On this episode of Local Motion, KVNF's weekly public affairs program, we cover two topics:
- How Colorado’s electricity supply is keeping up with increasing demand and complexity
- Soil health and agricultural burning
We heard about electricity from John Gavan, a Paonia resident and former Colorado Public Utilities Commission commissioner. We discuss the state of Colorado's electric supply and its efforts to accelerate its existing climate goals.
In the second half of our program, we’ll discuss agricultural burning and soil health with John Rizza, the Colorado Department of Agriculture's Western Slope Soil Health Coordinator.
Local Motion airs Tuesday evenings at 6 and Saturday mornings at 10:30 on KVNF. Explore past episodes here.
Electricity interview highlights
On making sure we all have enough electricity
John Gavan, former commissioner of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission: It's all related to what I call KTLO, which is Keep the Lights On, and that's the fundamental mission of every electric utility out there. We had stable load growth three years ago, maybe 2% yearly. So it was easy to manage having adequate resources to serve loads on the grid, so nobody worried about it. It was pretty cut and dry. Then AI hit, and AI drove the need for data centers. Suddenly, we started seeing huge data enterprises cropping up nationwide. And so that load that had been static or very low had a very low growth rate for 25 years, suddenly started to ramp up.
We're seeing load growth that is two or three times as large as what we've experienced for the last few decades. At the same time, across the US, most utilities are involved in the energy transition, retiring fossil fuel-based resources and switching to low-carbon or no-carbon resources. So that energy transition was in flight, and it also had complications in ensuring resource adequacy because these are typically intermittent resources in terms of solar and wind.
Back at the end of the third quarter of last year, 25.3% of Colorado's car sales were EVs. So you've got to think about that because you're taking BTUs equivalent from petroleum and transferring that to kilowatt hours of demand on the grid. And that is a significant driver of grid demand because the average EV has an 80 or a hundred kilowatt-hour battery. Charging that battery is probably three times the energy your house uses in a day.
What are some solutions?
New tools include batteries and fast-start gas turbines. The go-to design involves fast-start combustion turbine technology that can be fired up and serve a load in a few minutes. These gas turbine plants are smaller and can be distributed around the grid.
Soil and ag interview highlights
On agricultural burning as a tool in soil and crop management
John Rizza, Colorado Department of Agriculture:
When talking about a field burning, there are many different ways, whether for pasture, old crops, or stubble. A lot of folks will do it related to pest and disease issues. So we can mitigate that by burning off that extra mulch on the ground there. And that can be a good way to operate in those circumstances. If we're trying for some field prep and reseeding, some folks will be burning on their perennial pasture grounds to get rid of some of the duff. That could also be a pest and disease management tool. I wouldn't tell a producer that they're doing the wrong thing or the right thing by burning in any sense of the way, but what I would say is how is that burn being conducted? Is it protecting the soil and the plants? Are you doing that in a timeframe and a moisture content and a wind direction and speed that is going to flash that fuel off of there, so that you can protect the soil and the biology and that crown of those roots of those plants? At the end of the day, if we can answer all those questions and find that common ground, then that's maybe something they could do.
Other opportunities would be to maybe integrate some livestock and congregate that grazing practice and that hoof action into smaller areas so we can get rid of more of that material and put it through the animal's rumen and use, maybe drag that field later with a harl or something to distribute that manure intercede into it, those kinds of things.
On the benefits of burning for regenerative agriculture or no-till farming
One of our main goals for improving our soil's health is to increase the soil's organic matter. That's carbon, though. What you're getting out there is that fire can impact organic matter by combusting it and not allowing it to stay in the system. A lot of people will say, well, I burned that, and there was a good flush of green. That's because we have altered that carbon and nitrogen ratio on the surface of that material. And so some things, some nutrients, will be volatilized, some will stay, some will be available for the plants in a short period of time. That organic matter is something that we're finding provides a buffer and increases the resilience of our fields. Organic matter acts like a sponge; it can help store water and nutrients. It provides a home for our soil biology. We've seen producers be able to increase their organic matter by about a half a percent a year, give or take, and get up to 4 to 5% organic matter, which people, back when we started this about 15 years ago, were like, we're not going to get that high. They can store more water in that soil profile with more organic matter.
On burning near populated areas
We recognize how important burning is, whether it's in a forest or an agricultural field. I think if we can try to keep that social license in a positive manner so that the general public, our neighbors, our friends, and our colleagues are positive about this by doing it on good days, then reduce that smoke impacts on whether it's travel corridors or neighbors or houses, We can pay attention to the moisture of the soil. We can pay attention to the moisture content of the vegetation we're trying to burn, and we can do it on good days where we have the air quality situation that will help to release the smoke up high and get it transported and diffused out. In some states, they're prohibiting agricultural burning altogether. I think that has to do with the fact that we're encroaching more and more on the ag land with our building. One producer said it would be a disadvantage if that happened here in our valley.
I noticed that many of our Indigenous tribes around the nation can bring back some of their burning for tribal reasons. Some of the plants and things that they do fire are part of what they use. Some people want to completely get rid of it, and in some places, they have. Cultural burning is a significantly important aspect for first foods. One way or another, a lot of this ground is burning. We need to find what that balance looks like.
