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Denver gets solar shot in the arm

Feds to supply $200,000 to help push technology

By Joyzelle Davis, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published March 29, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, right, appears at a news conference Friday with Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo. Bodman was unveiling a solar energy grant.

Photo by Dennis Schroeder / The Rocky

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, right, appears at a news conference Friday with Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo. Bodman was unveiling a solar energy grant.

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Denver will receive $200,000 from the federal government to accelerate the adoption of solar-energy technology in the region, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman announced in Denver on Friday.

The money comes with the city's designation as one of this year's 12 Solar American Cities, a program started in 2007 by the department to recognize regions that are deploying solar technology. This year's cities, which include Seattle, Philadelphia and San Antonio, will receive a total of $2.4 million as well as technical assistance worth an estimated $3 million.

The Solar Cities program is part of the Bush administration's goal of making solar energy "cost-competitive" with other energy sources by 2015, Bodman said.

The financial and technical assistance is intended to "help establish solar energy as a mainstream energy resource option," said Bodman said at the New Frontiers Energy Summit, a gathering of some 500 energy industry members in Denver to discuss renewable energy.

The program focuses on the nuts and bolts of integrating the thermal technology into an urban setting, ranging from streamlining local regulations to devising tax incentives and making homeowners aware of the technology.

Denver has four major solar energy projects underway, Bodman noted, including a 71/2 acre project near Denver International Airport that should generate enough electricity to power some 1,000 homes.

Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., created the annual "energy summit" in Denver in 2006 to solicit ideas to make the state a leader in renewable energy.

"We're convinced we're at the frontier of some great new beginnings," Salazar told the audience. "We are building on a lot that has happened here in the past three years."

Ideas from the first event led to the inception of the Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory, a joint research effort involving the University of Colorado, Colorado State University, Colorado School of Mines and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Bodman's 30-minute speech also highlighted the state's progress in research and development into other renewable energy and clean energy sources, such as coal plants that capture carbon dioxide emissions and the production of ethanol fuel from plant sources.

"Our national focus must remain on increasing the energy options that are available to us," he said. "We simply must diversify."

davisj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2514

Comments

  • March 29, 2008

    9:18 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    SheikYurBooty writes:

    All this "renewable" crap is just a bunch of racist OPEC-haters on overdrive...

  • March 29, 2008

    8:08 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    gr8fun4me writes:

    Hey SASQUATCH your reasoning is totally illogical. You think sending $400 billion dollars a year over to the six middle east countries doesn't harm national security? The country should have invested in new technology long ago when we had the first Arab Oil Embargo. I remember pushing my car into the gas station because we could only gas up on certain days. You have no clue as to what you're talking about. Do you think the oil comes from within the US. This has been going on since the 70's and the government did nothing to stop the US from becoming dependent on foreign oil.
    What our government should have done is give out a $1 billion dollar prize for the company or individual that comes up with a battery that can hold a charge for 1000 miles at 60mph, at 70 degrees fahrenheit. Another $1 billion prize for superconductivity in wires at 70 degrees fahrenheit and another $1 billion dollar prize for increasing solar cell efficiency to 85% conversion. All three of these things would help tremendously in saving energy. Our currency is being hammered overseas because we are sending so much of it over there to buy oil. I think it is great that spmeone finally has the foresight to see the position that we are in and trying to solve it instead of trying to keep going down the same route. You want to see a cool electric car go check out teslamotors.com and then look at the review by Jay Leno at http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/video/v...

  • March 30, 2008

    11:23 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    justright writes:

    Solar in Seattle????????
    Did I miss something here? The Feds are giving more than a penny to some solar push in Seattle? Isn't there a person in DC who has actually been to Seattle or is this just another smoke screen money transfer?

    Suddenly the whole article has no meaning about energy and stinks. A real investigative reporter would find what and where this money is going.

    I am 99% sure it has nothing to do with the sun! Yes I have been to Seattle.

  • March 30, 2008

    2:13 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    greenleaf writes:

    Squatch, Rather than being one of the finest minds of the early 1900's why don't you join the rest of us and make a difference in this century!

  • March 30, 2008

    7:16 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    greenleaf writes:

    Squatch,

    Damn, Here we go again. This is the one issue where I at least partially agree with you and the article you cited. From what I have read recently, its far too early to throw cellulosic or algal ethanol and biodiesel into history's dumpster, that's where corn ethanol should have gone long before now! It's a totally bankrupt concept!

    I have high hopes for cellulosic fuel since that could help considerably with solving another problem, the millions of standing dead trees in the forests of the west. It could go a long ways toward turning lemons to lemonade. Algal ethanol would be produced at brownfield sites, specifically Coal fired power plants where it would soak up vast quantities of CO2. This again would turn the "lemon" of global warming into the "lemonade" of a new fuel source.

    In conclusion, I gave up on corn ethanol long ago. I still have optimism that other biofuels will work.

    And SASQUATCH, we all need to listen when you talk about B.S. because no one on the planet has shovelled more than you have!

  • March 31, 2008

    1:32 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    justright writes:

    Sasquatch & Greenleaf & anyone who watchs this energy battle,

    The tar sands of Canada are 10 times SMALLER then the oil shale reserves right here in our own backyard. Of course being in our own backyard is what makes it hard to produce. In some ways it is to bad it is not across the border in Canada or Mexico. Chances are it would already be in production.

    The chart below shows provene oil reserves. Tar sands were not even on this list 3 years ago.

    1 World 1,025,000,000,000
    2 Saudi Arabia 261,700,000,000
    3 Canada 178,900,000,000
    4 Iran 130,800,000,000
    5 Iraq 112,500,000,000
    6 United Arab Emirates 97,800,000,000
    7 Kuwait 96,500,000,000
    8 Venezuela 78,000,000,000
    9 Russia 69,000,000,000

    In fact the oil shale reserves are larger then Saudi, Iran, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait and Venezuela combined. The smallest estimate has the oil shale reserves at 2.2 times the combined reserves of those lovely countries.

    1.7 Trillion barrels of black fuel are what is looming. If somehow we figure out a way to fly a 747 with the sun, great, but something tells me we will find a way to produce this 1.7 trillion barrels of fuel.

  • April 1, 2008

    11:26 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    dabumster writes:

    $123 billion in profits for the big oil company's this past year and you're dogging the biofuel industry, Sasquatch?

    That tremendous profit is the reason for the upturn in food prices not ethanol. Studies show that the biofuel boom is indirectly responsible for only a 4% rise in the cost of your corn flakes in the morning.

  • April 1, 2008

    8:16 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    justright writes:

    Since when is a 10% profit excessive?