Will Utah become a nuclear powerhouse some day?

Yahoo

28-01-2025

A legislative bill to establish the Utah Energy Council, energy development zones and a nuclear energy consortium unanimously passed Monday out of the House Public Utilities and Energy Committee.
The bill, HB249 by Rep. Carl Albrecht, R-Richfield, aims to position Utah as a player in energy innovation and foster plans for the future for microreactors or small modular reactor technology.
'We've got to start somewhere,' Albrecht told the committee.
'This will not be a plant tomorrow or the next day or the next year. This plant generation is going to be 10 to 15 years down the road, and hopefully technology improves and we generate power with zero carbon.'
Utah has been identified by the IdIdaho National Laboratory as a 'first mover' state in the arena of advanced nuclear technology deployment — just one of a handful. That designation means Utah, with its research universities and all of the above energy approach is an ideal candidate to deploy nuclear to not only tamp emissions but to aid in economic development. The Frontiers Project has been working closely with Utah's congressional delegation and state representatives, as well as Utah's office of Energy Development.
The state Legislature is serious about using that advantage and has taken out the notebooks and done some research.
Lawmakers toured the facility west of Idaho Falls and also made a trip to the White Mesa processing mill in San Juan County.
Albrecht was blunt when it came to meeting Utah's future energy needs, asserting multiple data centers want to locate here but Rocky Mountain Power lacks the capacity to meet their demand. Their solution is to get natural gas plants up and running to power their facilities, but in the long run, Albrecht said nuclear has to be part of the equation.
'So as you well know, energy production and security and reliability is a statewide issue. Utah is trying to get ahead of this. As you well know, we've got a lot of data centers that want to come to Utah. We're talking anywhere from 50 megawatts on up to 500 megawatts of power.'
Albrecht conceded the bill has a lot of moving parts and is a work in progress but he was adamant. 'We have to start somewhere.' He surmised it will be tweaked and changed and evolve over the years, likely long after he has left the legislature.
'Politicians are like diapers. They need to be changed once in awhile.'
He also conceded the failure of the NuScale small modular reactor planned at Idaho National Laboratory but later shelved due to costs for ratepayers of participating cities and districts. He received support, however, from the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems which pursued the Carbon Free Power Project.
'Through the process of this, of our development of the project, we realized a number of the commercial considerations related to developing new nuclear in the state,' said Michael Suarez, government affairs director for UAMPS. 'You know at UAMPS we had many municipalities lead out on this issue. You know that with Utah's pioneering spirit, we can get this done, and we can get anything done as Utahns if we're collaborating and working together. '
The bill received other praise.
'We can move forward with a stronger, more reliable and sustainable energy future, specifically on nuclear. The nuclear consortium is created here will give us a leg up, bringing together the best minds. This bill is how Utah goes nuclear,' said Joel Ferry, executive director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources which oversees the state's energy development office.
Several critics, however, brought up health and safety concerns, recalling the fate of 'Utah downwinders' who suffered and died from above ground nuclear testing in Nevada.
Ava Curtis gave a detailed presentation about the rampage cancer has caused in her family and the serious danger posed by exposure to nuclear radiation.
'What I'm asking from the members of this committee is to take the time to fully understand the risks of nuclear energy and to make sure that those who have been impacted by nuclear energy are voiced in this new committee, this new group that's studying this, including members of the mountain Ute tribe from white Mesa who are affected, members of the Navajo Nation, and those who've been impacted by nuclear energy and uranium refinement, such as my own family. Our voices should be heard when making energy decisions for a community.'
Albrecht had his own story to tell, sympathizing with her about uranium mining during the Cold War era when his family worked in the uranium mines.
'I'm pretty close to nuclear and uranium because during the '50s and '60s, my dad had uranium mines on the San Rafael Swell. I was just a little, but I can remember going down to those mines. I had two brothers working in them, and some other relatives and people who worked for my dad, and he shipped that uranium, which was low grade uranium, to Grand Junction, Shiprock, and sold it to the U.S. government to build bombs with to end the Cold War,' Albrecht said. 'I had a brother die from cancer. Now I don't know if that was from working in the uranium mine, hauling the uranium in a truck, or from downwinders, and nobody will know to this day, but the cemeteries in southern Utah has already been alluded and they are full of people who died from cancer, all forms of cancer, because the government lied to us when they did the testing in Nevada. But we have comes a long way since then.'
Utah, he added, needs to be positioned to take the leap if nuclear promises carbon free power, safety and reliability. This he stressed, is a first exploratory step.