In this episode, USU President Elizabeth Cantwell discusses the future of energy in Utah with two prominent Utahns who are helping shape that future: Teresa Foxley and Jeff Hartley.
Theresa Foxley is a Utah native passionate about developing diversified, dispatchable, affordable renewable energy. She was named chief of staff for rPlus Energies in February 2023. Prior to joining rPlus, Theresa served for six years as EDCUtah’s president and CEO. In this role, she helped usher in a new era, focused on internal team culture, driving stakeholder value and economic development preparedness.
Her previous roles include deputy director in the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development and representing a diverse set of clients in private legal practice on a multitude of general corporate and financial matters. Foxley received her undergraduate degree from Utah State University and her Juris Doctorate from the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah.
Jeff Hartley is a leading energy lobbyist in Utah, with a portfolio that includes regulated utilities and oil and gas. He is the managing partner of Sage Government Solutions. Hartley has over 20 years of experience in government affairs, political strategy, public policy, and public relations.
He has served on a variety of committees, task forces, and working groups dealing with environmental issues, energy production, transportation, and economic development. He previously served as a senior policy advisor and communications director in Congress. Hartley has a B.S. in political science and communications from Brigham Young University.
full transcript
Elizabeth Cantwell
Hello, everyone. This is President Cantwell at Utah State University. Welcome to Future Casting with Utah State. Today I'm talking to Teresa Foxley, who is the Chief of Staff of our plus energies. And Jeff Hartley, an energy lobbyist in Utah. We are diving into the question about the future of energy in Utah.
I think all of you know that the future of energy in Utah is is a big deal from whatever your perspective is. And I think we're gonna get a pretty good and broad discussion going here. What's on the horizon is more what we're interested in. What's unique about Utah what's unique about what we think is unique about our future Teresa Foxley is Utah native. She's passionate about developing diversified dispatchable affordable renewable energy. She was named Chief of Staff for our plus energies in February 2023. Prior to joining r plus Teresa served for six years as EDC Utah's president and CEO. In that role, she helped usher in a really a new era focused on internal team culture driving stakeholder value and economic development preparedness. She also served previously as deputy director in the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development and has been an attorney serving a diverse set of clients and private legal practice. Jeff Hartley is a leading energy lobbyist in Utah with a portfolio that includes regulated utilities and oil and gas. He's the managing partner of sage Government Solutions. Jeff has about 20 years of experience in government affairs, political strategy, public policy, public relations, all the reasons I became an engineer and bless you for being one of the people who does that. Jeff, Jeff served on a number of committees Task Force for for Utah working groups, dealing with environmental issues, energy production, transportation, and as you know, those are all intimately entwined and economic development and previously served as a senior policy adviser and communications director and Congress. I will because we are a university I will say Teresa received her undergraduate degree from Utah State University Go Aggies. And her JD from the SJ Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. And Jeff has a BS in political science and communications from Brigham Young University. So before we get started, I would have a question for each of you, sir. Could you just tell us what our plus is in does here in Utah?
Theresa Foxley
Yeah, absolutely. Well, President Campbell, thank you so much for having me on the podcast today. And Jeff, it's always really fun to be with an old friend and to be able to catch up so looking forward to today's discussion.
rPlus energies as a salt lake based renewable energy and energy to storage developer, we develop big grid scale energy projects. For those of you USU students who have driven by Wellington, recently on your way to the to the Moab campus of USU, you might have driven by one of our pluses, develop projects, the graphite solar project and 80 megawatt project in carbon county there, if you've driven up from St. George to Salt Lake City are back you might have seen one of the our plus develop solar projects there in Iron County. So we work with local communities, energy producing communities legacy energy producing communities like carbon and Emery County's new energy producing communities that haven't had resources under the ground, but they have a lot of resources above ground like solar and wind to bring new economically impactful projects online to service either the utilities so that when we all want to turn on our lights that there's electrons that go to power, the lights and the TV TVs and electric vehicle charging stations and air conditionings that we that we all need to run our lives or our businesses. We also work directly with large industrial customers who have a desire to match their the new load that they bring the new demand on the grid that they bring. But with new electricity generation, we are based in Salt Lake City, we have an office in Idaho, and are developing projects not only in Utah, but all over the western United States and solar, solar plus battery, wind, standalone battery, and pumped storage hydro, which is a form of long duration energy that I'm super excited about and hope we can talk about a little bit more.
