Installing carbon capture in Utah would be tough. But is that debate missing the point?

Plant manager Terence Tham supervises workers inside Climeworks’ Mammoth carbon removal plant on May 24, 2024 in Reykjavik, Iceland. Considered the largest direct-air capture plant in the world, Swiss start-up Climeworks and Icelandic partner Carbfix have collaborated on the Mammoth project, utilizing Climeworks’ Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology to extract CO2 directly from the air using fans and special filters. Powered by clean geothermal energy, the CO2 is then pumped deep into Iceland’s bedrock, locking it away permanently. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Will a new Environmental Protection Agency power plant emissions reduction rule render Utah’s grid vulnerable? 

For many Republican lawmakers, it’s a resounding yes, as they consider the deadline to install technologies to capture carbon dioxide — a process that captures and stores carbon dioxide in underground geologic formations — in order to keep coal plants open an impossible task. 

However, others argue that the conversation around keeping fossil fuel plants operating is missing the mark, and state policies securing a longer future for coal may be the cause of a more susceptible grid. Utah’s initiatives, they said, are also preventing the state from innovating and implementing the “energy sources of the future.” 

Utah has joined 24 other states in a lawsuit to fight the implementation of new greenhouse standards for some coal power plants and for new natural gas facilities. Some legislators that sponsored bills defining the state’s energy strategy, prioritizing existing technologies and ensuring a fund to legally challenge “federal overreach,” said the state should fight the EPA rule to protect the state’s energy security.

But energy experts, such as Logan Mitchell, climate scientist and energy analyst at Utah Clean Energy, warn that the route ratified during the 2024 legislative session may lead Utah to a riskier, more expensive and more polluting path for the state. 

“Utah’s no longer an ‘all of the above state.’ We have a special set of rules for costs associated with coal plants, and we have another set of rules that everything else has to follow,” Mitchell said referring to SB224, a bill that excludes the cost of dispatchable resources — such as coal — from some state energy strategy considerations. 

That’s why, in Mitchell’s view, utilities such as PacifiCorp are not incentivized to make coal plants cost effective, but to just keep them running because they have a guaranteed cost recovery. 

However, Mitchell doesn’t see how federal policies don’t phase out coal power plants in the next decade. In that context, prioritizing coal dips into dangerous waters.

“If we’re not building resources to replace them, then those other states around us will,” he said. “And when those coal plants do close down, ironically, it’s going to lead to more energy dependence on our surrounding states, because we haven’t built our replacement energy system.” 

Coal falls off a conveyer belt as it’s off loaded from trucks from local coal mines at the Savage Energy Terminal on Aug. 26, 2016 in Price, Utah. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

Issues with the rule

Utah’s electricity generation mix included 57% coal in 2022 — less than the 94% documented in 2000 — while natural gas was 28% and renewables represented 15%. 

Rep. Colin Jack, R-St. George, who sponsored some of the most predominant energy bills last general session, said in April that installing carbon capture and sequestration systems by 2032 wouldn’t be a viable option, as the technology doesn’t exist at a utility scale. 

Jack suggested that the rule’s goal must be to kill coal “without providing any replacement.” Closing Utah’s coal plants isn’t an alternative either, because the country’s northwestern region would be left without a substantial amount of electricity generation.

Nationwide, 60% of utility-scale electricity is generated by fossil fuels, according to 2023 figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. About 16% of that is from coal and 43% from natural gas.

Power transmission lines near the Lake Side natural gas power plant in Vineyard are pictured on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)

However, Sen. Nate Blouin, D-Millcreek, is skeptical about claims brought up by his Republican colleagues. According to a May 2024 reliability assessment by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, the country’s northwestern region — which includes Utah — is expected to have enough resources to meet peak demands.

“At least in the short term, from what this report is saying, we’re in a pretty good space and that doesn’t mean we can’t do more, but to you know, make comments that our grid specifically here in Utah is teetering on the edge of blackouts is just ridiculous and not factual,” Blouin said.

The state could move in other directions, using federal incentives to boost natural gas, storage, and geothermal, among other technologies, Blouin said. And, overall, EPA rules allow years to make transitions.

Fossil fuels are also a finite resource, Blouin added, and resisting a transition “is a little frustrating.”

“I think it’s kind of anti-progress, I guess, to look at it like ‘we can’t do this,’” Blouin said, adding that throughout history, the country has proven that it can meet these types of challenges with innovation and market-driven incentives. 

Carbon capture woes 

Technically, carbon capture and storage is a viable option, Mitchell said. The technology exists and there are tax incentives in place to implement the technology through the Inflation Reduction Act. 

But, it is rare. According to a 2023 report from the Congressional Budget Office, “only 15 facilities are currently capturing and transporting CO2 for permanent storage as part of an ongoing commercial operation.” None of them are coal plants. 

The system also nearly doubles the water consumption of coal plants, adding to the water supply challenges of the state and raising the cost of keeping fossil fuels in the state.

“You’re going to get less power, you’re going to use more water, and you’re also not going to address the other air pollutants that are emitted,” Mitchell said. “I don’t think the public would support it, if they understood what it truly meant to keep those coal plants online.”    

Blouin agrees with lawmakers who worried carbon capture and sequestration technologies would be hard to implement.

“It is expensive. It is not proven at a commercial scale. And to ask these coal plants to implement carbon capture is probably not realistic. And I think there’s plenty of flexibility built into the rule from what I’ve seen and other federal incentives to move in other directions,” Blouin said.

But, with or without the technology, Mitchell said, the U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled that the EPA needs to regulate carbon dioxide and this specific rule was designed to meet the court’s outline. The difference between this and the former proposals, he said, is that this one is a “much simpler, more targeted regulation, and focused on reducing emissions.”

But, that’s beyond the point, he continued. The point is that these kinds of rules have propelled industries to focus on innovating.

“In some ways, the focus on carbon capture is really a focus on the past, and we wouldn’t be better served if we would focus on the future and look at the amazing amount of innovation that’s happening and be pursuing those opportunities as fast as we can,” Mitchell said.

Are renewables the solution?

Though fossil fuels have served the electric system for a long time and have allowed the economy to prosper, Mitchell said, they have also contributed to climate change. Simultaneously, there have been substantial cost declines in wind, solar and battery systems.

Fighting to keep coal online in those conditions, he added, is contrary to Utah’s long history of environmental stewardship, and overall, creates a negative impression of the state.

The state’s lawsuit would most affect the lives of the people who operate the plants, Mitchell said, as they need policy consistency to plan their futures.

“Outside of the leadership in the legislature. I don’t know anyone who actually thinks those coal plants are going to run to 2042. It’s quite unrealistic,” Mitchell said. 

Building resources is not that difficult, Blouin added, especially with storage, a solution for the intermittency issues of renewables.

“I know in Utah using California as an example isn’t isn’t always popular, but seriously, I mean, California’s ability to bring new energy storage onto the grid and the last like two to three years is incredible,” Blouin said. 

Cleaner energy projects could be built in a couple of years if the conditions are good. 

“That’s not to say we’re going to transition to 100% renewable energy by 2030. But, by 2030, we could be doing things drastically differently than we are right now at a similar level of reliability and likely cost,” Blouin said.  

Wind turbines generate electricity at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)

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