Energy crisis could unplug growth

"Ninety-five percent of our electric generation comes from coal-fired generation. What's going to be the fuel of the future?" Barber asks. "What's going to fuel those power plants? Are we going to rely on Wyoming and locate facilities in Wyoming? These are all issues that need to be debated."

Reed Searle, general manager of the Intermountain Power Agency, also expresses fears over falling Utah coal production.

The Intermountain Power Project in Millard County, the state's largest coal-fired power plant, last year was forced to use stockpile coal reserves to run the plant.

"Thank God we had the surplus," Searle said, "or we couldn't have run the plant. The coal situation in Utah right now is very, very difficult."

In the past, IPP obtained all of its coal from Utah mines. Now, for the first time, the plant must import substantial amounts of coal from surrounding states.

"Prices have gone up, and long term there's just a very limited number of mines in Utah that might still be opened," Searle said. "We believe that the amount of production in Utah will continue to decline each year. We don't see it growing."

Searle said Utah coal reserves could last between 20 and 30 years.

Former Lt. Gov. Gayle McKeachnie, who now serves under Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. as rural affairs coordinator, said higher energy prices and scarcer resources are two reasons why Huntsman soon will name an energy adviser to report directly to the governor.

"Our energy policy in the past has been sort of apple pie and motherhood — we're for everything that's good and against everything that's bad," McKeachnie said. "And we need more than just platitudes. We need something that has goals to accomplish the mission, because all the numbers that I see show the supply of natural gas not keeping up with demand. So energy is probably going to be more expensive."

If Utah moves away from coal-fired generation to natural gas-fired power plants, consumers can expect higher electricity prices.

Andrew Weissman, founder and chairman of Energy Ventures Group LLC, based in Washington, D.C., said the nation faces a natural gas shortage that will present the biggest challenge for energy providers and the U.S. economy during most of the next decade.

"I think we are heading toward an enormous problem," Weissman said. "More often than not in the next decade we will have severe shortages."

And despite mild weather throughout much of the nation in the last 12 months that reduced demand for natural gas, Weissman said prices are still "going through the roof."