How does your typical workday morning go? If it’s anything like mine, it goes something like this.
The alarm sounds, you hit the lights, disconnect your charged phone, check your emails, brew coffee, then jump on one of the traffic clogged highways for work. It’s routine across the Metro, something we really don’t think about.
And it’s all possible because of something most of us take for granted.
It’s the massive amounts of electricity and fuel needed to power every aspect of our daily routines — and as Colorado continues to grow, the need for energy will only increase — the challenge will only become more daunting on how to keep pace with energy delivery.
All of this would not be possible without the delivery of this much-needed energy we use each and every day. This happens because of one critical piece of infrastructure: pipelines, which transport Colorado energy out of sight, beneath our feet, to homes and workplaces — nonstop — each day.
They’re Colorado’s economic arteries, a truth not lost on communities where job growth and tax revenue is robust and businesses are turning profits. Pipelines, which carried much needed energy into, and across Colorado, also helped local households and families generate nearly $4.1 billion dollars in annual income, according to a Leed’s Business School study.
Without conventional energy and its accompanying pipeline infrastructure, many Colorado-made necessities, like the plastic used in manufacturing skis and snowboards, plus the electricity used to power ski lifts, wouldn’t exist.
We also wouldn’t have locally-grown, fresh foods from Colorado’s 37,000-plus farmers who need electricity generated by natural gas to operate their vast irrigation systems. They also need pipelines to funnel the fuel needed to power farming equipment and delivery trucks.
Unfortunately, these realities haven’t stopped cities like Lafayette from pushing for more local control over oil and gas pipelines, much like how it didn’t stop its city council from proposing their ill-fated “Climate Bill of Rights and Protections” earlier this year.
It also hasn’t swayed homeowners across the Front Range from opposing development in city council meetings, or counties like Boulder who not only use the products, but develop them in the city for residents to enjoy.
These aren’t the nationally-driven lunchroom food fights you’ve heard about in North Dakota and Washington, but the energy and pipeline debate swirls here nonetheless.
And it shouldn’t.
Unfortunately, misinformation spread by misguided anti-development activists could end up hurting families in Colorado who, per the U.S. Energy Information Administration, pay 23 percent less than the national average for energy, thanks largely to the state’s vast energy resources and the infrastructure that transports it.
Per statistics, 99.999 percent of energy moved through pipelines safely reaches its destination. Conversely, opposing pipelines would increase vehicular traffic, air emissions and the chances of an accident or spill.
Also, because of pipeline upgrades and new, state-of-the art technology used to process cleaner-burning natural gas, carbon emissions from electricity generation are at their lowest levels in decades. And with almost 10,000 people moving to Colorado each month, it is important that we use and develop our infrastructure and resources to keep our air clean and our streets and neighborhoods clear of excess traffic.
And as global energy demand is projected to swell 25 percent in the next 15 years — 80 percent of which will come from fossil fuels like natural gas — it’s clear that moving resources via rail and road alone won’t meet our escalating energy needs in a cost-effective way, nor will depending solely on renewable energy resources like solar and wind, which could only account for power and fuel, but not products.
But pipelines can — if we do our part by better supporting an energy buffet that keeps every available resource on the table, and the infrastructure needed to move it and power our electronic, digitalized, every-day routines.
Andrew Browning is the chief operating officer of Consumer Energy Alliance and manages its Rocky Mountain office in the Denver Tech Center.
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