Forget the handicap: Renewables need to compete on par with the rest of the energy mix.

• Author: Best, Allen

RENEWABLE ENERGY--STAND ON YOUR own legs or leave center stage. Natural gas, the limelight is all on you.

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That's the perspective of several panelists who wall speak at the Association of Corporate Growth's DealMaker's Forum on Oct. 6 as well as one of the event's sponsors.

"I see limited growth from the renewable side," says Steven B. Richardson, a partner in the energy group at the Denver law firm of Holme Roberts & Owen.

"It's not like oil and gas, where if you produce it, you can sell it," he explained. Renewables need long-term contracts--and the key to getting them is having long-distance transmission. And transmission, he added, remains expensive and getting permits is still very, very difficult.

Richardson has been doing energy work for 30 years, both in conventional fossil fuels and in the array of renewables: solar, wind, biomass and others. The new shale gas discoveries, including those in Colorado, clearly represent a significant shift in opportunities. Unlike electrical transmission, natural gas can be shipped readily through existing pipelines to power plants near demand centers, such as cities, and used for any number of purposes: base-load generation, peak needs, or as backup to wind.

Wind energy and natural gas are competing at the margins, he noted, but the great versatility of natural gas makes it attractive.

Much depends upon mandates and subsidies. In Colorado, Xcel is rapidly closing in on its renewable portfolio standard of 30 percent. In Washington, with the focus on U.S. debt, subsidies of all types will...