibility to do so.

Despite these successes, job creators have experienced a costly and complex regulatory climate in the last few years. A Colorado Chamber of Commerce 2022 survey of businesses statewide revealed that Colorado’s current regulatory climate continues to be a significant challenge for business operations, and environmental regulations were specifically identified as a top concern.

The Colorado Chamber of Commerce believes there is a better way, and that environmental progress and economic growth are not mutually exclusive.

That’s why the Colorado Chamber has launched an Environmental Sustainability and Climate Action Task Force — a key strategic initiative in supporting a cleaner environment while maintaining a competitive business climate in Colorado. Our long history of constructive collaboration among employers, state leaders, regulators and the public means that we are well suited to bring business leaders to the table and develop responsible, balanced environmental policies and regulations that are predictable and avoid a one-size-fits-all approach for businesses.

The task force brings together 20 different companies and industry groups that are committed to taking sustainability initiatives to the next level, representing the transportation, energy, agriculture and manufacturing industries, and more. Participating companies include Molson Coors, EVRAZ Pueblo, the American Council of Engineering Companies of Colorado, Chevron, United Airlines and Tri-State Generation – the full list of task force members can be found on our website. We will expand on the progress that’s already been made through diverse, cross-industry collaboration to find creative ways to achieve common goals.

To help us navigate the process, we’ve commissioned the Keystone Policy Center to provide expert facilitation to the task force. Keystone has a strong reputation of bringing together stakeholders with diverse perspectives through strategic collaboration to address pressing issues with lasting solutions. The non-profit research organization will assist with task force design, goals and objectives, strategic framework, facilitation of task force meetings and documentation of outcomes. Our first task force meeting begins this month and will continue through the end of the year.

READ: Understanding ESG & Colorado’s Energy Transformation

Our end goal is to develop long- and short-term policies that allow businesses to effectively meet environmental sustainability expectations, partnering with legislators and state agencies on a balanced approach for the domestic production of resources. We will also educate policymakers and regulators on the innovative efforts employers have undertaken through technological investments, the sharing of data, and the development of best practices.

Together with Keystone, the task force will develop a policy report at the end of 2023 with potential legislative recommendations and other collective actions that can be taken to reach environmental goals and objectives.

We are very excited to break new ground in environmental collaboration and lead this coordinated effort to tackle climate action and sustainability while preserving a healthy economy for Colorado.

 

Loren FurmanLoren Furman is president and CEO of the Colorado Chamber of Commerce. The Colorado Chamber champions free enterprise, a healthy business environment and economic prosperity for all Coloradans. It is the only business association that works to improve our economic climate for all sizes of business from a statewide, multi-industry perspective.

Conserving Colorado’s Natural Treasures — Federal Conservation Funding and its Critical Role

Spring in Colorado means it’s time to start trading in your ski boots for hiking boots. As snowpack starts to melt away and access to the backcountry opens up, we can begin again our treks to explore the incredible sites across our state’s public lands. It’s also an opportunity to reflect on threats to federal conservation funding under the current political environment.

READ: 2023 Legislative Preview With 76 Group

We are fortunate because Colorado is home to four national parks, 11 national forests, 8.3 million acres of public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and several national monuments and historic sites. Each area is a beautiful and historic destination that features our state’s natural beauty and culture (and even prehistoric artifacts).

Unfortunately, these federal public lands have been woefully underfunded, and as a result, recreational sites across Colorado are stressed. Federal officials have been unable to keep up with deterioration that comes from the growing popularity of public lands and issues associated with overcrowding. For example, the National Park Service (NPS) reports that, in Colorado alone, the cost of addressing the growing backlog of maintenance exceeds $400 million. This includes $124 million in maintenance needed at Mesa Verde National Park and $100 million needed at Rocky Mountain National Park. Nationwide, the figure is $22.3 billion, up from $13 billion in 2020. 

