Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico have formed a new partnership aimed at accelerating geothermal energy development across the Mountain West, with backers saying the region could unlock hundreds of gigawatts of reliable underground power if investment ramps up quickly enough.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, announced the Mountain West Geothermal Consortium following a Western Governor’s Association workshop focused on energy abundance and emerging geothermal technologies.
Cox pointed to the rare bipartisan appeal of geothermal as a selling point. “Geothermal projects have the bipartisan support of an energy source that we haven’t had in a long time,” he said at the announcement news conference.
What the Consortium Will Do
According to a fact sheet from the organization, the consortium will coordinate resources and policy insights among participating state officials to speed up geothermal projects. A key goal is developing finance tools and clearer regulatory frameworks designed to reduce investment risk while protecting ratepayers.
Cox said moving these projects forward at scale requires significant capital, and that capital follows certainty. Permitting reform, he argued, is part of creating that certainty.
Polis, joining the announcement remotely, said the partnership allows states to pool their expertise. “By working together, we can really take a closer look and leap forward on capitalizing on geothermal,” he said, pointing to market, technology and policy barriers the states hope to address collectively.
One concrete example Cox cited is Fervo’s enhanced geothermal system in Beaver County, Utah, which is on track to produce roughly 100 megawatts of operating capacity by early 2027. He also referenced Utah Forge, a U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored laboratory studying and advancing geothermal drilling technologies, as a model that could be replicated elsewhere in the region.
Workforce development is another piece of the plan. Officials envision universities and colleges across the four states partnering to train workers for the growing geothermal sector. And by aligning their federal delegations, the consortium states hope to carry more weight in Washington when pressing for geothermal support.
A Proposed Answer to the Data Center Question
Cox also framed the consortium’s work as directly relevant to one of Utah’s most contentious current debates: a massive proposed data center backed by television personality and investor Kevin O’Leary that would sit on roughly 40,000 acres of unincorporated Box Elder County land. The project, called Stratos, has been tightly linked to the Ruby natural gas pipeline, which would feed a 9 gigawatt power plant for the facility.
The proposal has drawn strong public criticism. Cox has since walked back some elements of the original energy plan, promising to incorporate renewable sources into the project’s power mix.
On the day of the consortium announcement, Cox added another clarification: only about 1 gigawatt of natural gas generation would be used in the first phase. He was direct that the full 9 gigawatt natural gas scenario is not realistic. “There’s nobody out there, including me, who would support 9 gigawatts of natural gas power,” he said. “It’s just not going to happen.”
Cox called the geothermal push the answer to concerns surrounding projects like Stratos, saying affordable, reliable, and clean power sources are exactly what large energy consumers need, and what the consortium aims to deliver.
Why This Matters Beyond Utah
While North Idaho is not part of the four-state consortium, the broader push for energy independence and reliable baseload power touches on priorities shared across the West. Geothermal, unlike solar or wind, produces power around the clock regardless of weather conditions, making it attractive to states and regions looking to meet growing electricity demand without depending entirely on fossil fuels or vulnerable grid infrastructure.
The formation of the Mountain West Geothermal Consortium reflects a broader national push under the Trump administration’s energy agenda to expand domestic power production and reduce regulatory friction for energy development. Whether geothermal can scale fast enough to meet the region’s surging demand, particularly from data centers and industrial users, remains a central question the consortium will have to answer.
North Idaho Republican Staff
