Colorado follows Europe’s lead in a cautionary tale of cutting natural gas

By Dan Haley 

The headline in last week’s “Wall Street Journal” was a stark warning: “Europe’s Green Energy Rush Slashed Emissions — And Crippled the Economy.”

It was a warning to Americans as we grapple with the need for clean air and a healthy environment, but also the need for more energy and a thriving economy. Europe, much like California, has been the cautionary tale for the past decade, but one that, for whatever reason, many regulators and politicians here in Colorado refuse to believe.

The proof came in a headline in the “Colorado Sun” just one day after the Journal published its story: “PUC finalizes plans to push natural gas out of Colorado home heating to hit 100% decarbonization.”

Like Europe, we're careening toward higher electricity costs as we build a grid on politics — not physics — and, like Europe, it likely will harm the economy and every Coloradan, especially the most vulnerable who already struggle to pay their bills.

The Public Utilities Commission last week finalized its plan to require most utilities to push natural gas out of home heating by 2050 and make 41 percent cuts to natural gas heating emissions in the next 10 years. That's even more ambitious than what Gov. Jared Polis’s administration had sought. The Colorado Energy Office and the state’s health department’s Air Pollution Control Division had asked for a 30 percent target by 2035. Environmental groups were pushing for a 50 percent reduction.

“The 41% target, from our perspective, is a pretty challenging target for utilities,” Will Toor, the head of the governor’s energy office, told the Colorado online newspaper. “We certainly hope that utilities get there. I think we thought that 30% was probably more realistic.”

The loss of natural gas to homes will strand appliances and furnaces, likely forcing homeowners to needlessly foot the bill for new equipment that may not perform at the same efficiency level. That could come at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars for Colorado homeowners.

This particular move allows regulators and politicians to claim they didn’t actually take away anyone’s gas stove or gas fireplaces … they merely ended the fuel supply and ended consumer choice. Most Coloradans will see through that, especially as they begin to pay even higher prices for electricity.

According to the Sun, reaching the more aggressive target may prompt utilities to seek more rate increases to pay for their appliance rebates and system changes. 

The reason Europe has become a cautionary tale is that the continent’s rush to renewables  — before renewables were ready to shoulder the load — has driven up electricity prices on much of the continent, stalled out economies and curtailed growth, especially around artificial intelligence.

“Without energy we have no industry, and without industry we have no defense,” Ebba Busch, Sweden’s deputy prime minister and energy minister, told the “Wall Street Journal.” 

What happens when you don’t have the energy or electricity you need? You end up relying on other countries for it, which can drive up prices, make for precarious geopolitics and hurt the environment. The WSJ noted that if European factories end up closing as a result of high energy costs, the production is likely to be replaced by imports from places like China, where the carbon footprint for those products is far higher — even before shipping is calculated.

"Very clearly the cost of the (energy) transition has never been admitted or recognized,” Gordon Hughes, a professor at the University of Edinburgh and a former adviser on energy to the World Bank, told the Journal. “There is a massive dishonesty involved.” 

So, why the big push in Colorado?

One reason, the “Colorado Sun” noted, is that advocacy groups contend that “…reducing emissions will improve local health in addition to slowing global warming impacts on urban neighborhoods.”

Colorado produces less than one-quarter of one percentage point of all the world’s greenhouse gases. Should we continue to work to reduce GHG emissions? Absolutely. But removing every gas stove, tailpipe, and power plant from our state will not reduce the local impacts of global climate change in any one particular neighborhood, yours or mine. 

We don't have to follow the path of Europe. In Colorado, we can produce the resources we need while protecting the environment, and power the grid by providing more energy sources, not fewer.

To do that, though, we need plans — and leaders — rooted in reality and we need Coloradans to connect the dots between higher electricity prices and these policies created in Fantasy Land.

Dan Haley is an advocate for American energy and was previously the president and CEO of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association.

_{*The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of EnergyPlatform.News.}