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- The Logan City Council is considering two major natural gas projects to address growing power needs.
- The projects face scrutiny over long-term fossil fuel reliance and a lack of input from the renewable energy board.
- The council approved a study for the Millard plant, delaying the Idaho project vote to January, with further discussions planned.
LOGAN — Two large natural gas power projects are forcing Logan City Council members to contend with the region's growing power needs in the face of a constantly changing and volatile energy market.
On Dec. 3, the council weighed two separate contracts "with no off-ramps" that would lock the city into the participation in a 200-megawatt natural gas plant project in Millard County, and a 360-megawatt plant in Power County, Idaho, if they are found to be viable.
These deals "came about fairly quickly," Mark Montgomery, director of Logan's Light and Power, said at the council meeting in December. The city is projected to "be resource short in coming years," Montgomery said, with his department estimating a conservative 1.5% growth in power demand over the next 20 years.
The initial rough estimates put the Idaho plant, capable of powering 60,000 to 72,000 homes, at an estimated $630 million, split between participating members of the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems agency. In Millard, the plant has an initial price tag of $520 million, both projects paid over 20 years, with the cost rolled into power rates once the systems are built.
The Idaho plant would serve to provide blocks of baseline power to Logan and other partners, allowing the city to minimize reliance on an unpredictable power market. The Millard plant, consisting of 10 to 12 combustion units, would be able to ramp up and down to provide energy at peak times, when energy prices are at a premium elsewhere.
Montgomery said he did not want to pressure the council into making a snap decision, but there was urgency in the contracts. The longer the council waited, the more likely UAMPS would be to move on without Logan by downsizing the projects, increasing other participants' shares, scrapping or delaying the plans.
Council members writhed in their seats, with uncertainty at every turn. "There's a lot of unknowns," said Councilman Mike Johnson. "I have concerns that this is the smartest, best, safest, use of our financial investments."
Financial director Richard Anderson said there are two risks he sees, as the city has wrestled with concerns of rolling brownouts in the past years — "We invest, and it goes poorly, or we don't invest and there's nothing to buy."
"Those are the two things we're staring at, so you're really stuck between a rock and another big 'ol rock," Anderson said.
Patrick Belmont, the vice chair of Logan's Renewable Energy and Sustainability Advisory Board (RESAB), was one of just two public comments in the almost empty chambers, despite the magnitude of the decision.
"I wish that this had been brought to RESAB," Belmont said. The council's decision "is vitally important, and the fact that this is being brought to you without having the other experts in the renewable energy board having looked at it is concerning to me. This should have been looked at much harder."
The big picture for Belmont and others — "There are very, very concerning things happening in our climate right now, and it's all driven by fossil fuel emissions. We've got to get the turned off as quickly as we can," he said.
"That doesn't mean turned off tomorrow, but it does mean not setting us up for 20 to 40 years more of burning fossil fuels here," Belmont said. According to Montgomery, natural gas is "half as dirty as coal."
More practically, Belmont, who is a hydrologist and geomorphologist at Utah State University, says of the council's decision, "We are locking ourselves into a potentially very problematic market moving forward ... There's a lot more flexibility on the open market as new innovations come forward."
The council attempted to find a middle ground. Councilman Ernest Lopez predicted RESAB would give the projects a thumbs down, but felt in this case "having power is more important than where it comes from."
"Which risk are we going to mitigate the most? That's what it comes down to," said Councilman Mark Anderson, who believed the projected power consumption was going to grow much faster than predicted due to the demands of electric vehicles and other technology.
"My thought is, (Belmont's) opinion is not going to change if they look at it in further detail," he said.
Despite not having input from the advisory board, the council felt comfortable unanimously approving the Millard plant contract, which committed the city to a study to determine if transmission from the proposed plant to customers is even possible. If the feasibility study is approved, Logan will be locked into the project, with "no off-ramps," according to Montgomery.
Council members Johnson and Lopez were the only ones to vote to deny the Idaho project. Anderson proposed approving it, but the motion died for lack of a second, pushing the contract vote to the council's Jan. 7 meeting.
Belmont and RESAB are planning to hold an informational meeting for local leaders before the council meeting.
He told KSL.com the board will meet Friday to finalize its recommendations to the council. The group has "some very viable alternatives," and is "developing some guiding principles for making long-term energy plans moving forward" according to Belmont, despite the short working window.
