Lawmakers, schools laud energy agreement
Lynn Bartels, the Rocky Mountain News
Published February 21, 2007 at midnight
The president of Colorado State University appealed to the governor and legislature today to add more faculty to help make the state the renewable energy "Capitol of the world."
"Without an increased number of faculty, we cannot accomplish the dream we are talking about today," CSU President Larry Penley said.
CSU is one of three state colleges working with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to "blaze a trail to our energy future," in the words of U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Denver.
The kickoff for their collaboration was held today at the state Capitol, with Gov. Bill Ritter, university leaders, the lab director, members of Colorado’s congressional delegation and the state legislature.
"All over our state exciting things are happening in energy," Ritter said.
The Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory Agreement was created by the legislature last year, and officially began today.
CSU, the University of Colorado, the Colorado School of Mines, and the lab will work together on energy initiatives.
"This is a great day in Colorado," U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Golden, whose district includes the lab, said this morning.
"You can be green and make a lot of green," said U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs.
Penley said the agreement continues the competition among the schools for research dollars, but signals an era of cooperation, too.
Two things, he said, were essential for the agreement's success.
One was taking ideas that are developed, commercializing them and making them usable. The other was adding more "globally competitive" faculty to help with the research.
State Rep. Bernie Buescher, who sits on the Joint Budget Committee, said he believes that Colorado's colleges will receive a 7 percent budget increase next year, a significant amount considering the hit the universities took during the recession.
Buescher sponsored the legislation creating the energy agreement.
It calls for the collaboratory to receive up to $2 million per year for three years. They money is used as matching funds to allow the lab and schools to qualify for federal and private research projects.
The Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory will work with public agencies, private enterprise, nonprofit institutions and all of Colorado’s universities and colleges, to strive to:
• Increase the production and use of energy from renewable
resources
• Support economic growth in Colorado and the Nation with
renewable energy industries
• Build a renewable energy economy in rural Colorado and rural
America
• Establish Colorado as America’s leading center of energy
research and production
• Educate energy researchers and technicians
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