There’s good news, however. In 2020, Congress passed one of the most bipartisan bills in recent years, the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA). The law provides $2.8 billion annually in federal conservation funding to address the growing needs of our nation’s most treasured landscapes. It’s the largest federal conservation funding program created in the past 50 years.

The law features two sources of conservation funding. The first is a new program called the National Park and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund. It provides up to $1.9 billion annually in conservation. The vast majority of revenue, 91%, comes from federal onshore oil and natural gas royalties from leases on non-park, non-wilderness public lands. In Colorado, oil and natural gas projects outside of places like Fort Morgan and Parachute contribute to that vital funding stream. 

READ: Biden is Right About One Thing — Oil and Natural Gas Aren’t Going Anywhere

In addition, GAOA also permanently funds $900 million annually for the popular Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which was first created in 1964 but was never fully funded. The money for LWCF projects comes exclusively from offshore oil and natural gas production.

Today, we’re seeing the benefits of this law as new funding is helping address the maintenance needs of our public lands. Over the past two years, Colorado has received $67 million under the program. Projects that have received funding Colorado include campground and waterline maintenance at Rocky Mountain and Mesa Verde National Parks, wetlands infrastructure in the San Luis Valley, and a wildfire water project near Grand Junction.

Regrettably, these historic conservation gains are being threatened by today’s political environment and a concerted effort to halt federal oil and natural gas production that funds GAOA’s programs. 

Under President Biden and as a consequence of his executive authority, BLM has halted new federal oil and natural gas leasing. Over the past two years, only one series of the quarterly lease sales have been held. Under the law, the agency should have held nine lease sales in each state where lands were nominated for lease, including in Colorado.

The lack of lease sales threatens future federal conservation funding because in the coming years, as the existing inventory of oil and natural gas leases run out, production will slow and eventually be eliminated. Royalties will then decline, creating an enormous gap in available funds to maintain our national parks and other public lands. And revenues generated from wind and solar production won’t be there to backfill the programs because renewable projects don’t pay federal royalties like oil and natural gas.

As an oil and natural gas trade association, our team at Western Energy Alliance and the 200 businesses we represent were proud to support and help pass GAOA. The law builds on the legacy of balancing energy extraction on working landscapes with preserving our nation’s iconic places. It’s a balance that’s existed within the Department of the Interior for 100 years.

This spring, as you enjoy the great outdoors, we invite you to join us in celebrating the contributions to conservation that are provided through the Great American Outdoors Act. And because the work of restoring our national parks and public lands is not done yet, when we aren’t exploring the state in our free time, we’re working to defend the billions of dollars our industry provides to conserve our treasured spaces.

Aaron Johnson Gray BackdropAaron M. Johnson is vice president of public and legislative affairs at Western Energy Alliance. To learn more, visit www.WesternEnergyAlliance.org/GAOA.

Understanding Colorado’s Environmental Waste Reality

Colorado’s renewable energy frenzy has been met with an array of positive news. It’s viewed as clean, modern, and the best alternative to break America’s addiction to fossil fuels. But as facts about recycling the first generation of solar and wind-farm materials emerge, the long-held perception of renewables as a panacea becomes unsustainable.

READ: Understanding ESG & Colorado’s Energy Transformation

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) projects that “large amounts of annual waste are anticipated by the early 2030s” as the solar boom progresses. According to IRENA, the amount of solar panel waste could total 78 million tons annually by 2050.

A similar concern exists in the wind industry. Thousands of tons of windmill blades and giant wind towers, rising as high as 500 feet, are currently disposed of in landfills, largely due to a lack of consistent state regulations governing the retirement and disposal of wind farms. The thousands of colossal concrete pads that serve as the base for each wind tower are also simply left in place in perpetuity. The turbine blades are built with a planned life of 20 to 25 years and contain chemicals that can become hazardous after burial in a landfill, yet the government has not caught on. While technologies exist to recycle the blades, the wind industry has been slow to adopt them due to the high cost.

