Last month, Utah Business partnered with Dentons Durham Jones Pinegar to host a roundtable featuring leaders in Utah’s energy sector. Moderated by Harry Hansen, deputy director of the Utah Office of Energy Development, they discussed sustainability, affordability, regulations, research and more. Here are a few highlights from the conversation.

What innovations are you looking forward to within the next decade?

Troy Herold | Assistant Managing Director, Energy & Minerals | Utah Trust Lands Administration

We’re seeing a lot of interest in critical minerals, hydrogen storage and geothermal. Fervo Energy is working on engineered geothermal systems in the Roosevelt Hot Springs area. I’m excited to see how that can supplement traditional renewables as a base load-type energy structure.

Rikki Hrenko-Browning | President | Utah Petroleum Association

Carbon capture is going to be a crucial component of how we integrate technology developments. We’re excited to see Utah moving toward running its own carbon capture program with the division of oil, gas and mining. As we look at the basin, there are ample opportunities for geologic sequestration and enhanced oil recovery to utilize that carbon beneficially.

Brian Somers | President | Utah Mining Association

We’re seeing a lot of research and development around using our traditional energy resources, such as coal, in different ways—coal to graphite, coal to hydrogen, coal for fertilizer, etc. There is also a focus on using existing operations and production to get more critical minerals. 

Judd Cook | VP & General Manager | Dominion Energy

We started blending green hydrogen into our natural gas distribution system in March. We are blending hydrogen into the entire city of Delta, Utah. Every home there receives a blend of hydrogen and natural gas to heat their homes and water. We’ll be one of the first utilities in the United States to blend into the live gas distribution system. 

What can we do as an energy industry to ensure that the grid and our resources can handle future demands?

Bryan Black | Co-Founder & CEO | Nodal Power

So much of the energy produced in our country is lost, especially in electrification. Nodal Power focuses on landfill gas energy development and microgrids within the landfill network. We have over a million megawatts of installed capacity in the U.S. at peak load; we may use about 700,000 megawatts. We need to utilize what we have better and then start thinking about building more.

Masood Parvania | Director, Utah Energy & Power Innovation Center (U-EPIC) | The University of Utah

Founder | Grid Elevated

We need to balance generation and demand to keep the voltage and quality of the power. Artificial intelligence is not just a demand for the grid; it’s a tool to operate the grid better. Energy is the next technology. Utah is the grid that connects everywhere. We’ve been most famous as “The Crossroads of the West” on the transportation side. But on the grid side, we are connecting the West and leading out on resilience. 

Sarah Wright | Founder, CEO & Director | Utah Clean Energy

We are building a new, grid-interactive headquarters for Utah Clean Energy. We’re giving Rocky Mountain Power (RMP) control of everything we can. We’ll meet all our energy demands on site and then shape them so the building benefits the grid. 

Judd Cook | VP & General Manager | Dominion Energy

Three pillars hold up the energy industry: reliability, affordability and sustainability. The day we start focusing on one to the detriment of the others is the day we have none. Our problem is that we failed to focus on reliability, so we won’t have affordability going forward. I hope it’s not over for reliability, but we must figure out how to balance reliability, affordability and sustainability.

Luigi Resta | Founder, President & CEO | rPlus Energies

We’ve missed the opportunity for reliability. We have to accept that as a state and nation. The fires in Hawaii were all caused because we haven’t invested enough into our transmission and infrastructure system over the last 50 years. We have to modernize the grid to get back to reliability. For affordability, it will be an all-of-the-above solution: solar, wind, battery storage, pump storage, hydro and geothermal. We have to work collectively.

Jon Cox | Principal | Utah Public Affairs

There’s the issue of how to maintain clearance areas. In some areas across the West where you’re not legally allowed to clear all vegetation that may harm a power line, should the utility be responsible for billions of dollars in damages if a tree falls on that line and causes a wildfire? If so, all future energy development is at risk. You need capital to build all these energy projects, but you won’t have funds if you don’t have a healthy electric utility. You’re one wildfire away from a dramatic change in your state’s energy future.

Thomas Holst | Senior Energy Analyst | The University of Utah, Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute

The 2021 metrics show Utah in the top 10 for reliability on SAIDI [System Average Interruption Duration Index], SAIFI [System Average Interruption Frequency Index] and CAIFI [Customer Average Interruption Frequency Index]. Utah, on a residential basis, has the third lowest rate. That’s the good news. What worries me is transmission lines and the approval period from when they start to when they get built. It’s 15 to 17 years. That’s a long time.

Christine Watson Mikell | Principal | Enyo Renewable Energy

We just made a load request of PacifiCorp, and we can’t come online until 2030. If load—like myself or Google or Facebook—wants to come here, they will have to wait to sign a contract with PacifiCorp. From an economic development perspective, RMP is the heart of our economic development. If we can’t support RMP in what is happening right now, we have bigger problems.

What regulations or permitting requirements keep you from moving forward, and what can Utah do to help?

Rikki Hrenko-Browning | President | Utah Petroleum Association

We’re hamstrung in our ability to build anything in this country. In Utah, we have minimal control over several of the critical pieces we need for energy and infrastructure. I hope everybody’s aware of the conservation rule that’s recently come out. It will be tough for anyone to develop projects if that conservation rule moves forward in its current language.

