Last night, in a unanimous vote, the Boulder City Council did its small part to perpetuate the false narrative that renewables are an affordable and reliable alternative to American fossil fuels to power the state’s and the nation’s economy. Their one-year extension to the city’s fracking ban was accompanied by a strange new measure: a ban on the use of water purchased in Boulder for fracking. How this will be enforced is still, as Governor Hickenlooper might say, TBD.
One cannot be surprised to see such a reactionary tact out of Boulder, considering the tremendous resources that the city has invested in questionable technologies such as wind and solar, which may very well turn out to be economically unfeasible. Cheap oil and natural gas that is now available due to legitimate innovations in the oil and gas industry essentially blow apart the financial models that underpin investments in renewables.
It’s understandable. People on the left simply need to protect their investment. In the face of a successful, high growth oil and gas industry in our state, they are forced to last resort tactics of delays and harassment through the regulatory and law-making processes. Sadly for Colorado’s middle class, protecting unwise investments in renewables is blocking good, high-paying jobs for middle class Coloradans, as well as forcing high energy prices on these struggling families.
As time marches on, more people are seeing through the destructive tactics of activists on the anti-growth left. Latest estimates show that the Rocky Mountain West is sitting on what may be more than 200 years worth of natural resources, a literal Saudi Arabia of oil and gas in our own backyard. Americans do not want to depend on unstable foreign regimes for our energy supply, and coming off 10+ years of war in the Middle East has solidified this view in the eyes of most.