The Intermountain Rural Electric Association, better known by its acronym IREA (pronounced "Ai-ree-ah") may sound like either a bunch 'a hick farmers generatin' 'lectricity with some windmills and naturally generated propane (aka cow toots), or a Jamaican feel-good greeting (Aiyre mon!), but it is, in fact, one of the largest and most powerful electrical utilities between the Sierra Nevadas and the Mississippi. And it just got a little bluer (or greener depending on you viewpoint).
IREA is an electrical co-op run by its own members, through an elected board. Its customers are its members, so theoretically, this means the folks making the decisions have the best interests of the customers at heart, and the customers have a strong incentive to be involved in management of the utility. On the basis of this theory, the Public Utilities Commission leaves IREA largely to its own devices.
Those who study IREA and similar co-ops have opinions about the efficacy of this system that span a range nearly as broad as TGIF's new menu (motto "We'll fry ANYthing!"). Far be it for me, a non-IREA customer to comment. The system seems to keep rates low for its customers. However, IREA produces most of its energy from coal, more than nearly all other U.S. utilities as a percentage, and opposes most legistlation aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. IREA management even went so far as to recently hire noted global warming skeptic Pat Michaels, to the tune of $100,000 in consulting fees, without member input. http://theflume.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=4199&TM=43941.28 Details on Michaels' responsibility are sketchy, but presumably he will spearhead an anti-renewable energy PR campaign. Low rates now are certainly attractive to members, but fail to account for externalization of costs of global warming. Of course, that doesn't really matter if you don't believe in global warming. http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics
Some IREA members might be turning the behemoth in a different direction. A trio of renewable energy advocates recently ran for the board of directors, all against incumbants, and one of them won. http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5690021.
Another had a fairly close margin and the third lost but garnered a very respectable turnout. This is even more meaningful when one considers that IREA provides electricty to the cradle of American conservatism, producing such juggernauts as James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Marilyn Musgrave, Rev. Ted Haggart, and Tom Tancredo, who has been lovingly dubbed an "ignorant yokel blowhard" by such persons of gravitas such as Dave Barry. see column
A group called IREA Voices has taken the lead in the charge to change IREA's coal-fired philosophy. http://www.ireavoices.org/. Whether the renewablites will eventually triumph over the fossil fuelies, or indeed who is David and who is Goliath in this quietly raging struggle, are questions that remain to be answered. But this is certainly a crack in the dike of one of this country's most conservative energy utility postures.
