Company is a major player on the Colorado energy scene; feds levied $5 million fine against BP for under-reporting production on SW Colorado tribal lands

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Along with its huge oil-spill mess in the Gulf of Mexico, BP has become a significant player in Colorado wind power. In May, the company’s Houston-based wind energy subsidiary announced that it reached a long-term power purchase agreement with Public Service Company of Colorado, an Xcel Energy company.

The Cedar Creek II wind farm will be located on 30,000 acres about 20 miles north of New Raymer, in Weld County and east of the existing 300.5 MW Cedar Creek I wind farm. BP expects that 250 workers will be employed during construction of the wind farm and an estimated 12-14 jobs will be created to monitor and maintain the facility once it is in full commercial operation.

“The project will be one of the largest in Colorado and increases the utilization of a highly desirable wind power resource,” said Tom Imbler, Xcel Energy vice president for commercial operations.

Imbler said construction of the new wind power facility will begin this summer, pending permitting requirements, and the turbines could be humming by 2011. Some existing transmission lines can be used to deliver the power to the grid, but an additional 20 miles of overhead powerlines will be built to tie into the existing Cedar Creek I wind farm’s power grid.

In a press release, BP wind energy vice president John Graham called the deal a milestone for
landowners, county officials and many others in Weld County who  supported the project.

“(This) marks another significant investment commitment by BP Wind Energy as we continue to build out our wind portfolio across this nation,” Graham said. “The Cedar Creek II wind farm will create new jobs in construction, deliver an additional revenue stream to rural communities without impacting traditional ranching practices, and will provide clean, affordable power to over 75,000 residents of Colorado.”

BP is also a major natural gas producer in Colorado, with production facilities in the Durango area employing about 200 people. The company also has a natural gas processing facility near Denver.

BP ran afoul of federal regulators last month when the Department of Interior levied a fine of $5.1 million against the company for false reporting of energy production on Native American tribal lands in southwestern Colorado.

Read the details on the penalty in this Denver Business Journal story.

I decided to produce this short video after having done one on how oil production is polluting our planet. Most recently, the blowup in the Gulf of Mexico further supported the notion that there may be some real doubts about the cost/benefit of producing energy mainly from oil.
This video intends to show how in ancient times mankind used wind for power and energy, while minimally impacting the environment. With all the new technology and knowhow at our disposal, we need to use this avenue as much as possible, since it’s clean, renewable, cost effective and persistent.