Elizabeth Cantwell
I would love to talk about pumped storage hydro, I have a little passionate about that as well. True. Thank you so many things that, you know, I would love to kick off on but but let's go to Jeff first. Jeff, I think the thing that's really important for people to understand, because when they hear the word lobbyist, it means lots of things to people but in the energy sector, it's really a unique role, especially in a state like ours, which is as complex as it is.
Jeff Hartley
Yeah. So a lot of people wonder what a lobbyist does. I usually get asked if I either sit in a lobby somewhere or if I give people bags of cash, but really what a lobbyist does is we solve problems that the government creates. So we try to take down the impediments to doing business the government actually creates and most times, it's not nothing nefarious, but government inherently creates roadblocks. And sometimes that's good, because you want to make sure that things are done correctly. But any any new energy project that comes online, and Teresa knows us intimately with what she's doing. But it takes several different levels of permitting, for example, to be operational, and sometimes things get, get bogged down and get snagged. And what what my firm does and and what folks like myself, what we do is try to fix those problems and take away the barriers that business can thrive and be successful within the parameters of what's legal and allowed. So I've worked across the spectrum on lots of different energy from nuclear to mining to drilling oil and gas to renewables. And and I'm very passionate energy and Utah's a great energy state. We're small, but we punch above our weight loss mighty again. Yeah,
Elizabeth Cantwell
yeah. You know, what's interesting about what you just said, Jeff, is that I think in my career, I have worked as a technologist or an engineer in almost every one of those areas, but always found that when we got to scaling our either our technical solution or our idea, we couldn't function without the intermediary between the regulatory structure and what we were talking about. And that often was lobbyists, who just by the nature of what they had done over the years, understood that interface and the gray area in between. So let's kick off I'm going to kind of go from one to the other. And maybe we'll start with kind of what's Utah's current energy mix primary sources, etc., so people can understand a little bit from each of your perspectives where are we today. And then when we end in 30 minutes, or 40 minutes, we'll end with what's the future, because that's something I think, at least the university community's really interested in. And you know, a lot of our students are really interested in it. So let's start with you, Jeff, current energy mix, what's Utah look like today.
Jeff Hartley
So Utah, we have, we have a tremendous supply of traditional energy. And by traditional energy, I mean coal and natural gas and oil, and the natural resources that we've been developing for hundreds of years. But we're also becoming robust in our renewable and alternative energies. And solar like Teresa's involved with we have a very dynamic geothermal energy production, this coming online in the state of Utah, we're also we also have the senator fel Research Center at NIMH, and that is working on advanced nuclear, and some of those technologies we have uranium in the south east corner of the state, which is is unique and and our suppliers is uniquely robust there. And we I think, mostly, the thing that I would say about Utah is that we have an energy policy that is all of the above. And that's not just words, it really is all of the above, we we really do have every kind of energy imaginable here in Utah, or interest in it anyway, we don't have nuclear power as a baseload or a supply source. But we do have research going into those things. And there's a new generation of nuclear coming, that a lot of people are excited about I am in particular, and what that might mean in terms of support for renewables and allowing for baseload backup supplies and things like that. So Utah's a very forward looking state with energy. And we have an objective that's in our state code and our laws. It says that our objective as a state is to have low costs, low risk, reliable energy. So that means it's as cheap as you can produce it, but safely and reliably. Because reliability is a key factor, when it comes when it comes to energy.
Elizabeth Cantwell
Reminds me a lot of figuring out how to manage electronics and space. I know that sounds really weird, but you either have something that's incredibly reliable, and it's built like a tank, or you have many different options, and they support one another in a cohesive manner. So that so that you get the same level of reliability. Teresa, you have an entirely different perspective on Utah today. I wonder if you would be willing to share that?
Theresa Foxley
Sure. Yeah. No. And the thing is, Jeff, Jeff, and I go back a long ways. And we have a similar viewpoint on this, I think, which is, you know, there's a lot of strength and there's a lot of security that comes from, from diversity and from energy diversity. And we are really fortunate as a state to have to be blessed with both natural resources, Legacy thermal resources, like like, like coal and gas. And we're also very fortunate to have dab a rich abundance of, of other natural resources that sometimes again, we don't think about very often, but the sun comes up every single day in Utah, and we're and we're at a high elevation. So we get good solar irradiance, we have we have wind not necessarily as strong as some surrounding states. But we have when we have we have water right now Utah's energy production mix is about 40% 40% coal 40% natural gas 20% non hydro renewables and about 2% hydro. So we are really fortunate as one of the reasons why I believe we've had on you to low cost energy as compared to many other states, which is fundamentally underpins every other economic benefit in our state, because we all can go out and run our manufacturing centers here at a lower cost. Everything energy is an input into nearly everything.
