Here are the companies that have offered to run the idled Intermountain Power Plant’s coal units

Note to readers •This story is made possible through a partnership between The Salt Lake Tribune and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.

This story is also an excerpt from the Open Lands newsletter, which will now be delivered to inboxes every week instead of twice a month. For a sneak peek from the environment team about what we’re working on and news we’re following, sign up to have Open Lands delivered to your inbox.

Remember how the state moved to take control of the old coal-fired units at Intermountain Power Plant in an effort to keep Utah’s coal industry humming? Well, now we know the companies that are interested in running it.

The massive plant near Delta mostly served customers in California, but those customers don’t want to be associated with the unhealthy emissions that come from burning coal. The plant pivoted to natural gas, bringing its new units online this fall.

But Utah lawmakers intervened to prevent the two remaining coal units from going permanently offline. The state signed a two-year agreement with the plant’s operators in July to explore taking ownership. The plant will keep the coal generators idle during that period while Utah figures out what to do.

The Office of Energy Development provided a list of companies that have applied to run the coal units, although the agency declined to provide any documents on potential plans for now, saying that it is too early in the process.

Here’s what we’ve been able to uncover about the 14 applicants so far.

EnergySolutions

This Salt Lake City-based company operates a low-level nuclear waste disposal site at Clive in Tooele County. It recently received approval from the Northwest Interstate Compact to import waste from Canada, marking the first time Utah or the compact’s other seven member states approved import of foreign radioactive material. EnergySolutions announced last year that it was working with the Office of Energy Development to site a small modular nuclear plant near IPP.

The company did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Creekstone Energy

The company is building a sprawling data center “gigasite” just outside of Delta. Founder and CEO Ray Conley confirmed in an interview that his company is interested in both owning and operating IPP’s coal units. He said he wants to use them to power the Creekstone’s data campus. The company also offered to clean up the site’s coal ash waste and invest in technology to sequester its carbon emissions, Conley said.

“The state’s running a pretty rigorous process,” he said, “on evaluating the proposals.”

Hi Tech Solutions

This Washington-based company’s founder joined Gov. Spencer Cox in November, announcing it was expanding to Utah and helping to build a nuclear hub in Brigham City. State officials noted the company would help train a local work force in nuclear plant management and build a manufacturing center for small modular reactors that would be shipped around the Intermountain West.

Neither the company nor state leaders noted Hi Tech also had eyes on IPP. Requests for comment sent to Chris Hayter, the company’s co-founder, were not returned.

Flagship Energy

This company is a branch of Flagship Companies, a developer perhaps best known for building Utah City in Vineyard. Spokesperson Craig Cannon said constructing housing and supporting Utah’s growth lends itself to finding energy solutions. The company also owns a large piece of land next to the QTS and Meta data centers in Eagle Mountain, Cannon said, and wanted to build its own data campus but struggled to secure enough energy from Rocky Mountain Power, Utah’s largest electricity provider.

Flagship signed a memorandum of understanding in August with TerraPower, a nuclear startup backed by billionaire Bill Gates, and is helping the state of Utah find a suitable location to build a small modular reactor.

“One of the sites,” Cannon said, “is IPP.”

Deseret Power

Deseret Power is a mostly rural municipal electricity cooperative that serves parts of Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and Wyoming. It has experience running coal plants, since it owns the Bonanza Power Plant near Vernal. Multiple calls to the company and CEO Dave Crabtree were not returned.

Javelin

Javelin Energy Partners operates numerous oil and gas wells in Utah. It’s a subsidiary of Texas-based Crescent Energy. Emails and phone calls to the company were not returned.

Magnetar

Gov. Spencer Cox shared an article that mentions this firm on his Facebook account in September, using it to promote his Operation Gigawatt energy initiative. Magnetar made a $200 million investment in Utah to help a local company called Torus deploy “modular power plants for utilities, data centers” and other industries around the same time, according to utahbusiness.com. Requests for comment sent to Magnetar were not returned.

Red Team Power

The company says on its website that it specializes in coal plant retirements and reducing costs associated with managing coal plant waste. They also help site data centers, small modular reactors and renewable energy. Attempts to reach Red Team’s leadership were unsuccessful.

Trafigura

Trafigura is an international corporation that focuses on “optimizing complex supply chains” including fossil fuels, metals, renewables and hydrogen. A company representative declined to comment on the application to operate IPP. Trafigura is an associate of Wolverine Fuels, which operates some of Utah’s largest coal mines, including the Sufco, Skyline and Fossil Rock mines.

Zeo Energy

This Florida-based company focuses on residential solar. A spokesperson declined to comment on any applications to run IPP.

The unknowns

There were four companies with little information publicly available. Phone calls and emails to the companies were not returned. Those include: