Crossed wires.

• Author: Rundles, Jeff
• Position: Rundles Wrap-up - Column

I HAVE HAD THE WONDERFUL, IF EXPENSIVE, EXPERIENCE OVER THE last year of sending three children off to college.

Among the many thousands of emotions and details that have been swimming around in my mind since I lugged all that gear into dorm rooms was the sheer horror of plugging in all the electrical gadgets of modern college life into the dangerously too-few electrical outlets in those rooms.

That each and every dorm in America doesn't short out and black out must surely rank among the chief Wonders of the World. So much demand, so little capacity.

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Little did I know then, the whole experience would, within days of this fall's enrollments, become something of a metaphor for the whole state of Colorado. As I was drying my eyes in my now-near-empty house, I read newspaper accounts of a study just completed that says the state will need 50 percent more electrical capacity--up to 15,114 megawatts of generation compared with today's capacity of 10,800 megawatts--within a little less than 20 years. So much demand, so little capacity.

The report was issued by the Colorado Energy Forum, an organization put together early this year by Bruce Smith, a former Public Utilities Commission member. All the major utilities took part in the study, officials said.

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I don't doubt the validity of the demand projections. Heck, anybody with a calculator and some census data could run the numbers and come pretty close to the same conclusion. Colorado is growing, will continue to grow, and it will need more power.

However, I have been looking at these types of studies for more than 30 years and I still don't get it. I have several problems with this study and what responses it might or might not bring about.

First, we've got one vested interest group--utilities and the people who regulate them--looking at power demands. We've got other groups--water boards, highway commissions, transportation districts, economic-development agencies--collecting pretty much the same population data. Each and every one can make a convincing argument that massive amounts of spending--tax dollars, increased utility rates, tolls, fares, whatever--are needed now to save us from having to spend even more later on. Can't these guys get together?

Before we get some knee-jerk reaction to this latest study's rather alarming, and probably intentionally alarming, conclusions from the state legislature, I would recommend that the next governor...