And so I think this diverse energy mix has has been a huge benefit to the state. And I love and value the state's all the above energy approach, and it has allowed for, you know, newer grid scale technologies like renewables to come online, and now energy storage. So that's something that isn't captured in a lot of the federal data is energy storage. But rPlus is really proud to be developing in Emery County, the $1.1 billion Green River Energy Center Project, which is a 400 megawatt solar PV project combined with a 400 megawatt four hour battery project. So 1600 megawatt hours, which means that when the sun is shining in the you know, at its brightest, in the mid afternoon, we can capture all of that energy, store it. And then when we come home to flip on our ACS at night and charge up our electric cars or watch TV, while we're catching up on email with our laptop going, that energy production can be shifted to when the energy is demanded. And so, you know, you're seeing this energy mix transitioning, or you're seeing this energy mix being sort of dynamic in real time. One of the things that we haven't talked about that I'm really hoping to chat about today is not only do we have this existing mix, but for the first time since 2008, we're actually seeing growth in the power sector. And that's because of all of these future for word industries that have been reshot to the United States like semiconductor manufacturing to now AI, which is incredibly computationally intense. And also that means very inefficient, energy intensive. Yes, yeah. So we're seeing a surge in energy demand, consumption, demand, that all of that all of that economic growth, that's happened since 2008, the utility has been able to very adeptly managed through energy efficiency programs. But we're beyond that now. So not only do we need our existing energy sources and generation, but we're going to be bringing on all sorts of new energies so that we can continue to retain America's competitive economic competitiveness.
Elizabeth Cantwell
Jeff, just piggybacking off that a little bit, because my second question was really about sort of letting everyone know how intensively anything that we talked about with regard to energy is intertwined with anything that we talked about from the perspective of the economy of the state, and the and the growth of that economy or the improvement of that economy over time. And I know that you've thought about that a lot. So what do you think?
Jeff Hartley
So that's a super important topic, especially for Utah. And, and Theresa touched on this a little bit, but our economic development has been, has been Utah's very robust, our economy is growing very strong, and lots of sectors. But one of the things that that Utah has benefited from, has been other states policies that have either made energy too expensive or too restrictive. And we've had migration and migration from other states have companies that are strong, dynamic, innovative companies that have significant power demands, in particular, and they come here because of what we have to offer. But so many components, as you said, intertwine. They go into that. And grid reliability is something that's you hear a lot about that today. But and I think it's probably last than most people. But the importance of the grid reliability is key to everything we're doing in the state of Utah. And to all of the growth, economic growth, we're having the ability for people to rely on having that abundant supply of power, especially when you get into the hundreds of megawatts like these AI companies are now needing for for their for their computer servers. But you know, Texas had already having brownouts this summer. And the ability for Utah to maintain that strong service is is key. And it's something that fortunately, our state policymakers are aware of and focus on. And that's helped our economy grow. We're seen as a very smart, progressive, thoughtful state when it comes to energy policy and its support of diverse economies.
Elizabeth Cantwell
And Teresa is absolutely right, that no matter how you look at it, the world becomes and we become more reliant on something that is associated with what you would call compute power, whether it's AI or anything else. And those are energy hogs. We have to be prepared. We we and I think about that a lot. So one of the things that's new for me in Utah, I've worked in energy related things in many different states in the US there. Each state really is different. But here we have this really interesting rural urban contrast where we've really got one urban area and the rest looks pretty rural by any other state. definition, I'm not sure I would, I would agree exactly living in a, what looks like a rural area with a lot of highly educated people in it and producing highly educated people throughout rural Utah. But but it is important, it's different those kinds of the people who live in a urban area, think differently than the people who live in an urban area about energy. And I don't know whether either of you have thought about that, or have have, you know, something coherent here. I've thought about it a fair amount on the social sciences side, when you're thinking about how to change behaviors, or demonstrate that, that nuclear may, in fact, be safer than other kinds of technologies to you know, if you really made a slight behavioral change in one thing or another, your your bill might drop by a third, those are just all behavioral things that what else is there about this rural urban community kind of choices that we make? And does does this all of the above enhance our ability to serve really, both modes of community?
