The Transformation of America's Energy Economy

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http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/20564-the-transformation-of-americas-energy-economy



The Transformation of America's Energy Economy
Saturday, 14 December 2013 11:21
By Bob Massie, WBUR | News Analysis

In a ground-breaking move, voters in Boulder, Colorado, approved an initiative to end their relationship with Xcel Energy, a utility with $10.7 billion in revenues, thus clearing the way for the city to form its own municipal utility that would lower rates and make greater use of renewable energy.

Opponents of the effort had themselves put the question on the ballot in order to block measures by the city council. They also tried through a second initiative to hamstring the city from issuing enough bonds to be able to afford the purchase of Xcel’s facilities.

During the fierce battle that attracted national attention, corporate executives and their allies argued that the city had neither the money nor the expertise to manage such a complex enterprise. Advocates for the municipal utility, including New Era Colorado Foundation, fought back with a crowd-funding campaign that raised more than three times their financial goal. In a landslide, two-thirds of voters supported the idea of bringing the utility under public control and then rejected the borrowing limits designed to kill the deal by a similar margin.

Though the utility industry has gone through a wave of consolidation over the last two decades, they are starting to show the strains of technological, economic, and political change. Municipal utilities are far more common than most people are aware, with more than 1000 already functioning in the United States, serving 50 million customers, a population greater than the size of Spain. Most of these entities are owned by cities, and controlled by panels of local citizens. Some are even cooperatives owned by their members.