This legislative session, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed a bill that adds nuclear energy to the state’s clean energy portfolio.
The law makes nuclear power eligible for new government projects that require the use of clean resources and allows nuclear energy to count towards the state’s climate goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Nuclear energy is the single largest source of carbon-free electricity in the US. That is why more states are considering nuclear as a viable alternative or companion to green energy sources like wind and solar that often come with reliability issues and add significant costs.
Colorado now joins more than a dozen other states that consider nuclear power as a clean energy resource.
The Independence Institute, SPN’s affiliate in Colorado, has long engaged on this issue, meeting with lawmakers years ago to propose amending state statutes to include nuclear under the definition of clean.
Independence experts testified in favor of the bill each time it appeared in a legislative committee. They produced three major policy reports that found significant cost savings and reliability benefits from the state incorporating nuclear energy to meet its decarbonization mandates versus staying on its current trajectory of just wind, solar, and batteries. This year, sensing that it could be a turning point, Independence hosted an early-session event on the bill that featured some of its sponsors in the legislature, a bipartisan group of environmental advocates, and Independence Institute’s energy experts, where they discussed why the reform was important for Colorado’s future.
“This is a big step for reliability in Colorado because nuclear is statistically the single-most reliable source of electricity generation on the American grid today,” said Jake Fogleman, director of policy at Independence Institute and a member of SPN’s Energy Policy Working Group. “Passing this law signals that the state of Colorado is open to overcoming outdated stigmas and embracing those reliability attributes.”
Colorado is one of the many states confronting hard new realities when it comes to energy demand and dependability. With a growing population and new businesses like data centers that take up a significant amount of energy, they must find a way to expand its energy portfolio, and without haste. Removing access to affordable energy is quite literally a matter of life or death, as well as overall quality of life. At the same time, the state committed to a strict greenhouse gas emission mandate, agreeing to cut 80 percent by 2030 and go completely carbon free by 2050. So, while demand is going up, reliable energy is being forced off the grid. That’s where states can look to this Network for innovative solutions.
SPN regularly brings together energy experts from across the country through our Energy Policy Working Group, led by nationally recognized energy expert Amy Oliver Cooke. She has been a long champion of energy reform in Colorado as the executive vice president of the Independence Institute from 2012-2020 and before that, the director of the Energy and Environmental Policy Center since 2004. She continues to work with members of our Network on collaboration and forward-looking reforms that secure our nation’s energy future.
This new reform helps put Colorado on a different trajectory. And as more states face these challenges, more will be looking for examples of other states that took action before it was too late.
“The new law will serve as a signal of openness to utilities and would-be power plant builders that Colorado is no longer hostile to the country’s largest source of carbon-free power,” said Fogleman.
