The Rocky Mountain High state is heading for the rocks.
Rocky Mountain high, Colorado,” sang John Denver, AKA Henry Duetschendorf Jr. in 1972. Those were heady days for Colorado. Ski resorts, the Rockies, natural beauty aplenty and the promise of new beginnings enticed many, including me, to move to Colorado. My stay on the west slope was brief, and over the years, Colorado has descended from a more-or-less business-friendly and affordable state to a Democrat People’s Republic, increasingly crowded and hostile to civil liberties and prosperity.
I occasionally travel to Colorado Springs for service on my recumbent trike and bike at the best recumbent shop in this part of the country. The traffic on I-35 is always horrific, driving through Denver is a nightmare and road construction and delays are eternal. I yet have friends and family in Colorado. My family worries about entrusting their still-infant kids to Colorado schools when the time comes. They also worry about Colorado’s increasingly draconian anti-liberty/gun laws.
They have other worries too. Colorado is facing a $1.5+ billion dollar budget shortfall, a half-billion more than expected. Republicans blame Democrat overspending. Democrats blame Republicans for noticing.
Coloradans are also noticing increasing power outages. Colorado currently is 26th in the nation for power outages and is 27th for the number of power customers affected. At Complete Colorado, Jon Caldera has noticed—when his lights have been on. He’s noticed that Colorado can be windy.
But only in the last few months have I witnessed our power utilities preemptively turning off electricity during high winds to “prevent fires.”
Caldera is suspicious:
Is Colorado suddenly windier than it has been during my entire life? Unless our eyes have been lying to us, the answer is comfortably: no.
Yet, I type this under an official warning that my power might be turned off because of another rather normal day of high winds.
Is it too tinfoil-hat to wonder if this is really about preventing fires?
Is it too “QAnon” to think they might be conditioning us for Colorado’s future of intermittent electricity?
But why would the state do that?
But why would the state do that?
They know sizable power disruptions are in our future — because they ordered them. So, they’d better start getting YOU used to it.
Currently about two-thirds of Colorado’s electricity comes from fossil fuels. And already our power is becoming less reliable and more intermittent.
Thanks to state mandates, by 2050 — and the legislature is already flirting with moving that deadline up to 2040 — none of our power can come from fossil fuels. [skip]
Our leaders — and the corporate energy leeches who feed off them — know they need to prepare you for wildly intermittent, Third World energyCaldera reasonably notes Colorado’s energy consumption is expected to triple in the near future in part due to the proliferation of energy intensive data centers. He also notes that all-renewable energy sources—wind and solar—coming remotely close to meeting Colorado’s energy needs is fantasy. That’s true for the nation. But when a state’s rulers live in their own fantasy world and try to force everyone else to live in it too, that’s the kind of policy you get.
However, real reality may intrude due to power outages at Denver International Airport, one of America’s five busiest:
A power outage on Wednesday morning impacted operations at Denver International Airport.
“The airport experienced a power incident around 9:20 a.m. Certain areas of the airport are still experiencing an outage, including DEN’s train to the gates,” the airport said on social media.
“Technicians are working as quickly as possible to restore power. We will share updates as soon as we have them,” it added.
Denver International Airport officials said power was restored at 11:04 a.m., nearly two hours after the initial outage. They said that operations would return to normal and asked for patience.
According to witness accounts from inside the airport, passengers were not allowed to board waiting planes, and power outages were impacting bathroom services.
I’d rather not imagine what impacted bathroom services looked and smelled like.
Around 11 a.m., users said that power was on, though there were still large crowds of people, and bathrooms were hit or miss. [skip]
According to flight tracking tool FlightAware, there were 96 flights delayed and 6 canceled as of 10 a.m. That increased to 258 delays by 11 a.m., and is up to 474 delays as of 1:30 p.m.
I’ve flown into and out of Denver. It’s hellish even when the power is on.
Now the question is whether even those kinds of inconveniences will be sufficient to convince Colorado’s People’s Assembly to realize renewable energy isn’t remotely realistic.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
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