Jeff Hartley
Maybe — Theresa, if you don't mind, I'll start on that. And this is really important. This people that live along the Wasatch Front may not understand this about our rural communities, companies like Teresa's are adding significant economic inputs to rural economies, when they, you know, in terms of the property taxes and, and other inputs that they have. And I'll trace, I'll let you talk about that. But one thing that I'd like to point out that that most people don't understand about the state of Utah is, because so much of our land is publicly owned, it's not privately owned. And, and so the rules are different, and the economics are different, that it throughout Utah, we have land that is either owned by the federal government, by the state government, or by the school trust administration, or the by the, by the school children of Utah. And a lot of the lot of the resources, whether it's, you know, the minerals in carbon, in coal, or natural gas, or oil belong to somebody, and they are, it's a property, right, and they and it's economics. And, and this, the schoolchildren of Utah benefit tens of millions of dollars every year from the extraction of these resources, and the productive use of these resources. And so it's, it's not a simple thing, either you leave it in the ground, or you don't, right, there's so many layers that go into that in some of these rural communities. And I'll use the Unity basin as an example, because I spent a lot of time out there in oil and gas country that they were Utah State has a great campus and a great energy facility out there in the Bingham Energy Lab. So those communities don't have other resources. And they're three hours from the Wasatch Front, you can't build a freeway to get in and out of there, they have a small airport, but they can't get a bigger port. They they don't have much in terms of economic development, other than the natural gas and oil that they have an abundance of. So you can't really tell that community to say we're just going to go away from from those resources and have you do something else, because they have a tremendous amount of it, that it belongs to somebody and has to be produced. And it's their economic viability. And so those things go into the policy decisions that the state works on every day.
Elizabeth Cantwell
And the communities that we're in, are really are really grateful for that. Theresa, what do you think about this urban rural?
Theresa Foxley
Well, I we think about it all the time, because we do have the good fortune of working in a lot of rural communities, some again, who have who are legacy energy producers. So they understand the important role that they play in society in our in our economy for fueling that industrial success that we've had some some that are new, and so for whom becoming an energy producing community is represents change, you know, what I would say is Jeff and I actually probably really agree on this. I also come at this from the lens of having done statewide economic development for nearly a decade and finding the energy projects are indeed some of the best economic development projects in rural communities for one huge capital investment, minimal draw on public services, and the population can support energy projects. They're there job creating, but they don't overwhelm communities with with too many jobs and if we define rural as being less population, so I think Jeff and I really probably agree, you know, very closely on that, that energy projects can be some of the best economic development projects because they add to public services, which are you know, almost very uniquely required in rural or remote communities without creating a strain on those public resources. We also you know, we have a centralized power system. So, for a very long time, the grid which is the oldest machine, you know, is 100 year old, most complicated machine in the world has relied upon, you know, again, having fuel sources create energy near the site of where the fuel sources and then the electrons being transmitted up into the into the urban population centers. And so we love working again in these in these rural communities because that's where the assets are for energy development as well. And so for us, you know, when we clamp on to that grid to generate new energies from a solar facility See that, you know, might also be using the same wires that a cold coal plants went on. That's awesome for us, it means we don't have to build new lines. For a whole bunch of reasons we think about it asked often, but maybe for the most important reason being how these are multigenerational projects, they're significant investments, how can we create win-win partnerships, value added partnerships with local communities. And we've done this through things like, you know, sponsoring livestock fairs, coming into the 4H groups and doing sponsorships there by buying uniforms for the basketball teams, to when we ultimately successfully complete a project, we have what we call a local first scholarship, perfect is designed where we and we actually have done this in partnership with with USU at USU Eastern, where these communities, they can export their kids, right, but they have these great educational institutions. And so we've come in and said, for those students who are from this community who want to pursue a certificate or a degree at the local institution, and who later want to stay in this community, we're going to help make that a little bit more financially feasible for you so that you can contribute to the economic vibrancy of your community. It's been awesome. We have wonderful partnerships throughout rural Utah because, I think, of that approach that is really a big part of the the ethos of this company and the leadership of this company.
