Back in 2010, the city of Boulder, Colorado, decided to break up with its corporate electricity provider and generate its own power. Going it alone, the city figured, would give the liberal redoubt a better shot at hitting its carbon-cutting targets. The plan was to have Boulder running on Boulder power by 2017. It was ambitious, idealistic, and, according to the cityīs former mayor, Will Toor, probably a mistake. Boulder has spent the better part of the past decade pursuing this split, but success is still probably years away. In the meantime, the utility, Xcel, has shown that itīs happy to close coal plants and scale-up renewables. When all this started, Toor thought giving Boulder its own...
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