Back in the 1980s, when I still had in-laws working a family farm out on the eastern plains, I used to head out to visit them on U.S. 36 and pause, like many drivers did, at a wide spot in the road called Last Chance. It was a place for…
Abound Solar has officially gone bankrupt and General Electric PrimeStar is putting on hold a much-anticipated solar panel plant it had planned for Aurora. Both cases are disappointing developments for renewable energy in Colorado — but Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar says these are just minor (and expected) blips…
Oil and drilling do wonderful things for Colorado, and government better stay out of the industry’s way. This seems to be an underlying message behind a new web portal launched this week by the Western Energy Alliance, a Colorado-based group that represents hundreds of oil and gas companies in the…
Update: In response to requests from some groups to extend the public comment period for the proposal to increase water storage at Chatfield Reservoir — a project that’s raised several environmental concerns, as detailed in the original story below — the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has just announced a…
Update: Over the next few months, dozens of General Electric employees in Colorado will face layoffs as part of the company’s controversial plan to put a much-anticipated solar manufacturing plant on hold for at least eighteen months. Since news broke last week about GE’s plans to delay an Aurora facility,…
Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of reports about biking and bike safety in Denver and beyond. Update: After we reported yesterday that the number of bike-related accidents jumped from 2010 to 2011, the Denver Police Department sent us new statistics for 2012 — and it’s looking…
Rocky Mountain National Park officials have recognized for years that Front Range pollution — from auto exhausts, power plants, emissions from oil wells and refineries, feedlots and more — pose a threat to the health and welfare of their high-country streams, fish and plants. Now a new study from a…
Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of reports about biking and bike safety in Denver and beyond. There are a lot more cyclists on the road in Denver — and apparently a lot more police officers looking to give them tickets. As the interest in biking grows…
Wild horse activists managed to block the complete removal of a small but hardy herd of mustangs in northwest Colorado this week. Bureau of Land Management officials contend that severe drought conditions require roundup and removal of the West Douglas herd, for its own well-being — but opponents say chasing,…
“Better cities, better entrepreneurs…and vice versa,” proclaims [i4c], which is running a contest to make things better for three entrepreneurial ventures. The prime mover behind [i4c] is Galvanize, an organization founded last October that’s dedicated to “growing start-ups through capital, community and curriculum.” And now the finalists have been announced…
News broke yesterday that Abound Solar, a Colorado-based solar panel maker that has struggled for months — notably with a major round of layoffs in February — has officially filed for bankruptcy…
Leading climate-change scientists say the chances of humans stopping the wildfires raging across Colorado aren’t good. “These wildfires, when they become wind-driven, are like a nuclear bomb going off, and humans are not going to stop them any more than they stopped the hurricanes in Gulf Coast,” Dr. Steven Running…
This week’s cover story, “The Beetle and the Damage Done,” reports on the mounting toll of the worst bark-beetle epidemic in recorded history in Colorado and the various causes blamed for the infestation, from past fire suppression policies to climate change. Are the millions of dead trees claimed by the…
The unbearably hot weather is not all bad. This was the recurring joke of a press conference under the blazing sun just off toll road E-470, where officials announced the launch of a twenty-year solar energy project that, by some measures, is the largest of its kind in the country…
Picture your favorite part of Chatfield State Park. Now keep reading — because plans to reallocate 20,600 acre-feet of the Chatfield Reservoir to prepare for Colorado’s growing population could create noticeable changes in that summer staple. Outlined in an environmental impact statement by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the…
They clog up waterways. They end up in landfills, where they take thousands of years to break down. And they kill turtles and dolphins. Plastic bags of the sort used in grocery stores are a top enemy for environmentalists, and Westword has learned that some Denver officials are considering policies…
Sometimes, it takes a village. On Saturday, it took a neighborhood. From 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. that day, residents, community organizers and nonprofit volunteers gathered for Denver’s first Better Block project, which re-created West 25th Avenue from Federal Boulevard to Eliot Street. The makeover attracted more than 1,500 visitors…
Last Friday, U.S. District Judge Marcia Krieger threw yet another hurdle in the way of energy companies’ efforts to begin widespread drilling on Colorado’s Roan Plateau. The plan to tap into vast natural gas reserves in one of the state’s wildest places has been subject to considerable monkey-wrenching since the…
In the future, your home and its appliances might talk to you, make decisions for you, and, if the National Renewable Energy Lab is successful, help you save money. And, you know, make Planet Earth a greener place. Get more details and see photos of our domestic future below…
Tucked inside a small room in an industrial building just south of I-70 and west of Holly Street, three leaders from a clean tech company called Coolerado explained to Congresswoman Diana DeGette how they are turning the traditional air conditioning process upside down…
You don’t have to be steering a helitanker into the High Park fire to know that things are a bit toasty across Colorado these days. Drawing any conclusions about climate change, though, from a bout of unseasonable weather is a tricky business. Which is why a new report from Climate…
On Saturday, city planner, urban explorer and overseer of the DenverInfill blog Ken Schroeppel took a handful of Denverites on a tour of Union Station to discuss the just-opened Light Rail Plaza and the station’s future. Here’s an inside look at the project…
