A July article in the Denver Post describes the goals of Alice Jackson, the newly created senior vice president in charge of system strategy and chief planning officer for all of Xcel Energy, which is based in Minneapolis and serves customers in eight states.
Jackson, and thus the company's, goal is reducing carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 60 percent and increasing its use of renewable energy sources to 55 percent of its mix by 2026 as part of its Colorado Energy Plan, which was approved by state regulators in August. The new plan includes a goal of reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2030 across eight states and getting to zero emissions of the greenhouse gas by 2050.
At the same time, Xcel is presently engaged in construction of natural gas distribution that will soon need to be abandoned. Evidently, if utility managers can keep convincing their customers and the climate warming fanatics that they are hard at work planning for technology that doesn't exist to make their power carbon-free they'll be able to survive until retirement rolls around.
It's easy for business leaders and politicians like Alice Jackson, Joe Biden and Gavin Newsom to make demands that extend far into the future. They won't be around to take the responsibility or even see what the requirements have accomplished.
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