Elizabeth Cantwell
And I will say that having been to every one of USU's remote sites from Logan, what we see is that young people growing up in those parts of Utah — and this is not what every state experiences — do want to stay there if they can, if they can make it work, they want to stay there, they like where they where they grew up, they like where they are, it is not a place to run away from.
Theresa Foxley
And they have so many wonderful outdoor recreation opportunities and always home, you know, no matter where you grow up.
Elizabeth Cantwell
And it's an amazing, amazingly beautiful state. So I have these, I have sort of a pointed question for each of you. But I also have a passion area that I would love to encourage each of you to include, if you wish. And so for Jeff at nuclear, that's an area I've been involved in and keenly interested in seeing what happens in Utah and Theresa for you, it's pumped hydro, which I'm also really interested in for a lot of other reasons. I have a geeky child, and she has a geeky mom. And we discovered pumped hydro probably 10 years ago in Washington State and have been really kind of joint She's an engineer also jointly thinking about, wow, this is really unique and incredible for the states that can do that. So but let's start with Jeff, you know, and weave nuclear into this as you can, but what do you see as some of the challenges for for Utah anyway? And we see some of them in transitioning away from our traditional energy sources. And I think you well identify trees that were whatever 40% coal 40% natural gas 20% renewables, I believe, is what you said to a different or a more complex mix or a mix that's, you know, 30/30/30, what are our opportunities? What should we be looking at?
Jeff Hartley
Well, so the opportunities are tremendous. And and I'm glad you asked that question, because one of the things that I hoped we'd get to talk about is the dynamic. I think it's rather unique to Utah element of how entrepreneurial this state is, we have so many different innovations in energy coming on. I tell people this a lot in the oil and gas fields, there are more patents filed every year than from Silicon Valley. And that's because when people are out in the field, and they need to create a new widget to be able to get to a different resource or get through a rock or whatever, then they innovate on the fly. And then they figure out what makes they may refine and make it better. And then they pad it and it becomes industry wide. But we're in Utah, we have people looking at all different types of energies and how you take a traditional source, whether you look at biofuels and and using like the tremendous amount of stage resin Juniper, we have new tougher biofuels and recycling wood products into fuels. And there's an end we have people looking like we talked about advanced nuclear that's research is being done at that defense, Senator Phil center, but we have, we have private sector entrepreneurs throughout the state, they're looking at different thermodynamics, and how you use different properties to do different things. We're very innovative here in Utah, and it's something that I'm very proud of. And a lot of people don't really hear about that because these companies get spun off and they get created and they're just out there functioning in the private sector. But we're very, and the state's very supportive of those things. And fortunately, our state leaders have been willing to put money into r&d through our universities and partnerships with like your school in the Aspire program, which has tremendous potential through transportation and energy and lots of other things. Right. I think as a state, we're committed to fostering the entrepreneurial spirit and seeing new technologies come online. And because we're all of the above we want to see these things grow in an appropriate way, but we're gonna get to the point of some of these where unless we're investing into things like a more robust grid, we're not we're gonna hit some roadblocks where we have to do things differently.
Elizabeth Cantwell
And I do think even advanced nuclear, which is much potentially simpler to regulate — and I say that very clearly, potentially — some require real long term thought and identification on the part of a state of what they want to place their bets on.
Jeff Hartley
Yeah, well, and the small modular nuclear, you mentioned those before, the Utah got really excited about those in our digital municipal power group, the cities have an organization of powers, users city owned, and that organization subscribed to an SMR company. And they're, they're looking for the right SMR fit for those small modular nuclear tests, so much potential where instead of dropping out an old Westinghouse ap 1000, with 3500 megawatts, or somewhere where it's so big, if you can take a 25 megawatt or a 50 megawatt unit, and daisy chain them together to the amount that you need in a specific area, you could, and this is my passion, you could drop this remotely into rural Utah where you're producing coal or producing oil and gas and electrify that process, taking the generation of carbon combustion out of the mix. And you could have a very clean process whereby you can extract the resources that we have in the state. And it's such a great, it's such a great hybrid process, and it does exist in and throughout the renewables as well. But the ability for these SMR to come online, and they're coming online, what we're going to get there soon, you know, you probably know better than I do how soon, but that is exciting for the state of Utah, because then our remote communities can have an abundant supply of power. And then anybody can move there because they have the infrastructure they need.