Solar panels also possess a similarly limited life cycle, and, like lithium-ion and other batteries, contain chemicals and metals, such as lead, that create environmental hazards as they degrade. Like the wind industry, the panels can be recycled, but the high cost has prevented large-scale adoption, despite heavy subsidization by the federal and state governments. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that less than 10% of the country’s decommissioned panels are recycled, mainly due to cost. The price to recycle a single panel is about $15 to $45 for a silicon PV module in the US, compared to only $1 to $5 to dump it in a landfill.

Should Coloradans worry? As primarily a headwater state, meaning most of our water begins here and flows out to the Rocky Mountains, toxic leakage into our rivers is particularly concerning. It was only seven years ago when three million gallons of contaminated water turned the Animas River orange.

READ: Water Pipeline Back in Play? — The Future of Colorado’s Water Distribution

Environmental and safety concerns are not new in the energy landscape. For example, determining the appropriate distance between oil and gas operations, often referred to as setbacks, used to be a major contention in Colorado. And it doesn’t stop there. The impact on water, air, wildlife and the landscape have all been debated and are now all highly regulated here. But it took years of contentious community discussions, public hearings, legislative compromise and collaboration. Today, operators seem to have struck the right balance of production and protection.

Despite the known hazardous magnitude, the federal and many state governments in the U.S. have not enacted consistent regulations governing the disposal of the massive waste created by these new industries. If the Biden administration’s envisioned energy transition is to progress as planned, a resolution to this toxic issue is mandatory. While most support the expansion of new energy sources, it makes little sense to do it at such a cost to the environment it is supposed to improve.

READ: Biden is Right About One Thing — Oil and Natural Gas Aren’t Going Anywhere

It comes down to fairness. Why should some industries like oil, gas, coal or nuclear be held to one standard while others like solar and wind are held to another?

There’s no doubt that an energy transformation is underway. After all, energy is the foundation of everything, and finding ways to produce it more efficiently and responsibly is a no-brainer. Everything evolves and energy is no different. But all sources have benefits and drawbacks. Perfect energy does not exist, and the pitfalls must be addressed and remedied. As an environmental leader, this is Colorado’s opportunity to shine. The next step is to proceed responsibly, fairly and transparently.

Biden is Right About One Thing — Oil and Natural Gas Aren’t Going Anywhere

A funny thing happened when President Biden went off script during his recent State of the Union speech and began jousting with a raucous group of Republican lawmakers.

He told the truth.

Now, that’s not to say the rest of what he said was lies, but in this unscripted moment, which began just as he was talking about climate change, he injected a moment of reality into his speech.

“We’re still going to need oil and gas for a while,” he said, probably to the chagrin of his speech writers.

READ — Understanding ESG & Colorado’s Energy Transformation

He then quickly added, in another off-the-cuff remark, that we’re going to need oil for “at least a decade.” It drew laughs from Republicans because, as conservative Jonah Goldberg tweeted, that’s like saying we’ll need water and oxygen for “at least a decade.”

Even though President Biden has continuously vilified this industry and made it harder to develop our natural resources, beginning with campaign pledges to shut down all drilling to his first few days in office when he shut down the Keystone pipeline and froze federal leasing, his unscripted moment brought a much-needed dose of reality to our national conversation on energy.

We need oil and natural gas to survive. And will, for years to come. Not just a decade.

The federal government, through its Energy Information Administration, projects that by 2050, we will need more oil and natural gas than today, not less. (To be fair, they also expect an even greater share of renewables in our energy mix.)

The global population is growing, and access to efficient, reliable and affordable energy is a human right. We will need all forms of energy to thrive, and attacking domestic production, shutting down infrastructure and making it harder to develop here only means we’ll rely on foreign countries for our energy, which is not an environmental solution and makes our country less secure.

READ — Do Hispanics Bear the Brunt of the Energy Crisis?

Today, oil and natural gas are the primary sources of energy for the global economy, supplying roughly 70 percent of the total global energy demand. In 2021, 81 percent of our primary energy in the United States came from fossil fuels. We will continue to need oil and natural gas for decades to come for many reasons. It is our challenge to produce it cleaner, better and safer here than anywhere on the globe.

