Renewable energy mandate mania is again sweeping our Democrat-controlled Statehouse: not a year goes by, it seems, that "green energy" production quotas aren't jacked-up even higher, with no cost-benefit analysis, no understanding of what they'll eventually cost ratepayers, no sense of realism whatsoever. Renewable energy advocates simply pull a new number out of their hats, arbitrarily, and demand that it be met, putting Colorado on the path blazed by that regulatory wonderland called California.

Here's a write-up on the bill by ColoradoSenateNews.com:

Renewable energy mandate advances, moves CO towards higher energy costs

Democrat Sens. Gail Schwartz, of Snowmass Village, and Bruce Whitehead, of Hesperus, argued for a state mandate this afternoon that Republicans say would put Colorado on the road to higher energy prices and a possible energy shortage.

“Renewable energy is not the problem, but the approach of this proposal is,” said Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, whose house is run by entirely renewable energy.

House Bill 1001, sponsored by Schwartz and Whitehead, would mandate large utilities to get 30 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020. That's triple the standard before Democrat Gov. Bill Ritter took office and made renewable energy his pet issue.

Republicans say the proposed mandate is too aggressive and could go the way of the failed renewable energy initiatives of California. In July of 2009, the Wall Street Journal reported that “California's utilities are barrelling ahead to try to meet a state mandate to garner 33 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020, and some officials are concerned the effort might push up electricity prices and crimp supplies.”

California utilities also complain ambitious renewable energy mandates, combined with tough environmental regulations on conventional plants, are compromising their ability to deliver adequate power.

“Thankfully California has once again shown us the road not to travel,” Lundberg said. “Let’s not mimic their failed policies that have lead to high taxation and high unemployment. We cannot spend and mandate our way to prosperity.”

Proponents of HB 1001 claim it will create thousands of jobs. Republicans counter by calling the bill a union pay-back because it requires union labor to be used for many of the renewable energy installation projects. “Apparently Washington doesn’t have a monopoly on special interests and vote trading,” Lundberg said, referring to U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska who carved out a huge earmark for his state in the healthcare bill.

Lundberg went on to explain that HB 1001 is going to raise energy bills because wind and solar still need to be backfilled by more traditional energy, like coal and natural gas. The new Comanche unit 3 coal plant in Pueblo, for example, was built to backfill wind energy. It would take three wind farms spread out around the state to increase the likelihood of continuous energy production of wind. To match Comanche 3’s output, the consortium behind the farm would need to more than double the size of the current Cedar Creek wind farm in Weld County. That would total 2,051 wind turbines operating on 240,000 acres, or 375 square miles.

Colorado Springs Utilities isn't lobbying against this measure, because it won't apply (for now) to publicly-owned utilities. One shareholder-owned energy company, Xcel, has figured out how to cash in on the mandates, by betting the ranch on wind farms. It supports this bill because it helps hedge the company's high-risk bet, buffering it against the day that the wind energy bubble bursts. So why, if other energy providers support a new round of mandates, should CSU fight them? Here's why.

CSU is engaged in Ostrich-like thinking, in my opinion, pretending that future mandates will pass it by if it lays low on this fight and buries its head in the sand. But given how mandate mania spreads, it's only a matter of time before these quotas are imposed on everyone else -- including on energy providers, like CSU, for which a massive investment in renewables might not make sense. What goes around comes around, in short. And hiding our heads in the sand won't save us for long from the mandate maniacs.

Supporters of the new wave of mandates claim they will create new jobs, but those claims are as pie-in-the-sky as the other numbers they pull out of thin air. Reports today's Pueblo Chieftain:

"Environment Colorado’s study said the bill would create 23,450 jobs in solar generation over the next 10 years. But researchers acknowledged that only 152 of those jobs would last for two years or more. The remaining jobs would be short-term construction and support jobs.

Raising the renewable energy standard to 20 percent has already created 17,000 jobs in Colorado, Gov. Bill Ritter said last month.

But even supporters acknowledge the projects need government subsidies of up to 50 percent to cover the cost to make it affordable.

‘‘It’s a make-work project on the front end and heavily subsidized and costly on the back end,’’ said Sen. Kevin Lundberg, a Republican from Fort Collins.

Critics say the only way to sustain the industry is with subsidies and increasing energy standards, since most of the jobs are short-term construction jobs.

Sen. Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, said a study of Spain’s experience, cited by President Barack Obama as a model for the United States, showed the energy industry lost nine traditional energy jobs for every four jobs created by a shift to renewable energy.

If Colorado’s standards were economically viable, mandates and subsidies wouldn’t be needed, Lundberg said."

An admirably alert scribe at the Grand Junction Sentinel, who actually bothered to check some of the job creation claims made by Gov. Bill Ritter, found, at least in one case, that they were misleading, if not bogus. Ritter's spokesman, when confronted with the falsehood, said it was a simple mistake. But I'm betting many more such "mistakes" would be found if one examined the numbers closely. Enough of these mistakes, added together, almost constitute a "lie."

We should fight for the freedom to provide CSU ratepayers with the energy mix that makes the most sense for CSU. Meeting mandates arbitrarily imposed by politicos in Denver, based on nothing more than warm-and-fuzzy whim, is not a rational or responsible way to run a utility company, or to make energy policy. Will California have to completely implode before Coloradans see that this isn't the model to follow?