One of the Mountain West’s British Consul Generals went on her first visit to Idaho, Montana and Wyoming in late March.
Eleanor Kiloh, who describes herself as a “mini ambassador” for the northwest U.S. and is based in San Francisco, said talks with states revolved about energy partnerships and technology.
In Wyoming, a lot of those talks revolved around coal.
“Wyoming and the U.K. have a similar history in terms of our deep reliance on coal and then our desire to transition into a more sustainable energy mix looking forward,” Kiloh said.
Kiloh said the U.K. wants to partner with states that have renewable energy resources along with future nuclear reactors. She said partnerships are already happening around exchanging university students and beef sales.
With the rise of AI data centers, Kiloh is also sharing solutions from her country, like designating specific “AI growth zones” to rapidly deploy centers.
“Those are prioritized for energy supply and … speeding up regulatory approvals for data centers,” she said.
Kiloh said clustering data center development in certain zones can bring down energy costs and make supply more reliable in those places.
As in the U.S., Britons are still concerned about data centers using up valuable resources and hurting the environment.
Check out the full interview with Kiloh below,
Editor’s Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Hanna Merzbach: Tell me about the ties between the U.K. and Wyoming and other Mountain West states.
Eleanor Kiloh: A lot of our conversations have been about energy because I think Wyoming and the U.K. have a similar history in terms of our deep sort of reliance on coal and then our desire to transition into a more sustainable energy mix looking forward.
So, we're having conversations about that, but also about academic links. There's a really strong relationship between Cardiff University in Wales and the University of Wyoming. We're really keen to share more information about scholarships for students from Wyoming to maybe come and study in the U.K. I want people to know more about a new agreement that we've got for farmers in Wyoming to be able to export beef to the U.K.
So, it is a whole sort of range of different subject matters.
HM: Why does the U.K. care about maintaining this relationship with Wyoming and Mountain West states?
EK: If you take Wyoming for example, Wyoming is unique. There's nowhere like Wyoming. It has huge natural resources, and I don't just mean coal. The potential for renewable energy in the state is massive. The nuclear reactor that is being developed by TerraPower is, I think, the most sophisticated in the United States. The University of Wyoming is a top research university.
You literally have a lot of space here. You've got amazing views. Obviously, Yellowstone is a great draw for visitors, but then you have these centers of research and advances in energy, whether that's nuclear or whether it's renewable. So, everywhere is different and nowhere is the same as Wyoming. We want to engage with Wyoming on its own terms and just see what we can do together.
HM: As you've said, a lot of those conversations are around energy. I know last time we had your predecessor in Wyoming, we talked about how the U.K. has been phasing out coal and incentivizing renewable energy. The U.K. was among the first countries to really quit coal. Like in Wyoming, coal was really embedded in your country's history. How's this transition going?
EK: There's bumps in the road and it is challenging, but I think it's going really well. The Industrial Revolution started in the U.K. We were very, very dependent on coal, and it's relatively recent that we have moved away from that. It's been a long journey, and it's not just a decision about closing coal mines. It's a decision about what we want the country to be like in 10, 20, 50, a hundred years. And what do we need to do to make that happen? It's about the communities that are responsible for producing that power, however they do that.
That requires planning over a relatively long period of time. So you need to think about it beforehand, not just switch off coal and then think, ‘Oh, well, what are people going to do?’ So it requires a very joined up approach across government, and I think that's more manageable at the state level than maybe at the national level. That is another argument for why we engage at the state level.
HM: You said there have been some bumps in the road along the way, transitioning off of coal. Will you tell me what that has looked like?
EK: So my mother grew up in a coal mining community in Nottinghamshire, and I think part of the resistance to closing coal mines has been on the part of those communities.
They're worried about jobs. So you have generation after generation who have been working in the mines, and they know that's what they're going to do, and they're the skills that they've been focusing on. And then when they're faced with the prospect of those jobs not existing anymore, that's obviously really concerning, both in a practical sense and also like, ‘Well, who are we? If we are not a coal mining community, then what are we?’
So, I think [it’s important to engage] with communities early, having those conversations, and also having the practical approach to alternative jobs and just looking at the skillset that you need for those jobs. So, to work in a nuclear power station, you may need different skills than being a coal miner. It does require real sort of engagement with the individuals, which is really time consuming. It is just a trial and error process, but that's something that maybe Wyoming could learn from us. But everyone has to take their own approach.
HM: I want to transition to another hot topic: data centers. I know the U.K. hosts a lot of data centers, and I imagine more want to come in. We're seeing a lot of that same development specifically in the Mountain West because we have so much land and energy resources. I'm wondering how is the U.K. trying to get ahead of some of those environmental impacts and impacts on energy bills?
EK: We want to make sure that hosting data centers is a net positive in terms of energy costs, energy supply, jobs and communities. We have designed some AI growth zones in the U.K. and those are prioritized for energy supply, and they're prioritized in terms of speeding up regulatory approvals for data centers. We found that has worked really well. There's been a lot of interest from companies wanting to put their data centers in, and we've had to prioritize and decide which ones we want to take, which is good because then we can hold them to high standards.
But we've also found that when we were setting up those growth zones, communities were really, really keen to host them, because the sort of catalytic effect of having a hub actually brings the energy costs down and makes the supply more reliable. So all over the UK, local authorities were competing to be able to host the first AI growth zones. So, I think it's been successful because different bits of government, local and national, all work together and have been communicating about how to make the growth zones work.
HM: I've been covering how there is a lack of national regulations in the U.S. recently. Sen. Bernie Sanders [I-Vermont] and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [D-New York] have been calling for a national moratorium on data center development to create regulations around AI and environmental impacts. I've been hearing from some folks on the state level who are saying, ‘No, we don't want any national regulations.’ What level of government do you think these regulations should be coming from?
EK: We're all in this together and learning as we go. Rather than designing a completely new regulatory framework for AI and data centers, we're regulating as we go, and we are using existing regulatory bodies. So whether that's national or local, the bodies that were already responsible for regulating have just added on responsibilities for the elements of technology that fit best in their portfolio.
We found that has worked quite well. There's a risk there if you are trying to predict what you're going to need to regulate for. So, we would rather respond in real time to the challenges that we are encountering. But, I mean, it is pretty tough because you have to move quickly, and the government doesn't always move quickly.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio, KJZZ in Arizona and NPR, with additional support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