But we need realistic conversations about where our energy comes from, and the trade-offs and benefits of all energy sources.

In Colorado, the governor recently renewed his pledge to move our state to 100 percent renewable energy by 2040. But just a few days prior, for nearly three days when the temperature hovered around 0, renewables provided almost no power to our electrical grid as the wind wasn’t blowing and the sun wasn’t shining. Natural gas and coal were the workforces that kept us safe and warm during that cold snap.

Knowing that we need these resources, we need to do a better job of sharing the positive environmental changes we’ve seen in recent years: The new technologies, the lowering of emissions and the promise of innovation and ingenuity.  Our elected leaders need to embrace that as well.

If you’re concerned about climate change, it’s important to note that today we’re powering our electric grid with more natural gas, wind, and solar energy than ever before. The environmental benefits have been, and will continue to be, profound because natural gas, as an energy source, has a low carbon dioxide emissions profile.

But that’s just part of the story. Numerous emissions reductions beyond CO2 have occurred as a result of this trend, with sulfur dioxide down 88 percent and ground-level ozone down 22 percent. The six most common pollutants (PM2.5 and PM10, SO2, NOx, VOCs, CO and Pb) are collectively down 73 percent. That’s a tremendous success story for our environment and our air quality.

In Colorado, we also can be proud that methane emissions from oil and natural gas production are decreasing, and our industry’s volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions have dropped nearly 60 percent since 2011. Technology improvements and regulations that reduce the chance for methane and VOCs to escape into our atmosphere are working.

Our industry continues to make tremendous progress in both the efficiency of energy consumption and in reducing greenhouse gases. However, more work must be done.

We can have the economy we desire and the environment we need, but we need to have realistic conversations about climate, where our energy comes from and what’s feasible. We also need to support policies and infrastructure that allows for continued domestic production, especially here in Colorado where we’re producing some of the cleanest molecules of energy on the planet.

Clean, affordable energy is the key to our world’s future, and oil and natural gas have an important role to play.

Picture1 Coga

 

Dan Haley is president and CEO of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association.

 

Understanding ESG & Colorado’s Energy Transformation

The energy produced right here in Colorado, by our home-grown oil and natural gas industry, is the foundation of everything in our state, America, the world and beyond. Every business, transportation system, school, home, news organization, or social media app, would not exist without energy.

Over the last several decades, investors have intentionally shifted their money toward businesses whose operations are aimed at fighting climate change. Like the rest of us, they work for a paycheck, but they don’t see capitalism and environmental stewardship as mutually exclusive. Instead, they say the two must co-exist if we want to come close to meeting government climate goals.

READ — Exploring Colorado’s Energy Transformation: 2022 Energy Report

ESG Guidelines Rule Colorado Oil and Gas Companies

That’s brought attention to ESG, which stands for Environmental Social Governance. For those vested, it is a critical part of a company’s culture if it wants to efficiently produce energy while respecting and protecting our environment. It will provide all of us with the cleanest oil and natural gas that keeps our homes, businesses and lives running smoothly at affordable prices.

Operational Efficiencies, Innovation Improve our Environment and Economy

From the (E)nvironmental perspective, operators must show continued improvement in efforts to protect our environment. They must dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions with a focus on methane, conserving or recycling water and applying new technologies to make operations cleaner, safer and more efficient.

Methane Intensity in the DJ Basin

Methane Intensity
The above graph represents methane emission intensity expressed as Kg CH4/boe from oil and gas as reported to the EPA.

 

On the (S)ocial side, the priority must be on keeping field staff, employees and communities safe.

Companies should also build relationships with the communities they operate in, often referred to as a social license to operate.

“All components of ESG are important factors when evaluating venture investment decisions. As it relates the the ‘E’, the most immediate, effective, direct-to-the-bottom-line, capital efficient way of achieving ‘pick your climate-related goal’ is through investments that make the existing industrial sector more efficient (i.e., less energy intensive, reduce mineral use and waste, increase yields, etc.). Relatively low-cost technology and software are available to make this happen now.”

