Brief by Allen Best
Energy – April 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Aspen has lost another round in its argument that city residents are being over- charged for the natural gas they burn, because of the higher elevation. The town is located at 7,900 feet.
Natural gas delivers a certain number of BTUs of energy per volume, but in the lower atmospheric pressure of higher elevations, the volume increases, explains the Aspen Times. However, the heating capacity does not increase. Ergo, there is less heat per set volume of natural gas
With this in mind, the City of Aspen sued the local provider of natural gas, Kinder Morgan, charging that city residents are overcharged vis- a- vis other customers serviced by the company. Kinder Morgan has now won twice on procedural grounds, with first a district court and now the Colorado Court of Appeals agreeing that Aspen’s proper venue for venting the complaint is with the Public Utilities Commission, not in the courts.
Aspen city officials are deciding whether they want to appeal the case to the Colorado Supreme Court, take the complaint to the PUC, or do nothing. “I don’t believe we would get a very sympathetic hearing from the PUC,” city attorney John Worcester told the Times without explanation.
But, for that matter, Kinder Morgan disagrees with Aspen not just on procedural grounds, but also on substantive grounds. Dan Watson, retail president of Kinder Morgan, said that the lower atmospheric pressure of higher elevations is factored in at the company’s border stations, which are points where natural gas flows from main transmission lines into the cities. Worcester said that Kinder Morgan agrees that a given volume of gas in Aspen offers 5 to 9 percent less heat when burned than the same volume of gas at a lower, but unspecified, elevation.