Elizabeth Cantwell
Now, the other thing is that you can then put data centers anywhere, they don't have to be in urban areas. And you can have the workforce for data centers, which isn't really very large.
Jeff Hartley
The tax base, which is really large, yes.
Elizabeth Cantwell
Bingo. So I will just say because this is part of the way that we think at USU, that what we don't have in the U.S. and we would love to create at Utah State University is is the first nuclear engineering accredited degrees that are based on using training on small modular reactors, rather than traditional training reactors, almost all of which, as you probably know, Jeff, are very traditional sort of 1950s reactor designs.
Theresa, the company that you're with, and I think a lot of the things that you've looked at economically for Utah over the years are, are focused on renewables, solar, wind, hydropower, pumped hydro, but but I really love the focus for rPlus on energy storage, because from my perspective, all those renewable approaches don't add up too much if we don't have really seriously robust storage.
Theresa Foxley
Yeah, we need energy and we need energy when we need it. And so that we're really bullish on energy storage. As I mentioned, we have a large energy storage project under construction right now. But something that makes our plus unique as an energy storage developer is our is our portfolio of pumped storage hydro projects. Pumped Storage hydro is the oldest, most trusted form of long duration energy storage in the world. The oldest pumped storage plants today have been operating for over 100 years. And they're really simple. It basically we tell people to think of pump storage as a giant water battery, where you have two reservoirs at different elevations, and water is pumped from the lower reservoir to the upper reservoir when energy is abundant or not needed or inexpensive and that may be in the old nuclear days when those Westinghouse's were operating at the same level no matter what they didn't like to ramp up and down you build a pump storage project in conjunction with one of those and then you can store that energy in the middle of the day again releasing it when it when it is needed from this upper reservoir to the lower reservoir through underground tunnels that an underground powerhouse spinning turbine is just like a gas generator just like a coal generator and releasing or generating electricity when it's needed on these are again generational assets there tend to be licensed by talking about federal licensing. I think pump storage might be up there as as difficult as as new as nuclear licensing to be licensed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission but they received 50 year licenses and many of the plants that are 50 years old now we're going back for for relicensing. They're very energy intense in that we have a project under development in Nevada as a for example 1000 megawatts so it gigawatt eight our energy storage that will be have a footprint of 250 acres. So an incredible incredible amount of energy storage providing though not just electrons but providing inertia, yes, slack start capability and all sorts of other ancillary grid enhancing services. Because they they do that they spin turbines, which which we think will need more and more of as, again, the energy mix is dynamic, changing, and growing.
Elizabeth Cantwell
So, if you were, and I'll ask you both this question, sort of, if you were to kind of project forward and look at things like pumped hydro as a component of a, let's increasingly complicated picture, energy picture, and complicated, but not, or let's call it complex, but not complicated, not something we don't choose, where are there, technologies that are being developed or, or types of partnerships or types of even regulatory structures that that we aren't quite using yet, but we think we might be seeing them, or we could see them in Utah, we could see them and imagine that Utah's energy future becomes more diverse. With some of these new options. Why don't you start. Theresa?
Theresa Foxley
Well, it's a great — there's so much innovation happening in the sector right now through technology, but then also through commercial structures. And so we as a, for example, again, are re-pioneering pumped storage hydro, with a new business case, not the not the business case of parent with nuclear, per se. I mean, they're the whatever color the electrons are, will pump the water uphill. But there are all sorts of new commercial offtake structures, because we are seeing this, again, this massive load growth that is unprecedented in this in this century. On so I think that's where you're going to see a lot of a lot of the innovation, you have virtual PPAs, you have markets, developing liquid markets, you know, are on the perennially been on the horizon in the western United States. And that may or may become more of a reality. So, I think there's the technology, which is exciting. And then there's existing deployed commercializable technologies that will will be used in under new commercial or contracted agreements. And we're excited about that.
Elizabeth Cantwell
It is exciting. Jeff, I know you have some comments on this.
