An industrial city in Colorado is one of dozens across the U.S. that are trying to power themselves on 100% clean energy ...
Larry Atencio is steering his Ford Explorer through the streets of Pueblo, Colo., pointing out how the city is going green. There’s the site of a planned community solar garden in an up-and-coming neighborhood, a manufacturing plant for wind turbines that opened in 2010 and the largest solar farm in Colorado, an array of 450,000 panels on 900 acres. Atencio, a small-business man who for years made and sold his own candy and now serves on the city council, has spent years trying to turn this industrial town on the Front Range into a hub for green-energy projects. “Pueblo is becoming quite the renewable-energy city,” he says with a grin.
It’s all part of a deliberate, idealistic plan. In February 2017, just a month after President Trump took office, the city council approved a resolution committing Pueblo to power itself on 100% clean energy by 2035. Local leaders heralded the push as a way to lower energy bills, grow the local economy and reduce the city’s climate footprint.
But over the past year and a half, Atencio and his colleagues have found that going green is easier said than done. To meet its goal of 100% clean energy, Pueblo will need to overcome a raft of technical, financial and legal challenges. In all likelihood, the city will need to extricate itself from a 20-year contract with the electric utility that built Pueblo a new
