When science-fiction writers imagine the future, they always envision dramatic advances in science and technology. Cars are powered by banana peels or hydrogen fuel cells. Solar-powered spaceships cruise the galaxies. Light and heat come from out of nowhere.

But sci-fi writers never have to deal with industry lobbyists.

If they did, they'd all be historians.

Here in Colorado, home to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, energy-industry dinosaurs successfully defeated legislation to require the state's largest energy providers to make modest increases in their use of renewable energy sources - four years in a row.

It's a reckless commitment to 19th-century technology in a 21st-century world, where 15 states have established renewable energy requirements for the power industry and where countries such as Denmark and Germany are getting 20 percent of their power from renewables.

House Speaker Lola Spradley, R-Beulah, one of the chief sponsors of the renewable-energy bill, was exasperated with her colleagues - so much so that she joined U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., as co-chair of a citizen initiative to get the renewable-energy measure passed into law by the voters.

And while Spradley, Udall and the other members of Coloradans for Clean Energy are just getting started on the initiative campaign, which is expected to qualify easily for the November ballot, money is rolling in to stop them.

Your money.

Or at least it was before you paid your energy bills.

The three chief contributors to Citizens for Sensible Energy, the anti-renewable-energy campaign, are Xcel Energy, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and the Colorado Rural Electric Association. They constitute the major suppliers of power in the state, and each has contributed $20,000 to the war chest so far.

The big kahuna here is Xcel, the fourth-largest electricity and natural gas provider in the U.S. - so let's look at what is driving its keen interest in stopping the initiative.

Xcel raised natural gas rates in Colorado an average of 73 percent last winter and plans another 15 percent to 20 percent increase this fall. The utility said it was because of increased costs for natural gas, which should be clear evidence of the need for development of alternative energy sources.

But there are more pressing priorities in the industry.

Namely profits.

Those rate increases also helped finance a 10.7 percent increase in dividends to stockholders, as well as some swell compensation packages for Xcel executives.

For example, last year chief executive Wayne Brunetti came away with $2,461,671 in salary and bonuses from the company, according to Forbes magazine. And when he turns 62 in October, he'll be credited with 20 years of service (even though he worked there only 10 years), which will double his pension benefit so he can retire on $825,000 a year.

He's just one of the executives clearing more than a million dollars a year from the company.

Now, given that shareholders and executives are obsessed with immediate profitability, it's no wonder they object to investing in new generation systems that serve the customers' long-term interests.

After all, what's in it for them?

Sure, the benefits to the people, the environment, national security and the long-term health of the economy may be inarguable.

But good public policy doesn't pay the mortgage on the retirement villa in the south of France.

So brace yourselves. This initiative - the first in the country on the renewable-energy requirements and the one the dinosaurs want to ensure is the last - is going to incite a media blitzkrieg that's pure shock and awe.

And you'll be paying for it in your energy bills all winter long.

Diane Carman's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-820-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com .