SALT LAKE CITY — Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson said she sees promise in Utah's push to add nuclear power to the state's energy portfolio.
She recently returned from a state-sponsored visit to the United Kingdom to look at that nation's nuclear power plans.
"They’re really pushing hard on small modular reactors or SMRs, and trying to re-establish nuclear power as a primary energy source," she told FOX 13 News in an interview.
As part of a delegation that included other state officials and members of the legislature, Lt. Gov. Henderson said she came home believing that Utah must be "very intentional" about how it rolls out the energy source. But she also insisted it is not the nuclear power plants of the past.
"When you think of nuclear energy, nuclear power, you think of sometimes, kind of Homer Simpson and the big power plants. That’s not what we’re talking about," she said. "We’re not talking about those big gigawatt facilities that take a lot of water. That’s probably not something that’s practical for a desert state. But the newer technologies, the small modular reactors, the micro-reactors can use different technologies for cooling other than water. That’s what we’re looking to bring into the state."
Lt. Gov. Henderson said Utah needs to start work now to have nuclear power in the state, but also work on building up an energy supply chain. While in the UK, she said, they found during a visit that one of the nuclear facilities was buying equipment manufactured by a company in Ogden.
Utah has gotten increasingly aggressive about nuclear power as an energy source under Governor Spencer Cox's "Operation Gigawatt." It's designed to bolster the state's energy supply through a mix of energy sources. Gov. Cox has repeatedly said that Utah's energy demands will increase with data centers and artificial intelligence systems growing in and around the state.
Critics have pushed back, arguing that what has been proposed hasn't been proven and can be very expensive.
"We need to not gloss over community concerns and say, 'Well, you don’t understand the new technology. You’re looking backwards,'" said Lexi Tuddenham, the executive director of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, said in a recent interview with FOX 13 News. "People are looking forwards. They’re very concerned about climate and they’re very concerned about their communities and they’re very concerned about the economy."
Lt. Gov. Henderson said she agreed that they need to ensure that nuclear power is safe and communities are protected. She said the state must also do more to educate Utahns on what it actually looks like.
"It’s really exciting," she told FOX 13 News, adding: "It’s not ready yet. It’s absolutely, with small modular reactors? We’re probably 10 years out. But we have to start now really working on site prep. Regulatory reform, permitting, all of that needs to start happening now."
