WEST SLOPE BIOMASS PLANT MOVES FORWARD

GYPSUM, Colorado — Plans for a biomass power plant in Gypsum got a green light last week, according to the Vail Daily.

Gypsum Town Council members approved the final reading of annexation, zoning and agreements for the plant, 6-1, with Tom Edwards dissenting.

“The next step is to get out the shovel — we plan to break ground by mid-summer,” said Dean Rostrom, of Eagle Valley Clean Energy LLC, the entity behind the plans.

With a planned opening at the end of next year,  the plant will be built on 16 acres directly east of the American Gypsum plant, north of U.S. Highway 6. The acreage is part of a 93-acre parcel Eagle Valley Clean Energy is buying from LaFarge North America and which Gypsum annexed on Tuesday.

ACE PARK’S STALL IN LOVELAND HINDERS SOME BOULDER-AREA FIRMS

Alicia Wallace reports in the Daily Camera about the fallout of the failed partnership between the City of Loveland and the Aerospace and Clean Energy Innovation Park (ACE Park).

Although Loveland landed ACE Park last year, those plans quickly unraveled. As of two weeks ago, CAMT and Loveland parted ways, leaving ACE Park on hold — and looking for a new location — and some of its possible occupants wondering whether the program was too good to be true.

The Space Act Agreement between the Colorado Association for Manufacturing and Technology and NASA was designed to create innovation-driving programs in aerospace and renewable energy — two of the state’s key industries — by leveraging public and private resources. MORE…

AMORY LOVINS : PRIVATE INVESTMENT SHOULD BOOST CLEAN ENERGY

The rather famous head of the Rocky Mountain Institute says that the old fashion profit motive is key to growing the clean energy economy and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.

The road to energy independence in the United States and world winds through the board rooms of companies big and small, Lovins told an an audience in Florida last week.

Lovins said sluggish congressional response to energy problems can be circumvented by private enterprise, a message that seemed to resonate with members of the institute gathered at The Colony.

The centerpiece of Lovins’ approach is the idea that the existing power grid needs to be replaced by 2050 at a cost of $6 trillion. “That’s what it’s going to cost to keep the lights on for the next 40 years no matter what we build,” he said.

So instead of replacing the system with one based on limited fossil fuels, Lovins say … why not base it on fuel-efficient buildings and cars that draw on renewable energy sources?

What he suggests is a system based on solar and wind power, which could make up as much as 86 percent of domestic energy needs. The other 14 percent may come from hydropower sources such as rivers and tidal production, and even geothermal sources. He doesn’t like the alternatives, which include rebuilding our energy infrastructure with coal, oil and nuclear facilities.

While costs for both approaches are comparable, he said in an interview, “they offer profoundly different risks — technological, security and financial. So this is really about risk management, not about which costs less. Secondly, it’s clear that the renewables win even if they’re not subsidized and everything else is.”

“The question is, can you run the electric grid on purely renewable energy? The answer is clearly yes. There are now very good analyses in the U.S. and Europe showing that even for continental areas, you can run 80 to 90 percent renewable electricity with equal or better reliability.”