Powering Colorado's
Next Economy

America Is Running Out of Electricity

After a decade of flat demand, U.S. electricity consumption is surging. Data centers, EVs, reshoring, and building electrification are colliding with a grid that can't grow fast enough. The result is a looming national emergency.

China Adds 10x More Power Than the US

In 2025, China added 540 GW of new power capacity. The US added 53 GW, a record for America, but less than one-tenth of China's buildout. This isn't just an energy gap. It's a strategic one.

The Human Cost of the Coal Transition

Colorado's clean energy mandates are closing coal plants and mines across the state. At least 11 communities across 9 counties are directly impacted, losing not just jobs but tax base, school funding, and economic identity.

Five Communities That Could Host Nuclear

Colorado's coal communities already have what nuclear developers need most: transmission infrastructure, land, water access, and a skilled energy workforce. The 2025 law adding nuclear to Colorado's clean energy definition was step one. Now comes execution.

$130 Billion in Projects Are Being Blocked

In the first four months of 2026 alone, 75+ data center projects worth $130 billion were successfully blocked nationwide. The demand is real and growing, but it has nowhere to go. Colorado can be the place it goes, or watch Wyoming and Utah take it.

What Nuclear + Data Centers Mean for Colorado

Done right, this isn't a giveaway to industry. It's how Colorado keeps its employers, protects its ratepayers, saves its coal towns, and claims a durable identity as the national leader in energy, data, and AI.

Colorado's Nuclear Timeline

The legislative framework is taking shape. HB25-1040 made nuclear clean energy. HB26-1337 launches site identification. The question is whether Colorado moves fast enough to capture the opportunity, or lets it cross the border to Wyoming.

What Could Go Wrong, and How to Manage It

A legislator's first question is "what does this cost us?" Pretending there are no risks would be dishonest. Here are the real ones, and the real solutions.

Four Actions That Change Colorado's Trajectory

Companies go where the power and the capacity are. We can be that place.

1. Streamline Permitting for Clean Baseload Generation
   Time-limit permitting for clean baseload generation and for the industrial users that anchor it. Air-quality permits in Colorado averaged over two years to issue last fiscal year. Projects can't survive a two-year queue. Set 12-month hard deadlines for state permitting decisions on qualifying projects.
2. Create Targeted Nuclear Incentives with Ratepayer Protection
   Pair state incentives with federal cost-share (DOE loan guarantees, IRA production/investment tax credits, ADVANCE Act streamlining). Structure every incentive so taxpayers and ratepayers are protected if a project slips. Allow Xcel's $20M in site studies under HB26-1337 to proceed on the fastest possible timeline.
3. Adopt Data Center Ratepayer Protections Now
   Create a separate rate class with "bring/build/buy your own power" requirements so growth doesn't land on household bills. This is how Colorado attracts data centers without the backlash that led 5 Colorado jurisdictions to enact moratoriums. Microsoft, Anthropic, and others have signed ratepayer-protection pledges, codify these as policy.
4. Tie Coal Retirement to Nuclear Replacement, Close the Gap
   For communities like Craig, the best transition plan is no gap at all. Delay coal plant closure until the replacement nuclear facility is operational, with an intentional overlap period so workers transfer directly. This is already happening reactively, DOE emergency orders, Xcel extension proposals, SB 26-182 for Nixon. Make it proactive policy: tie retirement milestones to nuclear commissioning dates, keep the tax base intact during construction, and give workers a direct bridge instead of a decade in limbo. Where coal-to-nuclear timing doesn't align, expand Just Transition support as the interim bridge.