eUtah History
From Nuclear Waste to eUtah
As an organization that has worked for over a decade to protect public health from nuclear and toxic waste, HEAL Utah began the eUtah Renewable Energy Project to get to the root of the nuclear problems afflicting our state.
As an organization, HEAL has long raised concerns about both high-level and low-level nuclear waste. From the Private Fuel Storage battle, to watchdogging EnergySolutions’ various expansion attempts, to the effort to stop foreign nuclear waste and depleted uranium from being dumped in our state, HEAL has worked on behalf of the people of Utah to fight proposals that would increase both the amount and the radioactivity of waste coming to Utah.
However, it wasn't until 2007 that we adopted a formal position on nuclear power. The seminal moment came in the fall of that year when now former state legislator Aaron Tilton announced his plans to build Utah's first commercial nuclear reactor in Green River, Utah. When faced with the prospect of a reactor being built in our state—with all of all of the waste, health, environmental, and economic risks associated with it—we realized we must take a position on this radioactive method of, ultimately, the simple process of generating steam to spin a turbine, creating electricity.
In further examining nuclear power, we solidified our conviction that it has no place in the state of Utah, given its expensive price tag, huge water requirements, and how it would undermine the work Utah has done to keep high-level nuclear waste out of our state for the last two decades.
However, in advocating against nuclear power at the state level, policymakers rightly asked us: “If you don’t like nuclear power, and your environmentalist friends don’t want coal, how do you expect us to turn on the lights?”
This is arguably the most pressing question HEAL has faced since our inception.
Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free
At the same time as Aaron Tilton announced his plans to build Utah’s first commercial reactor, our colleague at the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), Dr. Arjun Makhijani, had just published his book Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy, which sought to answer this very question for the country as a whole.
As an electrical engineer with a specialty in nuclear fusion, Dr. Makhijani was skeptical of a wholly renewable energy system. After, being challenged by his mentor and former boss, Dave Freeman, the former head of the Tennessee Valley Authority, Dr. Makhijani took up the question of whether the U.S. as a whole could transition away from fossil fuels without resorting to nuclear power, while also maintaining our standard of living. To his surprise, he discovered that a carbon-free, nuclear-free energy system is not only possible, it is practical, given the the risks associated with investing in carbon-based fuels in the coming decades.
As HEAL Utah grappled with the question of how to point our state toward an energy future free from poisonous fuels like coal and nuclear, the next logical step for Dr. Makhijani’s work was born: adapt this analysis specifically for Utah. Because the United States has no national electricity grid, such a state-level analysis would offer a practical roadmap for putting the rubber to the road and assessing the true realities of a renewably-powered electricity grid. This would not only benefit Utah, it could potentially serve as a model for other states and regions in the country to follow.
The Model
We envisioned the involvement of three different groups--each contributing their expertise and talents-- to help the eUtah Project be successful. We called these the Brains, the Advisors, and the Advocates.
The Brains consist of our research team: Dr. Makhijani, the lead eUtah researcher, and our contributing experts--Drs. Bernell K. Stone and Donald Adolphson, both at the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University, as well as the Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Utah State, Dr. Byard Wood. These "brains" contributed their expertise to analyzing the intricacies of how a renewably-powered grid would look from both a technical and an economic perspective.
The Advisors consist of a wide range of stakeholders whose day-to-day experience makes them experts in different aspects of energy policy. The goal of involving this Advisory Board was to ensure our study did not remain an ivory tower exercise, but had real feedback and received real-world critiques from those involved in the nuts and bolts of energy policy.
Finally, the Advocates consist of HEAL Utah and a diverse group of other non-profits who helped us formulate the outline of how this project would unfold.
From the outset, we realized that in order to be successful, the eUtah Project would not only have to take a hard look at the technical and economic potential for renewable energy to power our grid, it would also require strategic grassroots advocacy to create such a future. Ultimately, it is only by creating a groundswell of support for renewables that we hope to significantly change our energy system.
That's where HEAL Utah fits in. The coal and fossil fuel industries will continue business as usual, with its accompanying pollutants, until we collectively force a paradigm shift in the way we generate and use energy. By organizing, activating, and teaching people how to participate in the democratic process, HEAL Utah is working to ensure that the public, plays a decisive role in determining Utah’s energy policy. By uniting our expertise in this area with the hard-hitting analysis from the eUtah Study, which describes how a renewable energy future is not only possible, but practical, we believe we can put Utah on the path to a more sustainable, more affordable, and healthier future for our children and grandchildren.