-JP Bauman, Principal, Altira Group

As for (G)overnance, it’s about aligning strategies and corporate values. A board composed of diverse members with diverse backgrounds is focused on, and supports, ESG.

The expectations inherent in new energy policies have accelerated the focus on environmental responsibility and broader ESG measures in oil and natural gas.

READ — Becoming a Zero-Emissions State: How Alternative Fuels Are Transforming Transportation in Colorado

Investor and Stakeholder Pressure

The energy industry is also experiencing pressure from investors tasked to allocate capital exclusively to companies that prioritize ESG initiatives — and they’re demanding insight into more than just financials. The emphasis on sound, consistent and comparable data for the investor community has rarely been stronger. Investors are betting that sustainable business practices are a prerequisite as we transition to cleaner energy sources, and shareholders are starting to demand practices supporting environmental stewardship. In some cases, ESG proponents argue that operational efficiencies can make the air cleaner and simultaneously improve a company’s bottom line. After all, the investment community wouldn’t push so hard if it meant their investments were to be less profitable.

ESG scores comprise metrics and set voluntary standards for a company’s operations, which socially conscious investors use to screen potential investments. In addition, energy industry analysts expect government regulations around greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other pollutants to only become more rigid over time. For some oil and natural gas companies, routinely mislabeled as anti-environment, this is an opportunity to accurately tell their story. Their environmental efforts and goals to decrease the carbon intensity of their operations is gaining positive attention, especially in their sustainability reports.

For example, Oxy, which acquired Anadarko Petroleum Corp. in 2019, has published a Pathway to Net Zero Strategy that underscores its commitment, demonstrated by efforts to develop and deploy revolutionary technologies to help society reach net zero while meeting urgent needs for energy and essential products. In a recent sustainability and ESG report, PDC Energy wrote in a letter to stakeholders stating, “Our operational expertise and financial fortitude allow us to set aggressive sustainability goals, and by innovating and appropriately investing we can achieve the results required in today’s dynamic energy environment. Our mission to be a cleaner, safer and socially responsible company begins in the board room and resonates through every level of PDC.”

“ESG has become a term that gets tossed around by every investor. Unfortunately, too many investors are glossing over this as a check box leading to “green washing” of this important distinction. As a true ESG investor, we believe that each investment must have real and measurable positive impacts such as carbon or waste reduction and improving diversity & equity.”

-Trent Yang, President, Galway Sustainable Capital

Others in Colorado’s oil and gas industry have joined, too. The Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission noted in a report that 13 of the state’s 15 largest oil and natural gas producers have set climate and/or sustainability goals.

That’s not to say the topic isn’t being met with opposition. Some, inside and outside the oil and natural gas industry, are questioning whether the energy transformation is being unnecessarily forced with underlying political motivations. Others note the unnecessary increased energy costs the changes could reveal. In October, 19 Republican-led states coalesced to investigate six major U.S. banks and their involvement in the United Nations’ Net-Zero Banking Alliance, which they claim is hurting American companies. Hearings and legislation are expected as soon as next year.

ESG factors are, essentially, measures that address how a company protects the planet, how the company engages with its communities and the diversity of its governing board and workforce. This transparency and accountability mark a shift in mentality for many industries, including operators in oil and natural gas.

“ESG should define good operating practices, from financial stewardship to environmental stewardship, to managing people well. In my mind, it all boils down to different dimensions of governance, particularly how well a company understands, measures, and mitigates risk. Transparent, accurate, comparable data are key to differentiating the quality of a company’s operations.”

-Kelly Bennet, CEO, B3 Insight

None of this means fossil fuels are going away. Energy experts, even those who agree on the need to reduce carbon and methane emissions from the industry to combat climate change, recognize fossil fuels will continue to be important. Renewable energy sources are virtually impossible without a back-up fuel such as natural gas. The transition to cleaner energy perhaps should more rightly be called an energy transformation, with changes to how energy is produced and delivered, and recognizing that all resources — fossil fuels and renewables — are needed to meet the ever-increasing demand for energy.

