Opinion: Colorado PUC is failing to correct an egregious abuse of Xcel’s ratepayers — and the planet

As Colorado suffers through a stifling hot summer and the associated wildfires, it is past time that the Colorado Public Utilities Commission stopped making all of Xcel Energy’s customers complicit in adding large amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from the Pueblo Unit 3 coal plant and paying for large expenditures to keep this beleaguered coal plant operating.

While the Pueblo Unit 3 coal plant (the one Xcel calls “Comanche 3”) is located in Pueblo, all but a very small amount of the electricity is sent to the Denver metro area and elsewhere to serve Xcel’s customers. Pueblo residents get the pollution, but not the electricity.

Under Colorado utilities law, the PUC is specifically charged with correcting abuses of utility customers and preventing extortions (C.R.S. 40-3-102). Making Xcel’s customers pay for the PU3 coal plant is an egregious abuse and a rate extortion that the PUC needs to correct.

When operating at full capacity (which it often doesn’t due to construction defects and operational mistakes), the Pueblo Unit 3 coal plant is typically Colorado’s single largest source of greenhouse gases — emitting 4 million to 5 million tons of carbon dioxide a year — the equivalent emissions of over 800,000 internal combustion cars, according to the Environmental Protection Agency greenhouse gas calculator.

In addition, the Pueblo Unit 3 coal plant (like all coal plants) emits many other very serious air pollutants including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulates, acid gases and many heavy metals including mercury, arsenic and lead. It also consumes millions of gallons of water a day and produces large quantities of toxic coal ash.

When proposed in 2004, hundreds of Xcel’s customers testified that building a coal plant that was planned to operate until 2070 was the wrong decision for the 21st century. Now, after years of discussion at the PUC, the Pueblo Unit 3 coal plant is finally scheduled to be closed by Jan. 1, 2031, at the latest. As a result, this approximately billion-dollar investment will be shuttered having operated less than a third of its expected life span since it also was offline for many extended periods since it came online in 2010.

Despite the imprudent decision to build a coal plant in the 21st century and the imprudent way that Xcel has operated the coal plant, Xcel has continued to earn profits on the coal plant — totaling well over a half-billion dollars in profits from burning coal in the 21^st century — profits that are, of course, paid for by Xcel’s Colorado customers.

Earning profits from burning coal in the 21^st century is both unconscionable and an “abuse” of Xcel’s customers that the PUC should have corrected long ago.

Before going on, let me be clear — the current Colorado PUC commissioners (Chairman Eric Blank and Commissioners Megan Gilman and Tom Plant) are all excellent. They bring tremendous experience and strong critical-thinking skills to their jobs. Colorado is very lucky to have them.

The real blame for the mistake known as the Pueblo Unit 3 coal plant belongs with the PUC commissioners who served in the 2004-2010 time frame when the coal plant was proposed and the expenses added to customers’ bills.

As with many problems that are inherited, it can be understood why the current PUC commissioners have been slow to correct the egregious abuse known as the Pueblo Unit 3 coal plant. It was a very big mistake, and the current commissioners aren’t responsible for the original mistake.

Nonetheless, as the PUC continues to force Xcel customers to pay for a large, polluting and ultimately unreliable coal plant, they — and all of Xcel’s customers — become complicit with accelerating the unfolding and intensifying climate crisis as well as in all the health problems caused by the pollutants associated with coal burning.

Now, to add insult to “abuse,” Xcel is making large capital expenditures related to the Pueblo Unit 3 coal plant — concrete and steel structures that will be destined for the landfill in less than a decade or which will stand as rusting hulks on the plains southeast of Pueblo. So far the PUC has failed to take strong action on these large expenditures.

The PUC has started to work on what it calls Performance Incentive Mechanisms for the Pueblo Unit 3 coal plant expenses and emissions. These PIMs are likely to be complicated and not achieve much. It is past time to walk away from this mistake and invest our limited time and money in much cleaner and more cost-effective solutions.

It is important to help the coal plant workers and the Pueblo community through the transition after they have paid the health price for decades from Xcel’s polluting coal plants, but that is not an excuse to keep “abusing” Xcel’s Colorado customers.

The PUC, which will discuss these PIMs later this month, is undoubtedly busy, but it is past time to stop putting good money after bad and to correct the ongoing abuses of Xcel’s customers, our state and the planet from the Pueblo Unit 3 coal plant.

Leslie Glustrom, who lives in Boulder, is the senior advisor to Boulder-based Clean Energy Action and is trained as a biochemist. She has spent the past 20 years working on climate issues and has followed every PUC proceeding involving the Pueblo Unit 3 coal plant.

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