LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Colorado needs the Legislature to support renewable energy

Our state legislators must support renewable energy in 2024.

Renewable energy is essential for tackling the social and environmental challenges facing our state. Colorado is a nexus for renewable energy, having high energy potential for both wind and solar power. These sources of power do not emit greenhouse gasses or air pollutants that currently harm Colorado’s wildlife, environment, and people. Fossil-fuel energies also require mass amounts of water, which is already sparse in our state. Last year, wind and solar saved Colorado 9 billion gallons of water alone — critical savings for our depleting resource.

Diversifying our state’s power grid has bipartisan benefits that extend to communities, making them more efficient, resilient, and reliable. Renewable energy based in Colorado increases energy independence that cannot be achieved through reliance on fossil fuels. It can also help manage the dangerous effects of climate change. The number of wildfires and droughts are predicted to increase this year, and a diversified power grid can help keep Coloradans safe during extreme weather emergencies.

Renewable energy not only preserves our natural resources and wildlife, it can also help preserve generational farms. When landowners voluntarily choose to host renewable energy projects, they open their doors to land lease payments, which keep family operations thriving during otherwise difficult economic times. Annual land lease payments in Colorado have reached $31.3 million.

Nearly 90% of Coloradans support renewable energy, now it’s time for that consensus to be represented in our legislature. Colorado’s communities, wildlife, and beautiful natural environment depend on our state legislators making the right choice in supporting our clean energy goals

Michael Briscoe, PhD, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Colorado State University Pueblo

Re: “Jobs, waste and cancer clusters: Puebloans express split opinions on nuclear at town hall”

A retired NASA engineer flies in from Alabama to hawk thorium-based reactors at the town hall hosted by the Board of Pueblo County Commissioners. The engineer seemingly failed to mention that the element thorium must undergo a process to transmute to uranium-233 which is an excellent fissile fuel material.

The very same fissile material that fuels advanced nuclear technologies like Small Modular Reactors. SMRs are currently under consideration to transition Comanche 3 from coal to nuclear power even though the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has identified serious safety concerns with SMRs.

The thorium option produces less radioactive waste as the NASA engineer claimed but the waste remains hazardous for centuries, versus about 24,000 years from conventional uranium-based reactors.

We are still contemplating a fissioning nuclear reactor at Comanche Station located within Pueblo city limits where the radioactive waste will be stored. This accumulating waste will emit radioactive particles, which if not properly managed, can be a risk to human health and the environment. Whether we are considering thorium or uranium-based nuclear fuel options, they both produce radioactive waste that will pose serious health risks.

Conspicuously absent from these ongoing discussions were executives from Xcel Energy. Some think Xcel wants Comanche Station to go nuclear as that would make the most profit for their shareholders. For now, Xcel is content with having the Pueblo Innovative Energy Solutions Advisory Committee carry water for them. The PIESAC’s main spokesperson is a Denverbased attorney who insists on the nuclear option, and who is a former commissioner of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC).

The very same PUC that serves the public interests by ‘effectively regulating utilities so that the people of Colorado receive safe, and reasonably priced services consistent with the economic, environmental, and social values of our state’.

We’ll see about that.

Joseph P. Griego, Pueblo

A barb for Boebert

Dear Republican and unaffiliated voters of the 4th Congressional District of Colorado:

Our blessing in the 3rd with the unforeseen but welcome departure of Representative Boebert presents you with the opportunity to kick her can down the road.

It will require convincing some of your lesser candidates to drop out so that the focus is between your strongest candidate(s) and Boebert. It will require some of the far right or MAGA voters to put aside their ideology and vote for a better candidate who has moral values. It will also require the help and votes of your unaffiliated voters.

Tune into YouTube.com and watch her theater performance where she is being groped by and is groping her male companion. Does that conduct square with your moral values? Is she to be your office holder?

If she is elected you’ll soon be disappointed and embarrassed as so many of us have been in the 3rd. John Anderson, retired judge, 11th Judicial District To submit a letter to the editor, email Editor Zach Hillstrom at zhillstrom@gannett.com. All letters may be edited for grammar and AP style. Letters that are wholly false in nature, discriminatory, offensive, obscene, or violent in any way will not run. There is only a certain amount of space allotted for letters each week. Letters received first have priority.