Jeff Hartley
Yeah. And well, just piggybacking on what Theresa said, one of the things that I think the state needs to prepare for, and we were pretty good that we could do better. And there is the ability to show flexibility in our regulatory structures in terms of in terms of things like moving electrons. So in Utah, we have we have regulated utilities, they're given a state sanctioned monopoly, and they have a guarantee of service at Monopoly with power. And in some states, like Texas, they have distributed power where they have power companies everywhere servicing smaller units, there's a hybrid model somewhere in there, we're makes a lot of sense to be able to move power. And I think that's something that the state needs to look at, and how that future looks, because we're going to have a lot of these unique off site, power productions that may be dedicated to a single source or maybe dedicated something else, that we need to be able to move freely. So those so those are some policy changes that the state can look at that I think would be helpful. But one of the things that I'm most excited about in terms of innovation and changes is we're we're getting really good. This is global, and it's in the United States is very strong. And in Utah's very strong and a bit new materials or applying materials in a new ways. We're getting and using rare earth elements and other carbon fibers leading has been around for quite a while but new ways of using traditional resources that makes them lighter or faster or better or more efficient. They can they can contain heat better, there's the innovation is coming so fast, and industry adapts very quickly to that. And we need to make sure that while we have guard guardrails to protect public safety, so we need air quality, we need water quality we need to protect public safety, but giving giving the entrepreneurs and the innovators the the onramps to be able to move these ideas and projects along. And frankly, and I petition our state leaders a lot on this point, investing in R&d and partnering with our tier one research universities like yours to invest in R&D and find those find those those those roads to the future what that future technology looks like. It makes us more competitive, it makes us safer globally, it makes us air economies to stay stronger. And it allows companies like Theresa's to be more innovative and more thoughtful and in how they approach new sources of energy and how to how to get this to their users.
Elizabeth Cantwell
Hear, hear. We love the message about research because at least most of us in schools that are like land grant schools know that we you know, Senator Phil energy centers a really great idea of a place where the applied application is needed as defined by by corporations and the research that is done largely in conjunction with our universities across Utah. And materials. Actually, it's not just entertainment it really is almost every sector, even agriculture is heavily reliant on materials developments these days. But we're not changing the name to the center fill energy and agricultural center, I promise you, but I have high hopes for that for that center.
So for each of you, I think we'll just end up with, it's a little bit if you had a crystal ball, what do you see as our future? But what do you think people really need to be thinking about here in Utah? And how do we all work together to push ourselves as colleagues and partners in the right direction?
Theresa Foxley
First of all, this open mindedness to new technologies and new structures, as Jeff so eloquently said, with guardrails with an eye towards fostering innovation, ensuring that we have a diversified, reliable, and an abundance of energy is absolutely critical. I'm really excited to be in this sector and about what what the future holds. And I think that Utah given again, our legacy as a net energy exporter, the natural resources that we have here, the fabulous universities, that workforce development programs, the entrepreneurial, innovative spirit that defines Utah ethos and economy, we have a lot ahead of us if we can collaborate, coordinate and have an eye again, towards energy abundance as the goal
Elizabeth Cantwell
Which is a great word, abundance. And a lot of states don't experience that and really never have, but are now realizing that they're in trouble. How about you, Jeff?
Jeff Hartley
I would echo and agree with everything that Theresa said. And what one point I might add is, the state has state is always looking at how do we how do we properly educate our workforce, the next workforce, our children are coming up. And as a parent of two Aggies, the what we want for our children is we want we want to bring up a next generation of thinkers, right, and innovators. And we want to give them the skills we need. You talked been very focused on STEM, which is great. And that's important, because we want to bring up the next generation of innovators and thinkers that are going to create the next widget that's going to change the world. And there's lots of ways to change our world in different ways. And there's little subtle things, but we we if we give these kids that are coming up, the I guess the blank slate are the canvas by which they can come up with new ideas and test things and try things Utah will continue to lead in the future. That way, unfortunately, our state is focused on that we're really good at it. And it's a Utah is a great place to do business, as is Teresa knows, and, and has worked hard on it's at a state policy level, under previous jobs at Utah is a good place to do business, we're good to our corporate partners we did the state policies are strong and robust that way. And that's really important to maintain, because we want we want those companies to stay here once we create those technologies.
Elizabeth Cantwell
And we want them to stay here all over the state.
I'm going to open it up for either one of you, we have maybe five minutes left, or both. If you have any last thoughts for us minor, because I come out of the world, new energy technologies don't actually think that fusion is that far off anymore. And that's a game changer, Texas will be the first state to actually pilot a fusion plant. So that's mine. There's, there's more out there than we then you know, we know and this is an amazing landscape, as a university president with which to think about growing that next generation and, and launching them into an incredibly innovative place to live.
