L ega L N otices

PUBLIC NOTICE INVITATION TO BID ESCALANTE CITY, UTAH

The City of Escalante, Utah is seeking proposals from qualified, Utah-licensed contractors to crack seal the streets in Escalante City. This project includes 12 tons of Crafco 34211 crack seal material or an equivalent brand applied in a two-inch (2”) band on the Escalante City Streets.

Additional information regarding this project may be obtained from Escalante City at the address given below.

Escalante City

56 North 100 West PO Box 189 Escalante, Utah 84726

435-826-4644

Bids for this project will be received at the offices of Escalante City, noted above, until 4:00 PM Mountain Standard Time on March 6, 2023. Bids may also be submitted via email to ssteed@escalantecity.com.

Bids received after the required time will not be accepted. Bids will be opened privately and tabulated. Escalante City reserves the right to reject any and all bids and to waive irregularities or informalities in any bid.

Posted on the State of Utah’s Public Meeting Notice Website—www.utah.gov/pmn on February 9, 2023.

Published in The Wayne and Garfield County Insider on FEBRUARY 9, 16 & 23, 2023

NOTICE OF SURPLUS SALE

GARFIELD COUNTY

GARFIELD COUNTY IS ACCEPTING SEALED BIDS ON THE FOLLOWING ITEMS: move away from oil, gas and coal to new technologies.

2021Chevrolet Silverado,Diesel,Crew Cab, 4WD Automatic, Short Bed, White 2021Chevrolet Silverado, Diesel, Crew Cab, 4WD Automatic, ShortBed, White 2021Dodge Ram 2500, Diesel, Crew Cab, 4WD Automatic, Long Bed, Red 2021Dodge Ram 2500, Diesel, Crew Cab, 4WD Automatic, Long Bed, White BIDS WILL BE ACCEPTED IN THE COUNTY CLERK’S OFFICE UNTIL 5:00 P.M., MARCH 10TH, 2023. BIDS WILL BE OPENED MONDAY, MARCH 13TH, 2023 IN THE COMMISSION CHAMBERS OF THE GARFIELD COUNTY COURTHOUSE DURING THE REGULARLY SCHEDULED COMMISSION MEETING, 55 SOUTH MAIN STREET, PANGUITCH, UTAH. THE SUCCESSFUL BIDDER WILL HAVE 48 HOURS TO COMPLETE THE TRANSACTION.

All vehicles will be sold in “as is” condition, and all sales will be final. Purchases can be made with cash or certified check. Garfield County reserves the right to accept or reject any and all offers. For additional information contact the Clerk’s Office at (435) 676-1100 or www. garfield.utah.gov.

Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune John Palo, facilities district manager at the University of Utah (left) gives a tour of Gardner Commons geothermal energy production on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm (center right) was joined by Joe Moore, principal investigator of the Utah Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson as they toured the only building on campus that uses the earth exclusively for heating and cooling through geothermal energy.

In his State of the Union address, Biden talked up his energy agenda, but he acknowledged that, “We’re going to need oil and gas for at least another decade, and beyond that.”

“This is a transition. It’s not an on and off switch,” Granholm said at a news conference at the University of Utah. “We need to make sure people have power.”

To those who say the administration is giving up on oil and gas before cleaner alternatives are in place, Granholm noted that the nation has produced record amounts of oil and gas in the last year. Oil production is at 12.2 million barrels a day, higher than it’s ever been.

Beyond addressing climate change, Granholm sees the energy transition as an opportunity to escape the financial and political vulnerability of relying on commodities like oil and gas, whose price is affected by the decisions of foreign players like Russia and Saudi Arabia. “The win part of this is that we can be energy independent and not have to rely on countries whose values we don’t share.”

Granholm chose Utah for this visit to promote the administration’s investments in geothermal energy. Utah FORGE, the DOE’s largest and most advanced laboratory for what is called “enhanced” geothermal energy, is located just outside of Milford.

Joseph Moore, managing principal investigator of Utah FORGE, accompanied her on her visit.

Geothermal energy has been used for more than a century, but it has been limited to a few places where reservoirs like hot springs can be tapped. Enhanced geothermal is about drilling more than a mile deep into hot rock to bring the heat to the surface.

At the Utah FORGE site near Milford, University of Utah scientists have drilled one deep well and used fracking techniques from the oil and gas industry to create cracks in the hot rock. Later this year they will repeat the process with a second adjacent well. The plan is to create enough cracks that water can move from one well to the other. Then cold water can be pumped down one well while hot water—hot enough to drive a power plant—can be pulled from the second well.

Granholm announced that DOE is committing another $74 million to enhanced geothermal. This is on top of the $220 million that DOE had previously committed to Utah FORGE. For the next $74 million, DOE hopes to identify other sites for potential geothermal projects. She said that could include another Utah site, but Utah FORGE or any other group will have to compete with other researchers in a peer-reviewed process.

The DOE thinks the nation could get up to 90 gigawatts of continuous electricity from geothermal energy, which would be about 8% of the nation’s current electrical capacity. The fact that it is continuous means it can be clean “baseload” power to keep the electrical grid powered when intermittent renewables like solar and wind aren’t producing.

Granholm also toured the geothermal plant inside the U.’s Gardner Commons building. Completed in 2018, Gardner Commons is energy independent. To do that, the university drilled 150 wells down to 350 feet under a soccer stadium near the building Unlike enhanced geothermal, which drills down to much lower, hotter depths, the water pumped through the U. wells isn’t hot enough to generate electricity from a power plant. But it can be used to heat the building in winter and cool it in summer.

U. Facilities Manager John Palo told Granholm the U. has capacity to add more buildings using the same system.

This article was originally published by The Salt Lake Tribune on February 8, 2023.

This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aim to inform readers across the state.