Elements Used in this Production:
Photography all @ Flickr.com: Pixel Viking; Stuckincustoms; Doblonaut
Music: Forever and Ever by Divinity Project :: http://www.jamendo.com/en/track18230
Art, Animation & Montage: Leo Bar
Enjoy,
Leo
~~~
Background & Research
Wind & Power
• “Power from Wind: A History of Windmill Technology”, Richard L. Hills, 1994.
• “Molens”, Frederick Stokhuyzen, 1962 (English summary).
• “Molendatabase” – pictures and descriptions (in Dutch) of windmills in the Netherlands.
• “Natural sources of power”, Robert Steele Ball (1908)
• “History of technology”, “Energy conversion” and “Windmills”, Encyclopedia Britannica.
• “Wind, Water, Work: Ancient And Medieval Milling Technology (Technology and Change in History)”, Adam Lucas, 2005
• “The windmill as prime mover”, Alfred R. Wolff, 1885
• “Industriemolens” – pictures of industrial windmills in the Netherlands
• “Windmills in Sussex”, Peter Hemming, 1936
• “Windmill sail”, Wikipedia English
• “Origen y expansion de los molinos de viento en Espana”, José Ignacio Rojas Sola y Juan Manual Amezcua Ogayar, Interciencia, Vol.30, 2005
• “The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science)”, George Basalla, 1989
• “European Route of Industrial Heritages”

In all my scores of items over the years on why the obsession with wind turbines will be seen as one of the major follies of our age, there is one issue I haven’t touched on. The main practical objection to turbines, of course, is that they are useless, producing derisory amounts of electricity at colossal cost. (Yet the Government wants us to spend £100 billion on building thousands more of them which, even were it technically possible, would do virtually nothing to fill the fast-looming 40 per cent gap in our electricity supply.)

A feature of these supposedly environment-friendly machines that I haven’t mentioned, however, is their devastating effect on wildlife, notably on large birds of prey, such as eagles and red kites.

Wow. Wind turbines kill eagles. I guess there may be no such thing as green energy.

Clipper Windpower, Inc has welcomed its new CEO: Mr. Mauricio Quintana.

Click here for Part 1

Click here for Part 3

Headquarters
Clipper Windpower, Inc.
6305 Carpinteria Avenue, Suite 300
Carpinteria, CA 93013
Tel: +1 805 690 3275
Fax: +1 805 899 1115
Email: info@clipperwind.com
Website: http://www.clipperwind.com

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Attended a Keiretsu Forum investor presentation in Silicon Valley last Friday which was long overdue.  I had met Randy Williams the founder and CEO of Keiretsu during a Berkeley Executive Venture Capital Class ( VC Executive Program) run by Jerry Engle (Monitor Ventures) a few years ago.  Jerry ran a great VC class digging into the meat of VC financing, valuation and perspectives of VC’s you don’t often see as the entrepreneur looking for investment.  I have also hired Jerry to go over the VC landscape in Silicon Valley with some of my Australian clients and I highly recommend him, David Charron and their VC classes.

Keiretsu Forum is now the largest Angel investor network in the world with 750+ members on three continents and growing.  They have invested over $200 million in 225 companies and their presentations are run like a well oiled machine!  I have spoken to Randy a few times since our initial meeting about opening up a branch in Australia and think that might happen sometime in the not too distant future (hint, hint Randy!).

Five companies presented at the forum: Windpower, Anza International, iVoiceNetwork, Vesuvio Entertainment and Reality Gap.  The members are provided with a presentation from each CEO followed by a Q&A session.  Having run these investor forums for Australian companies entering the US I’m well aware of the amount of preparation required prior to the event and how challenging it can be for CEO’s to step out of their “what they think is important world” to focus on what “investors think” is important.

As you can imagine the presentation quality varied wildly.  Some of the chaps had fancy video’s (which sometimes worked – note to presenters always test prior to delivery in front of an audience – don’t leave it up to the in room “techies”) and others were your standard vanilla PowerPoint you see in any investment pitch.  The presenter from IVoiceNetworks (Guy Morris) was a bit of a showman and was able to create some real excitement which glossed over some of the issues they’re facing.  That being said I think it is an interesting play that will attract investors.  Reality Gap seemed to focus on the games portion of their business when in reality the business was about Gamebux / monetizing virtual currency for social media networks and online gaming.  WindPower reminded me a little bit of another company I saw at AlwaysOn awhile back Mariah Power – but, the difference was a focus on wind turbines for commercial vs. individual home owners.  They have some issues but I think they might be the most investor ready of the group.

Vesuvio Entertainments play was all about making low budget ($100K), profitable movies from the get go with the CEO’s (Greg Sims) claim to fame being the discovery of George Clooney.  Hollywood is littered with the carcasses of startup movie studios but I think these guys may actually be able to make a go of it and I look forward to seeing if they can.  Anza International seemed to be the least polished of the group and I heard someone say they had completely changed their presentation (likely from a prior Keiretsu presentation) and unfortunately it showed.  Having worked in international business for the past two decades I can honestly say firsthand how much I abhor the ridiculous rates the big banks charge for international and domestic money transfers.  Randy Gutierrez (CEO) talked about the margins they charge vs. what he is doing with Anza.  His presentation wasn’t “great” but this space looks like a good one and flashy presentations don’t always translate to success.  I’m hoping he succeeds if only to bring the big banks down to earth from their exorbitant fees as well as my vote for a clamp down on the excesses of Goldman Sachs and Wall Street.

Keiretsu events are invitation only.  However, if you’re an entrepreneur or someone who is interested in investing in startups I highly recommend you contact these guys and attend one of their presentations.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) of the Government of India has, it must be admitted, one of the least attractive governmenta websites there is… And considering the importance of what they do, this is a great pity. A search for solar energy initiatives took me to their site, but the navigability of their homepage made the maze at Hampton Court seem considerably more comprehensible… The MNRE minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah, would do well to pay some attention to being more accessible!

Nevertheless, they do put out a very useful bimonthly newsletter, Akshay Urja that appears in both print and electronic form. I am not sure how one would go about subscribing to the print issue, but the electronic newsletters are freely available online at this site,
http://mnre.gov.in/akshayurja/contents.htm

The magazine has a wealth of information on a range of products and issues. The latest volume, December 2009, has articles on the Jawaharlal Nehru Solar Mission, Biomass gasifiers, decentralized waste treatment and so on. Instructions to make a simple solar oven at home!

One of the books reviewed in this issue is the Directory of Indian Windpower 2009. With a prime objective of providing the basic guidelines to the enterpreneurs interested in Wind Power Project – a comparatively new and environment friendly source of energy, Consolidated Energy Consultants Ltd. took-up a lead in consolidating wind related data/details & publishing an Encyclopedia sort of book. Since its maiden publication in 2001, the Directory Indian Windpower has earned wide acclamation both from the Govt. Departments as well the Industries for its comprehensive coverage and reliability of data.

The current edition like the previous eight yearly issues carries, in addition to the usual features a comprehensive data on wind potential sites in the various states of India, the Govt’s promotional policies, incentives offered by the states/central Govt., supportive role of Center for Wind Energy Technology (C-WET), the technical particulars of the Wind Electric Generator and the current scenario on wind power development – all presented in well structured sections for easy access to the host of informations contained in its run of over 850 pages.

Simplest to write in to us. The Directory is priced at Rs 1500. Akshay Urja is free for download.

Clipper Windpower, Inc has welcomed its new CEO: Mr. Mauricio Quintana.

Click here for Part 1

Click here for Part 3

Headquarters
Clipper Windpower, Inc.
6305 Carpinteria Avenue, Suite 300
Carpinteria, CA 93013
Tel: +1 805 690 3275
Fax: +1 805 899 1115
Email: info@clipperwind.com
Website: http://www.clipperwind.com

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