I usually write this column at home. That was impossible this time, since I was one of the lucky 110,000 households without power for a full day during the recent windstorms.

For those of you who shared this magical experience, congratulations — you’ve now had a sneak preview of Colorado’s 100% renewable energy lifestyle. No waiting. No reservation required.

For us fortunate 110,000, the reality of “unreliable energy” arrived quickly: The house goes dark; people get cold; refrigerated food and medicines quietly die; folks on home oxygen machines fumble around in the dark for backup tanks; no cooked meals; garage doors refuse to open; Teslas sit silently, judging their owners, and worst of all — no electronic entertainment.

Nirvana. Absolute green, renewable Nirvana.

There’s a certain poetry in chasing a wind-powered energy future only to be plunged into darkness by a little wind. It’s like building a house entirely out of matchsticks and being shocked when fire shows up.

Of course, Xcel Energy was perfectly happy to shut off the power during windstorms. Not because they learned any lessons from the Marshall Fire they started a few years back — the one that devoured more than 1,000 homes — but because they want to teach us a lesson. Call it behavior conditioning. They’re teaching us that fires aren’t their fault; they’re the wind’s fault. As if Colorado just discovered wind last Tuesday. They’re also teaching us to “get used to” power outages — outages they, along with the policymakers they’re joined at the hip with, know are coming.

Fires like Marshall don’t happen because of some mysterious new climate phenomenon. They happen because Xcel doesn’t maintain its infrastructure the way it’s required to. High winds — including wild gusts — have always been part of life here. Their grid should handle it.

And once upon a time, it did.

Shiny new stuff

So what changed? Colorado’s energy monopolies don’t make money maintaining the stuff they already have. They make money building new stuff. And the “new energy economy” is all about building shiny new stuff.

When a monopoly utility gets permission to build a new power plant, wind farm, solar array, or transmission line, it gets a guaranteed profit — politely called a “rate of return.” For every bolt they buy for a dollar, they charge us a buck fifteen. Risk-free profit. A utility executive’s love language.

And what are we going to do? Switch to the other power company?

But when it comes time to maintain existing infrastructure, they usually aren’t allowed to tack on that guaranteed profit. When they buy screws and bolts to fix old equipment, they can only charge us for the screws and bolts.

So if you were a power monopoly, where would you put your energy?

Feel-good green projects like windmills and solar farms — which conveniently require new backup generators and twice as many power lines — come with guaranteed profits on everything. Maintenance? That’s just charity work.

It doesn’t take many years of chasing high-profit green projects while neglecting zero-profit maintenance before you end up with something like the Marshall Fire.

And the incentive to turn off the lights on us? Well, it’s probably easier to deal with 110,000 angry customers who have no alternative than it is to honor your obligation to provide reliable power.

Energy scarcity

But I suspect this is about more than wildfire liability. I think they’re conditioning us for a new lifestyle: energy scarcity.

Don’t be surprised when public service announcements start popping up.

“Be energy wise! Keep flashlights charged, stock backup batteries, and remember to park your car outside your electric garage on windy days — so it can be easily stolen.”

The situation isn’t going to get better. It’s going to get worse, thanks to the absolutely insane push for 100% renewable energy in Colorado.

The problem isn’t ideology. It’s physics. There is no realistic way to replace dependable fossil-fuel power — which still provides about two-thirds of Colorado’s electricity — with enough occasionally spinning windmills. Simple math is a cruel mistress. The closer we get to the unreachable dream of 100% renewable energy, the more power failures we’ll have. And people will die.

Let’s be thankful this windstorm happened on a mild day. Had this been during a deep freeze, people would have died.

They are preparing us for energy scarcity.

You have been warned.

Jon Caldara is president of Independence Institute, a free-market think tank in Denver.