The Carbon/Emery Economic Development committee presented at the state legislature’s Rural Caucus on Feb. 9. Mr. Brock Johansen, the chair of the committee led the discussion and stated:
“I appreciate Senator Hinkins and Representative Watkins and the Governor’s Office (specifically Mike Mower and Clay Crozier) for assisting in arranging this. Our committee is supported by local businessman, the Carbon County Commission, the local mayors and school districts, the Governor’s Office, Emery County Commissioners Leonard and Sitterud, and the local Association of Governments.
Utah has traditionally been a baseload energy producer. This has enabled economic development by allowing for affordable and reliable power. In our area, the Castle Gate power plant has been shut down, and the Huntington and Hunter power plants have moved from a possible retirement in 2036 and 2042 to possible reduced production as early as 2028 and retirement as early as 2032 or 2036.
Our committee is working on preventing the economic impacts of these policies that are pressing on our base load power production. Some of these policies are impacted by your decisions as a state legislature. We are working with the Governor’s office to standup an Interagency Working Group to address this issue. We are working with the Governor’s Office of Energy Development and Gregg Todd to expand the San Rafael Energy Research Center. We are also working with Utah State University and President Cantwell to expand the vocational programs, including a Business Program and Energy Engineer program at USU Eastern in Price. We continue to work with PacifiCorp to initiate the discussions on possible Small Cell Nuclear plants. We are also trying to explore Carbon Capture and Sequestration to extend the lives of our base load plants. I read that 350,000 customers lost power in California last weekend and that is not normal or acceptable. We need policies to encourage base load energy production in Utah and we need the state to complete the Class VI Well Permit to allow the state to regulate Carbon sequestration.”
Following his address Mr. Johansen then introduced Andrew Baxter with Sustainable Energy Solutions and Eric Edelman with EGI and the U of U. They explained the processes involved in carbon capture and sequestration. The committee received the discussion very well and was pleased to see Carbon and Emery Counties leading out on these issues.