Jeff Hartley
I'll go next. And I'll let Tracy back clean up. One of the things that I think a lot about and this is something that's been talked about the United States for a long time, what do we do with the spent fuel rods that exist all over the all over the world, there's so much energy in those fuel rods, and there's some companies that are experimenting with that and but there's so much fear surrounding the old nuclear industry and the potential for tremendous damage, which is real, but we're so much better at safety now than then we ever were before. And you have these legacy energy resources that are sitting in caskets all over the country on brownfield sites that could be cleaned up and you can redevelop a whole design Illinois, for example, lots of areas where you could do great economic development, if you could get rid of the casket holding nuclear fleet fuel rods, and you could take that energy out of that fuel rod and repurpose it and reuse it for me. So I've worked on I've worked on public opinion, voter behavior, because I've been involved in campaigning all my professional life. How do you convince the public that we now have technologies that are safe and that we have safeguards in place to make sure that they're safe, and that we can move forward with some of these new innovations without fear of the past and what what we dealt with in the past? So for me, special rods and what do we do with those in the future? There's a tremendous energy source that the world has not yet tapped into that someday we will. And I hope that Utah's a part of that mix when it happens.
Elizabeth Cantwell
And hear, hear, you're actually expressing something I've expressed with some regularity, I will underscore that your focus on for us on a new materials and materials research and materials development is what makes our safety capabilities materially different than they were even 20 years ago, certainly than 30 years ago. How about you, Theresa?
Theresa Foxley
Utah has branded itself for a very long time as the crossroads of the West rightly so we're the sort of Bullseye when you look at the western United States for transportation, communication, cultural center, health care, etc. I see Utah, as you know, the energy development and energy storage crossroads of the West. And for me, that's really exciting that stories, you know, what color we paint that canvas with is sort of TBD as these innovations occur. But I really think, you know, that that could be an aspiration for the state as we think about how do we play a role that is not just focused on the six corners of the state, how many corners do we have? Eight corners of the state? But on the but as the role that we do play as a regional leader in the in the western United States?
Jeff Hartley
Can I just compliment Theresa on that point, because storage is critical. And you know, President Biden put out a, maybe it's a bomber, I'm too old now. But there's a billion dollar bounty put on battery energy storage, who can who ever come up with a battery that actually can store electrons for a large amount of electrons for a long time, and the ability to store electricity, or come up with a system to store electricity, maybe it's a battery, but maybe it's a system like, you know, the water storage, or the salt domes that we have in Washington, Utah, that changes the dynamic of all of our energy, because electrons are always moving. And how you harness that, and be able to store it and use it when you need it — that is key to the future. And that changes so much about our energy demand in the world. And I agree, Utah is at the crossroads of that.
Elizabeth Cantwell
Yeah, energy storage crossroads is pretty compelling, Theresa. So it's so good. It's an amazing vision, one that I think all want to be part of chasing. So thank you both for joining me.
Theresa Foxley
On the USU podcast.
Elizabeth Cantwell
Yeah, that's right. Well, yes, I will say I have to treat so that that also goes back to really materials capability and the ability to be to really be innovators at the intersection of certain kinds of needs, and new materials development. And the more that that this is my bias. But the more that we see invested in the state and the capacity to do applied research, not basic research, in materials for these, these kinds of visionary energy capabilities, crossroad type capabilities, we will be a stronger state for it, my mild pitch in there. But I've watched this since I was a baby engineer, and not a materials engineer, materials, applications kind of make an enormous amount of things actually become reality. I'm going to close this up here. And thank you for joining me, in this long awaited podcast. I've been trying to do this for almost a year, and just haven't been able to pull it off. So I both appreciate both what each of you are doing, as people what you do for the state of Utah, our ability to partner with you at Utah State University. So thank you for joining me. And maybe we'll do this again in two or three years and be actually talking about some of these. The reality is the new projects of some of these things that we've talked about today. Thanks, everyone. Thank you.
Future Casting with Utah State is a production of Utah Public Radio and Utah State University sponsored by the Office of the President. Thanks to Justin Warnick, the USU Marketing and Communications team and producer Hannah Castro.
