Utah governor’s budget supports nuclear power over solar to double energy production

Utah Governor Spencer Cox announced a $20 million proposal to boost the state's reliance on nuclear power in tandem with $4.2 million to spur geothermal.

The Republican governor announced the energy funding Dec. 5 as part of his fiscal-year 2026 budget proposal. The funds would kickstart his previously announced energy plan, dubbed "Operation Gigawatt," which aims to double energy production over the next decade by supporting existing resources and transitioning to new ones.

The plan would need to be approved by the state legislature.

The nuclear spending would primarily be used to prepare sites for nuclear reactor deployments, which could attract advanced and small modular reactor projects to the state. These reactors are undergoing the licensing approval process at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and are anticipated to be the next wave of nuclear power builds.

Operation Gigawatt, launched in October, looks to support current energy resources while building out a nuclear industry and bolstering geothermal to replace older resources.

Although Utah has no nuclear power generation, it possesses the nation's only operating mill for processing uranium ore. Uranium mining also recently resumed at two sites in the eastern part of the state after very little activity for more than a decade, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Utility-scale geothermal plants provided 8% of Utah's renewable electricity production in 2023, while solar production climbed to 11% of its generation mix. Coal and natural gas, however, still dominate electricity production.

Cox said the funding would help the state enhance reliability and that nuclear and geothermal were more realistic options than building out wind and solar. "If you're an environmentalist and you're not pro-nuclear, I can't take you seriously," the governor remarked at a news conference.

The Operation Gigawatt proposal runs counter to plans floated by the US Bureau of Land Management to expand solar power deployments across 31 million acres of public lands in the West.

Opposition to solar use of federal land

Cox's neighbor to the West, Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo, also a Republican, intends to push back on the BLM plan, according to a Dec. 5 report from the climate news website Heatmap Plus.

Lombardo is reportedly preparing to raise concerns with BLM over potential adverse impacts to communities and other industries, as well as land needed to protect threatened wildlife species.

County commissioners in Humboldt County, Nevada, told BLM in comments that numerous interests have raised concerns that accelerated renewable energy deployment could harm vast tracts of land and be detrimental to rural Nevadans. They say conservation and environmental groups, joined by state and local governments, have recommended that BLM's desire to expand solar be tempered by regulatory restrictions.

Lombardo is likely to get a boost from President-elect Donald Trump's actions after he takes office on Jan. 20, 2025.

The Trump energy platform seeks to cut regulation while supporting more oil and gas development on public lands, which could provide room to pare back the BLM solar program in favor of fossil fuels. Lombardo's party also has a veto-proof supermajority in the Nevada legislature.