STAYING POWER: How coal will evolve in the energy landscape.

• Author: Goodsell, Brittny
• Position: FOCUS

The long-term outlook for coal in Utah all boils down to this: coal will look different in Utah's future--but it's not going away. It just might get a face lift.

Yes, we know Utah's largest coal-fueled power plant-- Intermountain Power Plant--announced it would stop coal operations by 2025. And yes, cheaper alternatives such as natural gas drive today's demand. Plus, coal requires constant environmental upkeep. So you might think that coal is on the way out. But some Utah experts want you to dig deeper.

Dr. Laura Nelson, director of the Governor's Office of Energy Development, says we'll still use coal in the future because using a diverse group of energy resources is the key to affordability and sustainability. Why get rid of a resource that still has potential if we can use technology improvements to make it cleaner?

"We're not here to pick winners and losers when it comes to our resources," says Nelson, the governor's energy adviser. "We're still going to use coal. But how we use it might look different."

Utah gets about 76 percent of its electricity from coal-powered plants, Nelson says. On a 2017 online factsheet, Rocky Mountain Power (through PacifiCorp) listed coal, natural gas and wind as the three largest energy production contributors to Utah's energy mix. Coal is number one--by a long shot. Back in the '70s and '80s, coal took up even more of the energy mix at 90 percent.

Dave Eskelsen, spokesperson for Rocky Mountain Power, says coal will probably decline to about one-third--or 35 percent of the energy mix--during the next decade or so.

One of the main reasons coal is on the decline is cost: other resources offer a cheaper price to Utah utility customers. Generally speaking, prices drive the market and Rocky Mountain Power seeks out the inexpensive, stable resources for its customers.

"Price and reliability," Eskelsen says. "We're held to a high standard, and that's been interpreted to be 'what's the lowest cost you can provide electricity and maintain high reliability.' That's what our planning cares about."

Nelson says natural gas is inexpensive, so the demand is up.

"That's had the biggest impact on coal use, bigger than policy or renewables," Nelson says. "Those may have also worked to displace coal but the critical underpinning--and this can't be understated-- is our electric system is complex and different resources support the reliability of that system. It's never as simple as just replacing one resource with another."

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