New plan released for Utah’s energy future

Utah’s business community is pushing for changes that they believe will get Utah closer to a low-carbon energy future – at a faster pace than a lot of the country.

Getting there will require some big changes. The new plan was released through the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce today.

A new vision for the state’s energy future that places Utah at the center of the nation’s energy transition by harmonizing environmental and economic progress to ensure a balanced low-carbon energy future that remains affordable, reliable, and sustainable.

The focus of this initiative is to greatly reduce carbon emissions statewide… but doing it through incentives, rather than waiting for government regulations to step in.
While part of this certainly comes from all of us as we take on changes like solar, using less electricity, and cutting our drive time. Rocky Mountain Power and Dominion Energy say they’re making big changes too.

While those changes may be costly at first, the Chamber believes the Utah business community can work together to make those things happen.
A major piece of it is likely to come from an advanced nuclear plant to be built in Wyoming. Thanks to decades of research and advances, these plants are much smaller and safer than other ones.

“That power will be 100% carbon-free, and will be dispatchable in base load. That’s the piece that fills in that last big between building as much wind and solar as you can, and having something that’s dispatchable and reliable in the end.”

That plant will be the first of it’s kind, done through a business-sector partnership, as opposed to others that typically take some government involvement.

Rocky Mountain Power expects to have their carbon footprint reduced by 74% of what it was in 2005, by 2030.

That Nuclear plant would come online around that same time.