Video: Boulder Colorado Municipalizing Its Electrical Utility

There are a number of reasons that I wanted to share this video on Boulder, Colorado and its citizens’ attempts to internalize (“municipalize” as they say) the generation of its electrical energy.  First, it’s the style of video whose quality I believe I can make with resources within a few orders of magnitude of my own.  It’s not Steven Spielberg; it’s not Ken Burns; it’s something I feel that a few friends and I can produce – and I’d really like to do projects like this at a certain point.

I hope you’ll agree that with a modest budget, these people have told a story of amazing warmth, passion … and drama.  With respect to the environmental sustainability associated with our energy use, we honestly don’t know what’s going to happen here – and, in large measure, the final chapter will be written by people like you and me.

More to the point, its subject matter is something we all need to understand and appreciate; in fact, I mentioned this story just a few weeks ago.  Boulder, with a strong demographic of well-educated, progressive, and affluent citizens that’s equaled by just a few communities in the U.S., has “just said no” to an incumbent utility (Xcel Energy) whose monopoly, it deems, enables Xcel to sell their customers electricity generated from the least costly energy source (coal).  Meanwhile, the local people are simply telling Xcel to go away.

Let’s see what’s going to happen here.  Personally, I’m betting that Boulder will ultimately succeed in replacing its utility with city-owned assets that can produce electricity any way it wants to (read: renewable energy), while creating a prime example for other municipalities that have the smarts – and the wherewithal – to do the same.