Voices: Are Utah leaders’ energy ambitions going to nuke your wallet?

Nuclear energy is having its moment, and Utah politicians have isotopes in their eyes.

But are Utahns ready to pay?

In the serious number crunching that goes into planning future energy sources, nuclear has consistently shown to be the most expensive power, and it probably always will be, whether the reactors are large or small. Splitting atoms is not simple, and doing it safely is even harder.

It’s fashionable to blame bureaucracy, and it’s a factor, but the high price of nuclear power is largely due to the need for specialized alloys, highly refined fuels, safety demands and the long tail of decommissioning reactors and storing waste. The new nuclear startups’ designs do not avoid these things.

And even in today’s anti-regulatory mood, there’s only so far that the government can distance itself. For the good of the world, every ounce of enriched uranium must be accounted for.

There’s a lot of talk these days about energy abundance. If it’s cheap, it can be abundant. But the opposite isn’t necessarily true. We could invest billions to flood the zone with nuclear power plants, but it won’t make them a bargain.

The state’s pro-nuclear ad campaign is focused on convincing downwinder-wary Utah that new nuclear technologies are a safe solution, and they can be. Nuclear fission can produce carbon-free thermal power to make cement and steel, two commonly used materials that require temperatures higher than 2,000 degrees. That’s hard for solar panels and windmills.

And, of course, data centers. The moneybags in tech apparently can cough up enough crypto to pay for nuclear, but even they are not going to overpay if there are cheaper clean alternatives.

Utah has its own cautionary tale. A handful of cities spent almost 10 years chasing the promise of small modular reactors in Idaho, only to give it up two years ago. The NuScale SMRs managed to get federal approvals, and the federal government was covering $4 billion of the $9 billion cost. But the cities couldn’t convince anyone else to join because it was still too expensive. It’s doubtful it’s any cheaper now.

And while Utah politicians are throwing press conferences with nuclear companies, the three-member Utah Public Service Commission has to decide if Rocky Mountain Power can even bring nuclear power to Utah.

Utah’s largest electrical utility asked the commission in October to approve a contract to bring in power from the Terra Power nuclear plant under construction in Wyoming. The plant will be a unique design intended to store nuclear-generated heat in molten salts so it can ramp up and down faster to integrate with fluctuating solar and wind power.

Under Utah law, Rocky Mountain has to find the “least cost/least risk” sources for power. The company says the Kemmerer plant, which is still more than five years away from operation, will meet that requirement.

But there is no history to back that up, and Rocky Mountain needs Utah’s commitment soon to qualify for federal funds to finish the plant. The case already has attracted attorneys from Utah industries looking to protect their power costs.

So, at a time when Utah is fighting to hang on to its historically low rates, how about the politicians try to fast-track more affordable technologies?

In Utah, with more year-round sunshine than virtually all states, the discussion should be about maximizing clean, cheap solar (roughly a quarter of the per kilowatt-hour price of nuclear), and then backfilling with other technologies when the sun doesn’t shine. To do anything else is to pay too much for power. If there is a reason for Utah politicians’ resistance to solar, they haven’t explained it.

We also have space for more solar farms without losing productive real estate. (Shout out to Sen. John Curtis for his bipartisan efforts on permitting reform, which ultimately will matter more to solar, wind and geothermal development than to oil and gas.)

Combined with utility-scale battery storage, which also has seen a dramatic cost drop, solar is dominating new generation nationally. The red state of Texas added almost 10 gigawatts of solar and 4 gigawatts of batteries last year alone. (Utah currently has a little over 10 gigawatts of generation capacity from all sources.)

Then there is enhanced geothermal, a technology the University of Utah pioneered in the Beaver County desert. Using fracking processes that the U.S. oil industry perfected, it has a potential — even a likelihood — of producing continuous baseload power at a lower cost than nuclear.

Utah leaders like to say we’re an “all of the above” energy state, but that’s a slogan. They have a history of putting their thumbs on the scale for certain sources.

They should put more weight toward lower-cost technologies, including more transmission lines to get southwest Utah’s clean power to the people along the Wasatch Front. Back in 2021, the state released a major study that recommended exactly that, but there was never any followup from the governor or legislators.

And how about an ad campaign telling Utahns that renewables cost less even if you’re not woke?

Nuclear can play a role in Utah, but it likely will be too expensive to ever be our primary energy source. We should work on the stuff more Utahns can afford.

Tim Fitzpatrick is a former Salt Lake Tribune editor and reporter who covered the energy beat. He can be reached at fitz@utahnia.com.

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