WSRL DMEA Page

WSRL.ORG / Rural Colorado Energy Issues - July. 2005 - Revised January 2012 - DMEA Page -

For whatever reason, it seems Delta Montrose Electric Association (DMEA) and the manager, Dan McClendon are quoted in the major regional newspapers more that any other REA. It's as if DMEA and Dan are a spokesperson for all the other REA's in the state. This is fine with me. I'm a customer of DMEA, receive their mailing, and have no problem picking on them to the exclusion or the other REA's. I will again reference a Washington Post article that, I feel closely describes today's REA organizations. I'm not at all certain that the REA method of doing business is relevant to what needs to happen today on the energy front. It is hard for me to come up with words that sufficiently describe my anger at the Federal Government for the great peril they have placed our country in relative to energy.

Tri-State News Update 1-2-08

As a DMEA customer, if you are feeling like a well cultivated mushroom relative to information about Tri-State, relief is here. The latest resource documents are available on Tri-State's website here which was filed mid-November 2007. The document is a little tricky to find on the PUC website so it has been transferred to this server. The document appears to be fully in the public domain with no copyright notices that I could find. I think you will find the document contains several items found on this website that have never, to the best of my knowledge, been mentioned by DMEA or made available to the public on their website.

To DMEA's Credit -

They were first to rock the boat relative to Tri-State's conventional coal fired power plants. I can not, however, think of anything less relevant than not signing the famous "All Requirements" contract due 2040. In my view the act was a publicity stunt that had and currently has no meaning. At this rate, I question if Tri-State will be around in even five years. Conventional (old technology) coal plants have been under attack for years. This act, for sure, did not cause Kansas to reject the Sunflower Electric Power 700 Mwatt build permit. It was all of the high level down-wind state officials and politicians that were in line to suffer the effects of the new plant. Update - Jan. 2012 DMEA just raised their rates again and they are still buying power from Tri-State. So much for their not signing the "All Requirements" thing.

From Intermountain Energy's (DMEA's) Old Site

DMEA - The Political Animal

DMEA has kept large amounts of information from their members. Terms like "Global Warming", "Carbon Caps", "Nuclear Power", "OASIS", " Co-Gen","CHP"," Beck, Schmitz, School of Mines report", don't seem to be in their vocabulary. They keep sending out brochures announcing their upcoming 11.5% rate increases but including lots of pretty pictures and graphs on things like renewable energy, geothermal energy and so on. They sponsor forums and expos on various topics but in the end they continue to increase rates. It's as if their efforts justify and grease the skids to higher rates. For all their effort, the only concrete information I've gotten from them is that rates are going up. No real strategy, no long term plans, just increase rates.

DMEA's Future - We're Still Waiting (2012)-

Sure looks to me like it's business as usual. As mentioned above, DMEA was against the "All Requirements Contract" but recently used cost increases by Tri-State as an excuse to raise rates. As shown above, DMEA has bad mouthed natural gas and propane for years while promoting their coal powered Geoexchange systems. As shown below on the right, natural gas costs are now at a 10 year low and yet DMEA continues to raise rates. Xcel is spending $100's of millions in order to take advantage of the very large supply of environmentally friendly natural gas now available. What's DMEA doing? It looks to me like they are continuing to purchase power from a supplier that is stuck in a coal fuel rut with little promise of doing anything else.

Tri-State Coal Use vs. Nat. Gas $$'s

Tri-State Issues -

This area may shortly become a separate page. Western Resource Advocates (WRA) is currently trying to influence the future path of Tri-State (and others?) in the generation of energy for member REA's. I currently consider this a very dangerous group in that they have no real technical expertise in the energy field. They are comprised mainly of attorneys and economists. To view their latest write-up on Tri-State, go to their "Energy" page. WRA apparently depends on reports from Summit Blue Consulting which is headquartered in Boulder.

Tri-State the Supplier -

To me, the picture to the right is scary indeed. Tristate has made very heavy commitments to the use of coal. Reality suggests that natural gas should be the near term fuel of choice because of price and because it produces approximately only 1/2 the CO₂ of coal combustion. The use of natural gas in a combined cycle configuration boosts conversion efficiency to a 50+% value. It looks to me like Tri-State is largely stuck with old technology coal that has a conversion efficiency of approximately 33%. If you go to my evils of coal page, you can see the potential for regulations and laws that will heavily penalize the use of coal as an energy source. So is solar or wind the answer. I sure don't think so. The availability factor for solar and wind installations is a miserable 25-30%. In other words, they produce electrical output only 25-30% of the time on average. A major additional hidden cost of solar and wind is some type of large capacity energy storage system. When the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow, electrical energy still needs to be delivered to customer connected loads.

Western Resource Advocates and Nuclear -

To demonstrate how screwed up this organization is, go to their website and search on the term "nuclear". You will find they harp endlessly on the dangers of Fukushima and the large quantity of water nuclear plants use. Neither are true. Fukushima was caused by greedy corporations that saw no danger where much danger was known to exist. The competitiveness of the U.S. depends on a large scale energy resource that can supply power cleanly and at reasonable cost. As for the water statements, these people apparently have not heard of the Brayton cycle. As this slide show demonstrates, , the Brayton cycle is well known in industrial and scientific circles and is perfectly useable in desert areas.

Related Topics Pages - - Coal - Case For Nuclear Page -

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Updated January 2012