Ruben Arredondo | Energy Lawyer, Strategist & Regulatory Consultant | Regime Energy Partners

On the state and local level, the permitting process is a swamp. California didn’t tell cities how to write their microgrid tariffs. They just told them to have one, letting the cities decide how to do that. That’s something we could do in Utah to simplify the permitting process.

Troy Herold | Assistant Managing Director, Energy & Minerals | Utah Trust Lands Administration

Our state and national legislature worked together in a bipartisan way to create the Utah Trust Lands Administration Exchange Act of 2023. Assuming that legislation is ultimately approved by both bodies and signed by the president, it will authorize the exchange of a little over 160,000 acres of land. Roughly 70 percent of the targeted acreage includes properties with potential for critical minerals (including coal and lithium), oil and gas exploration, and some renewable energy and transmission targets.

Dillon Hoyt | Planning Program Manager | Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office

The Bureau of Land Management tries to move things forward, but there are so many hurdles to overcome. Then, when you think you get over a hurdle, you hit litigation. There are opportunities in public lands for energy, but we need to think past a four- or eight-year presidency. 

Luigi Resta | Founder, President & CEO | rPlus Energies

Pump storage is FERC [Federal Energy Regulatory Commission]-regulated. You have to file a preliminary permit and then a final license; it takes about three years to get a final application. Then, after you submit it to FERC, it could be two to five years before the issue of license—it’s quite a long process.

Josh Brown | EVP, Land/Water Asset Development & External Affairs | Rio Tinto

On the extractive side, we have a project in Arizona. We’re on 20 years with probably seven to go through the permitting process, spending multiple billions to get started. Going to another country is easier; Commonwealth countries are two to three years in the permitting process. We’re doing ourselves a disservice by ignoring that the time, burden, cost and hurdles are too high, and they will go elsewhere.

Thomas Holst | Senior Energy Analyst | The University of Utah, Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute

Lithium is one of the five EV [electric vehicle] battery minerals that are needed. Nevada is the lithium capital of North America, meaning it’s a closed loop. It goes from exploration and extraction to recycling. Utah could be that way with the magnesium production going on in Great Salt Lake—a large amount of lithium can be brought from brine.

Jon Cox | Principal | Utah Public Affairs

One of the biggest challenges is that lithium is a new mineral for the state. When something’s new for us, it’s hard to find the sweet spot for compensating Utahns for a resource that can be depleted over time. That sweet spot could be a win-win.

What are we or can we be doing as an industry to decrease our environmental footprint or increase American energy independence?

Bryan Black | Co-Founder & CEO | Nodal Power

We started Nodal Power on the thesis of utilizing wasted energy resources, specifically landfills. About 800 to 1,200 landfills across the U.S. flare their methane. Traditionally, those sites are overlooked because they’re not big enough for traditional developers to pencil in, and landfill gas is seen as not worth the capital. We’re focused on utilizing this stranded resource.

Brian Somers | President | Utah Mining Association

The more we produce critical minerals, the better off our global environment is. The U.S. Geological Survey published a list of the minerals needed for national and economic security. For 51 of those minerals, we were more than 50 percent reliant on foreign production. Of those 51, we have 20 in Utah. That’s just one western state. We could easily produce all of these minerals here. It’s about doing things in countries with responsible environmental policies. 

Sarah Wright | Founder, CEO & Director | Utah Clean Energy

We’re seeing more and more national extreme weather events costing over $150 billion that are made a lot worse by climate change. When thinking about costs, that’s an important thing to consider. We can’t solve this problem here in the U.S. or Utah, but we have to be part of the solution. If we continue to come around the table like this, that’s one of the biggest innovations we need.

Dillon Hoyt | Planning Program Manager | Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office

Our office deals with endangered species a lot, and we found a lot of value in using new technology to figure out species’ migration corridors. If there’s an endangered or threatened species in an area, it’s a huge hurdle to get over. It’s incredibly valuable for the state and federal government to consider species’ movement and how those interact with different ecosystems.

What research needs could be brought to policymakers or academic institutions on behalf of the industry?

Ruben Arredondo | Energy Lawyer, Strategist & Regulatory Consultant | Regime Energy Partners

We need to research how to integrate distributed energy resources, virtual power plants and microgrids better—anything to optimize technology and existing assets. From a regulatory permitting perspective, make laws more encouraging of that type of technology.

Josh Brown | EVP, Land/Water Asset Development & External Affairs | Rio Tinto

Meeting with regulatory agencies, we often get asked to extract minerals, but we can’t produce them for what they’re currently going for. There need to be tangible steps for acquiring these minerals if we want to do it domestically. If we’re OK with some other country producing it, that’s OK too. But that decision carries potential risk.

Masood Parvania | Director, Utah Energy & Power Innovation Center (U-EPIC) | The University of Utah

Founder | Grid Elevated

We are also trying to work better with the industry. One of [University of Utah] President Taylor Randall’s visions is to make sure that we are commercializing the technologies that are coming out of the University of Utah. We’ve been very strong on commercializing the technologies from the medical school, but we are looking at energy more seriously now. We need to connect more together to not only bring opportunities but also tap into the technologies that are coming out of the universities.