Now, a new report by the Brookings Institution is suggesting the nation might want to go west once again by turning its attention to Utah and nearby states for the technology and research needed to produce the clean, abundant and inexpensive energy of the future.
“Utah and the other Intermountain states possess much of what the nation needs if it is to transform its energy systems,” said Mark Muro, who helped write “Centers of Innovation: Leveraging the Mountain West Innovation Complex for Energy System Transformation.”
Muro and co-author Sarah Rahman noted, for example, that the University of Utah leads the nation in Department of Energy geothermal funding to universities and that research there ranges from cleaner fossil fuel combustion and gasification to carbon sequestration.
They envision the new network will be composed of the region’s research universities and national laboratories with participation from industry, entrepreneurs and investors as well as state and local governments.
Robert Simmons, a business development analyst at the Utah Science Technology and Research (USTAR) initiative, said work statewide in the development of clean energy technology is “pretty strongly undervalued.” The Salt Lake Tribune
Note: The full report can be found at: http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2010/0901_energy_muro_rahman.aspx