How each energy source — traditional or renewable — alongside billions in investments play out during the energy transformation will be the start of a new chapter in America’s energy story. And it’s clear Colorado will be front and center.

 

Jon Haubert Hb Legacy Media CoJon Haubert is the publisher of ColoradoBiz magazine. Email him at [email protected].

Becoming a Zero-Emissions State — How Alternative Fuels Are Transforming Transportation in Colorado

Gone are the days of gas-burning vehicles. We’re officially in an energy renaissance with a firm trajectory toward clean energy consumption in our transportation methods. There’s a strong push for everything run on gasoline to be phased out. We’re now seeing the great transformation that the state of Colorado has been yearning for, and Colorado is well on its way to becoming a zero-emissions state very shortly due to a variety of sustainable transportation initiatives.

For example, Colorado is proud to be following in the footsteps left by California in its honorable venture to reduce fossil fuel consumption as much as possible. But that’s just the beginning.

READ — Tapping the Brakes on the Californication of Colorado transportation

Tax Incentives on Electric Vehicle Sales

Although less drastic than California’s ban on gas-powered vehicles, Colorado is still taking steps to motivate the switch to EVs but offering tax breaks coinciding with an EV purchase or lease. 

The minor drawback of late has been the reduction in those incentives for 2023 through 2025. Taxpayers are slightly unsettled by the 20% decrease in the incentive toward the purchase of an EV, causing some confusion about the motivation behind pushing the state to transition quicker. Nevertheless, the incentive is still there, just at a reduced rate. 

The reception of the incentive might have been so strong that the reduction we’re seeing is a reactive step to anticipate the scale of new EV purchasers in the next few years. Although seemingly counterintuitive, it would make sense from a certain point of view. 

Because of this, it creates all the more reasons for potential EV purchasers to resort to more affordable options, like used electric vehicles.

Along the same lines as those general tax incentives are tax breaks for businesses that successfully manage to migrate their fleets over to electric vehicles. 

The Revolution of eBiking and eScooters

On a different note, bikes are a thriving medium of transportation in Colorado. The state proudly sits as the leader of electric bike funding in the U.S. as of 2022. As a likely outcome of the funding, it’s imminent that rebates will commence applicable for current e-bike owners who proactively adopted them.

By the same token, ride-sharing companies like Lyft have transitioned their fleets to electric bikes as an affordable and clean way of providing transportation for city residents.

We’ve also seen a burst of electric scooter groups permeate cities in Colorado, offering a more diverse mode of clean travel.

READ — Clearing the Air on Colorado’s Emissions

Hydrogen Fuel is Growing in Popularity

The advent of Colorado’s new hydrogen fuel station in 2020 opens the door to an optimized way of producing energy for electric vehicles.

Although mildly controversial, the methods by which we contain and control hydrogen fuel are getting better each year. We’re entering a period where it’s becoming more of an option for vehicles to run off the stuff. Some are even surmising that hydrogen fuel will one day soon be the primary alternative to traditional fuels.

However, there is still a lot of stigma surrounding the safety and volatility of hydrogen leveraged as a fuel, which has caused many to remain cautious of it. It may be a little while before hydrogen fuel becomes mainstream, as there’s still a bit of leeriness surrounding it.  

Continually Growing Greener

Colorado isn’t the biggest leader in green energies yet, but it’s definitely been a rising star throughout the last few years. With how recently that most of these programs have been put in place, there’s still a lot of room for the state to race up to speed with other states leading the revolution to clean energy. 

This is all to say, however, that no matter what clean energy transportation steps Colorado takes in the future, it’ll ultimately benefit its citizens and the planet in the long run.

 

Indiana Lee Bio PictureIndiana Lee is a writer, reader, and jigsaw puzzle enthusiast from the Pacific Northwest. An expert on business operations, leadership, marketing, and lifestyle, you can connect with her on LinkedIn.