Utah, Intermountain West seen as leaders in U.S. energy future

WASHINGTON — The country's green energy future lies in the arid lands of the West, not only under the ground, but also in the network of research and innovation going on above it.

"It's just a matter of formally connecting all the remarkable scientific research and innovation infrastructure already there," Mark Muro, a senior researcher with the Brookings Institution, said Tuesday in highlighting a study being released today by the think tank, based in Washington, D.C.

"Utah and the Intermountain West are clearly in the position of reinventing America's fossil-fuel-dependent energy system," Muro said.

The study is, in part, a promotion of "energy innovation hubs" created under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy and agricultural experiment stations like the one at Utah State University.

"They played an invaluable role in the growth of the West and will be vital to establishing this new strategy that, if done correctly, will foster four to six new high-powered energy innovation commercialization centers to grow this new economy," Muro said.

The regional economy already has the expertise in spinning off new companies and creating jobs by seeding research advances in the marketplace, Muro said, noting that the University of Utah is tied with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the highest number of research-related firms nationwide.

Another viable asset, he said, is the Utah Science Technology And Research initiative, the Legislature's multi-program, two-university business- and job-building effort that formally links research at the U. and at Utah State University with commercialization options and industry needs.

USU is already a hub for sustainable energy research in biofuels in particular maximizing biomass production of oil-rich algae for use in alternative fuels, as well as investigating electric lighting consumption with the goal of reducing the 35 percent of all U.S. electrical power that is consumed by industries.

Just as important to the success of this proposal is something less tangible — Utah's innate characteristic of collaboration, Muro said, noting that the pioneering spirit is alive and well and connected to the area's initial monumental test of survival in the mid-1800s, irrigating a desert.