Mountain Biking: Rubber side down- Exploration Is Cool.So, last week I left the house like this: The grand plan was to meet Josh, drive the fat-tire bikes up to the Peak to Peak, ride down on singletrack/dirt roads, then ride the skinny tire bikes back up for the car. You know, a little something-different adventure. We got off to a rocky start, […]
- Sometimes Gadgets MatterIt’s not often that I credit an improvement in my riding to equipment. In fact, I’m willing to bet that a lot of issues with most folks are operator error rather than the need for some expensive toy. But this time, I’ve got a few exceptions. Sunglasses, for me, are a tough purchase. Not only […]
- Exploration Is Cool.
- Edgy Veggie
Longmont solar company awarded $400 million federal loan guarantee
An employee works on equipment at Abound Solar's Longmont production facility. Courtesy photo | Abound Solar
President Barack Obama has recently announced a federal loan guarantee to Abound Solar, a Loveland-based company that has a manufacturing facility in Longmont.
The company, which employs 360 people in Colorado and manufactures thin film solar panels, will nearly double its employee base in the state, Abound Solar spokesman Mark Chen said.
He said it’s not yet clear exactly how the new jobs will break down between Abound Solar’s Longmont production facility, its headquarters in Loveland and its research lab in Fort Collins.
But he said Longmont would most likely be the biggest beneficiary since the bulk of production is done in the city. The company will be able to add two production lines to the one it already has in Longmont as a result of the loan guarantee, Chen said.
The White House said the project marks the first time this new manufacturing technology for Cadmium-Telluride panels will be deployed commercially anywhere in the world.
It will produce photovoltaic panels using an innovative process in which thin films of Cadmium-Telluride are deposited onto the glass panels, according to the White House. The technology reduces overall product costs.
Abound Solar is a member of PV Cycle, an organization dedicated to creating “truly sustainable energy solutions that take into consideration the environmental impacts of all stages of the product life cycle, from raw material sourcing through end-of-life collection and recycling.”
Learn more about the Abound Solar expansion in Longmont and the federal loan guarantee at the Camera.
-Hannah Gentry
ClimateSmart loans may be in trouble
Scott Pardee, a technician for Bestway Insulation, finishes installing insulation in a crawl space beneath a home in Longmont on Thursday. Insulation projects are a popular improvement paid for with money from Boulder County's ClimateSmart Loan Program.
Boulder County has suspended its popular, voter-approved ClimateSmart Loan Program, which lets you borrow money from them (at relatively low interest rates) to make energy-efficient improvements to your home like adding solar panels or blowing in some more insulation.
There are, apparently, a couple of problems that came out last week. One is a set of new rules from the DOE that govern loans like ClimateSmart — though that one will likely be no that big of deal. The second, which is more of a problem, is a letter from mortgage-buying giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The letter implies that the government-sponsored agencies won’t buy mortgages for houses that have ClimateSmart liens on them.
“Every program in the country — in Colorado the programs that are just getting set to launch in Eagle County — are going into neutral and saying, ‘We’ll continue developing programs,’ but nobody is going to issue any additional financing until there’s clarification of the letter,” Commissioner Will Toor told the Camera on Thursday.
“The timing here in Boulder County is very unfortunate because we had a round of residential loans that would be closing tomorrow and we were looking at a bond sale in a few weeks,” he said. “There are a bunch of property owners and a bunch of contractors who were hoping that this would move forward.”
Read more about the suspension at DailyCamera.com.
CU lawyers: The rules of the river are broken
The Colorado River | USGS
How do you solve a problem that nearly everyone knows exists, but no one will talk about? Or at least no one with any political power will talk about?
That seems to be the case with the Colorado River. The annual demand on the river by the seven basin states and Mexico — just more than 15 million acre feet — is more than the average annual flow. (And if you live anywhere in Boulder County, you’re part of the “demand.” About 20 percent of the city of Boulder’s water is pumped from the Colorado River’s watershed over the continental divide. If you live in most other towns in the county, your percentage is far higher.)
So something’s got to change. Which, like I said, everyone seems to know. But, then, why doesn’t it seem like anyone’s getting serious about a change? Maybe it’s because talking about changing the rules of the Colorado River is a big political landmine.
