What: Continuation of the County Commissioners’ Land Use 1041 hearing for the PRPA application to build new gas fired aeroderivative turbines. Please send written comments to the Commissioners and show up at the meeting wearing green.
When: Monday, April 21, 2025 at 3:00 pm
Where: 200 West Oak Street, Fort Collins, CO
The County Commissioners, via the 1041 process, can permit or deny construction of the proposed gas turbines. We are asking them to deny the permit.
For this continuation of the hearing initially held on March 10, 2025, the commissioners are limiting spoken public comment to 45 minutes. Our attorney and team will be using some of this time to make a presentation. For this reason we are asking people to submit written comments and to attend the meeting wearing green. If you would like to make a spoken comment, and especially if you are representing a group, please email to 350NoCO to get the sign up link:
Written comments will be accepted until noon on 4/21/25, and can be submitted here: https://publicinput.com/b50777#tab-59818
Here is the sign up to attend via zoom: https://larimer-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_D8P-Ol0zSeOD5bMaz2QAyQ#/registration
Talking points-
It’s best if you can make it personal to yourself or the community. Tell a story if you like. Don’t worry about the technical details. Our attorney has that covered. You can choose from the talking points below, mix and match them, or say whatever you like.
Topic suggestions and talking points for your letter:
Air pollution
The eastern half of Larimer County is in the EPA severe non-attainment zone for ozone pollution. The American Lung Association rates our air quality with a grade of F. We are tied with Dallas/Ft. Worth for the 17th worst air quality in the country. Roughly 10% of Larimer residents suffer from asthma and respiratory illness. Rocky Mountain National Park experiences environmental degradation from air pollution coming from PRPA. Retiring the coal plant is good, but replacing it with gas will reduce the efficacy of efforts to improve air quality.
In its application, and in its supplemental submission, PRPA fails to address the mitigation hierarchy in regards to air pollution. It did not avoid environmental impacts that could be avoided, it did not minimize impacts that could have been minimized, and its efforts at impacts mitigation are purely speculative.
Green House Gas
Climate related extreme weather around the world is escalating. These events will only increase, as will the losses and cascading impacts these disasters cause. Eliminating greenhouse gas emissions needs to be the primary consideration in planning.
In 2018, the Platte River Power Authority Board of Directors unanimously passed the Resource Diversification Policy, “setting the standard as a clean energy leader” by calling for the pursuit of a 100% non-carbon energy mix by 2030.
PRPA may be a leader at making promises, but they are a laggard at keeping their promises. PRPA is last in the state for adoption of renewable energy. Building new gas would push PRPA even further away from a 100% non-carbon energy mix. This further prevents the owner cities and Colorado State University from reaching our clean energy goals.
PRPA has not yet modeled a plan to reach a 100% zero carbon mix, not by 2030 or at any point in the future. What happened to the zero-carbon pledge? Building new methane gas turbines will push them in the wrong direction.
The gas plant is not needed
PRPA is joining the Southwest Power Pool in 2026. We will be sharing power with utilities from Minnesota to Texas to Arizona. The reason to join this market is to buy power from them when we need it, so that we don’t have to build more polluting resources ourselves. According to reasonable estimates, PRPA meets the requirements to join without building new gas plants. The 2025 SPP numbers will be published soon and can be used to verify.
The new gas turbines are NOT needed because PRPA already has 388 MW of gas combustion turbines, which, when combined with joining the Southwest Power Pool, are more than enough to meet demands until more renewables and storage can be built.
A long-term storage battery project in Maine is being built right now for comparable cost to the proposed PRPA gas plant. This project provides the same function as PRPA’s proposed gas plant. The project can supply power for up to 100 hours on a charge to cover “dark calms”. Short-term batteries do a better job of filling daily gaps than the proposed gas plant would.
This is an expensive potential “boondoggle”
When the plant was first proposed they said it would cost $200 million, then it was $250, then $300, now its $350. They don’t know how much it will cost, only that it keeps going up. The plant will likely be obsolete well before its paid off, leaving us with a bill for a useless asset.
PRPA claims that new gas turbines will “help integrate increasing renewable energy resources”. However, research has shown that building new gas SLOWS the adoption of renewables.
PRPA is trying to pull the wool over our eyes
To justify building a new gas plant, PRPA severely undervalued renewable resources (wind, solar, and storage) that it currently has and plans to add prior to 2030. PRPA uses values lower than those used by the Southwest Power Pool Regional Transmission Organization that the PRPA plans to join in 2026. The 2025 SPP West numbers will be published soon and can be used to verify. Selecting data to match a desired outcome is a betrayal of PRPA’s responsibility to their customers, and suggests a misrepresentation of facts and agenda.
When asked about the risk of the gas plant becoming obsolete, PRPA stated that hundreds of these plants will be built around the country, and that if it becomes obsolete then PRPA will just sell. Who is going to buy an obsolete power plant? This logic suggests that PRPA doesn’t care if this gas plant sticks customers with the bill for a useless asset.
PRPA claims the plant will eventually be converted to run on hydrogen. They have no planned source for the hydrogen. No way to ship or store it. No idea how much it will cost (current hydrogen costs are more expensive than batteries). And if they do burn hydrogen it very well may produce more toxic air pollution and contribute more to global warming than gas does. Most research shows that long-term batteries are much closer to deployment, and cheaper than hydrogen. Yet PRPA claims the opposite to justify building the gas plant. At the March 10 hearing, PRPA’s own CEO admitted that conversion to hydrogen is unlikely.
The PRPA plan is based on questionable assumptions and needs to be reviewed by experts in renewable energy who can advise whether more gas generation is needed, and recommend alternatives.
If PRPA were under Public Utility Commission jurisdiction they would have to go through a much more robust review process to build their plant. They should mirror that process to gain the trust of the public, the Cities they serve, and the county, before trying to rush this proposal and ram it down our throats.
The Larimer County Land Use Code is clear that the 1041 applicant must prove it met each and every one of the Code’s requirements to receive approval. “The applicant bears the burden of ensuring that an application contains sufficient information to demonstrate compliance with application requirements.” The PRPA application does not prove it meets requirements.
Dawn Heather
I strongly object to the half- truths and lack of commitment to researching the least expensive and most beneficial actions that can be taken to improve the deplorable air quality in N Colorado. Stop talking out both sides of your mouths and honor the most environmental solution!