Take John McCain. Remember when he told the Pueblo Chieftan in August 2008 that the 1922 Colorado River Compact — which divvies up the river water between the seven states — should be renegotiated? If you do, you might also remember the immediate outrage from Coloradans like Ken Salazar, whose immediate reaction was, “Over my dead body” will the contract be renegotiated.
Now a handful of lawyers from the University of Colorado are looking at what rules govern the river (and this means picking through a web of complicated treaties, compacts, state laws and court rulings) and what should be changed to create a sustainable mangement plan. With no political horse in the race, the lawyers hope that their suggestion for improvements can be picked up later by politicians…. making it a safer topic to discuss. (“Hey,” the politician could say, “this wasn’t my idea… I’m just looking into this report from these lawyers.” Then after gauging the public response, he or she could say, “Hey, this was kind of my idea.”)
You get the picture. Read more about CU’s yearlong project at DailyCamera.com.
Feds search for northern leopard frog, which sometimes live in Boulder ponds
A northern leopard frog | National Park Service
Perhaps you recognize the northern leopard frog from the dissection tray in your high school biology class?
But have you seen one (alive) lately?
The northern leopard frog used to be easy to find across 19 states, including Colorado — and they were one of the key species fried up for frog legs.
But over the last few decades, the species has been on the decline.
Now the feds are out counting the small frog to see if the spotted amphibian needs protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The leopard frog is known to live in Boulder County. A 2006 study by the city’s open space department scoured 32 wetlands (which included ponds, intermittent streams and irrigation ditches) and found 172 leopard frogs.
Federal biologists believe leopard frog populations are currently undergoing a dramatic decline from vast areas of its historical range in the western United States and Canada. Read more
Boulder County workers are coming to your door, and they’re armed (with low-flow showerheads and CFL light bulbs)
If you want to save energy (and water), you probably know what you should do. But maybe, you just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
A CFL bulb | Associated Press
Boulder County is taking that kind of good intention (but lack of action) to task. The county is launching the Energy Corps, which will pay young adults to go door to door, educating those who need it, and then doing what needs to be done (in the energy sense, of course) right then and there.
The new program, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will work with community groups such as homeowners’ associations to target willing neighborhoods.
“The goal is to do a new neighborhood every Saturday,” said county spokesman Dan Rowland. “If your HOA contacts us and says, ‘OK we’re going to do this,’ we’ll have the whole team out in the neighborhood. They’ll crank through 15 or 20 houses that are already signed up.”
Individual houses will be scheduled for two-hour energy assessments, during which corps members will install compact fluorescent light bulbs, low-flow showerheads, programmable thermostats, weather stripping and clotheslines free of charge. Energy Corps members will also help homeowners save energy by adjusting thermostats, refrigerators, freezers, water heaters and furnaces.
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com, or to get your neighborhood on Energy Corps’ to-do list, contact Beth Beckel at bbeckel@bouldercounty.org or 303-441-3502.
Boulder County wants to get climate smart(er)
Earlier this year, Boulder County launched the ClimateSmart Loan Program, which gives low-interest loans to property owners who want to give their buildings an energy face lift.
The loans (which are attached to the property, not the owner, and stay with the house even if the owner moves) can be used for insulation, new windows, ground-source heat pumps, solar panels… pretty much anything that will lower a building’s energy use.
The program has been wildly popular, and since the program launched in May, more than 600 homeowners have borrowed nearly $10 million for their projects.
The loans are made possible by bonds that voters approved last November, and this November, the county is asking voters to double the available funding from $40 millino to $80 million.
Read more about the request to double ClimateSmart on November’s ballot at DailyCamera.com, or learn more about how to get a loan at www.ClimateSmartLoanProgram.org.
Boulder County Issue 1C would halve jail’s utility bill
Inmate Kevin Halfen loads a massive washing machine with towels while doing laundry Wednesday at the Boulder County Jail. With laundry going 16 hours a day, among other needs, the jail burns through a lot of electricity. But Boulder County officials hope voters will pass a ballot measure to allow energy-efficiency upgrades at several public buildings. Photo by Mark Leffingwell.
The Boulder County jail does a lot of laundry.
If it’s not uniforms, it’s bed sheets or underwear, meaning that the industrial-sized washers and dryers are often running 16 hours a day, greedily sucking electricity off the grid.
About 500 people live at the jail, so when you add the laundry to a flood of hot showers and countless burning light bulbs, the facility racks up a pretty hefty utility bill: $250,000 a year.
The Boulder County commissioners want to slash that bill, and if voters give them the thumbs-up at the ballot box in November, they say they can cut the amount of money spent on jail utilities in half.
This November, the county commissioners are asking voters for permission to make major energy-efficiency upgrades to the jail with the ultimate goal of cutting its $250,000 annual utility bill in half. Boulder County Ballot Issue 1C would allow the county to take advantage of new federally backed, zero-interest loans to make $6.1 million worth of improvements to county buildings, including the jail, the justice center and the sheriff’s headquarters.
The new loan program is part of the federal stimulus bill, and the money must be used for public buildings. Read more
Not so fast, biotech beets — federal judge orders environmental study
A sugar beet | DailyCamera.com
A federal judge has told the USDA that they should’ve slowed down — and considered the environment — when the agency approved genetically modified sugar beets, which have recently caused an uproar here in Boulder County.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White ruled Monday evening that the USDA has to go back and produce the environmental impact statement that the agency should have worked on before.
Last December, six Boulder County farmers asked for permission to plant Roundup Ready sugar beets on the open space land they lease from the county. Since the county already allows GMO corn — 1,500 acres of open space is planted with it this year — the farmers thought the request wouldn’t be too big a deal.
But the issue blew up, thanks in part to a group of riled up leaders from the area’s organic and natural food industry. In August, the county commissioners agreed to delay the controversial decision on whether to allow the GMO beets while the county debates what to do with genetically modified crops in general. Read more
Cone-collecting efforts strive to save limber pines
Cones on a limber pine tree | Jesse Speer, rockymountainnationalpark.com
First it was the mysterious, wide-spread death of aspen trees.
Then it was the near annihilation of all of Colorado’s mature lodgepole forests by a plague of pine beetles.
Now, the forest service is worried about limber pines and their relatives in the white pine family, including the ancient bristlecone pines.
The combination of blister rust — a non-native fungus — and pine beetles, which also feed on limber pines, is killing off the ancient trees at unprecedented rates.
The U.S. Forest Service has recently beefed up a campaign to save limber pines by looking for the hardiest trees and collecting their cones.
From last weekend’s Daily Camera:
On Saturday, the first of several groups of volunteers organized by Boulder County’s Parks and Open Space Department will scour the mountains west of Boulder in an effort to save the limber pines by collecting their cones.
The cones — and more importantly, the seeds they contain — will be handed off to the U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station, where researchers will cultivate young pines, searching for the healthiest individual trees.
“We’re going to test the resulting seedlings for resistance to blister rust, an introduced fungal pathogen,” said Thomas Crow, manger of the limber pine program. “It’s part of a more proactive approach to management.”
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com, or learn more about blister rust at the Rocky Mountain Research Station’s Web site.
Read more posts about forest health on BigGreenBoulder:
 Beetle-killed trees threaten Colorado power grid |
 Rocky Mountain aspens could disappear by 2090 |
Beetle-killed trees threaten Colorado power grid
The U.S. Forest Service wants to clear dead trees from powerline corridors in Colorado. Falling trees or a fire have the potential to affect wide areas of the western power grid. Summit Daily/Bob Berwyn
Pine beetles have infested about 2 million acres of Colorado’s lodgepole pine forest, and utility companies are worried that when the dead trees fall, they’ll fall on power lines.
This from the Vail Daily:
A wildfire along one of the West’s key power line corridors could shut down the grid in a worst-case scenario. To avoid disruption, the U.S. Forest Service wants to remove dead and dying trees along power lines crossing national forest system lands in northern Colorado. …
“There is an imminent threat to power lines from an increasing number of hazardous trees falling in the three forests,” said Cal Wettstein, commander of the Forest Service’s Bark Beetle Incident Management Team.
The U.S. Forest Service wants to work with utilities to cut down beetle-killed trees on land it manages in Colorado, including trees in the Roosevelt National Forest, which covers a swath of western Boulder County.
There are around 800 miles of distribution and transmission lines on the three National Forests — White River, Medicine Bow-Routt, and Arapaho and Roosevelt — according to the forest service, and about 400 miles run through lodgepole pine that has been or will likely be killed by the bark beetle.
Read the full story from the Vail Daily, or read the press release from the U.S. Forest Service.
