DUKE CALLS FOR CARBON CUTTING

While Southern Company has earned a national reputation as the utility blocking New Energy by opposing the national Renewable Energy Standard (RES), Jim Rogers of Duke Energy has been a straight talker and an open thinker. Duke just got licensed to build a $2 billion, 630-megawatt gasification plant to capture the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated from burning coal. Gasification and capture is not a panacea but Rogers is paying as well as preaching.

Duke also has one of the most interesting and innovative efficiency improvement proposals around: They want to pay for and do all the efficiency improvements in a customer’s home and then get the cost back by keeping the bill the same though the newly efficient customer would require less energy.

Duke CEO calls for lower carbon use
November 30, 2007 (Asheville Citizen-Times)

WHO
James Rogers, CEO, Duke Energy Corp.

WHAT
Rogers, CEO of one of the US’ biggest coal-burning, emissions-generating utilities said emissions reduction a national priority, called for a national, government-mandated cap-and-trade system and approved of the development of new technologies and New Energy.

Rogers is right. The US needs to make emissions-reduction a national priority. (click to enlarge)

WHEN
Rogers spoke November 29 at a NYC climate and energy conference.

WHERE
Duke is based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and serves parts of North and South Carolina as well as Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio.

WHY
- Rogers mentioned pending congressional action on a national, federally-mandated cap-and-trade system as will as the energy bill but said no significant action was likely until after the 2008 election.
- Rogers acknowledged that Duke, serving 4 million+ customers with mostly coal-fired power plants, is one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases but advocated for research on better carbon-capture-and-sequestration technologies. He also wants more research into overcoming the intermittencies of New Energy through storage.
- If Duke Energy was a country, it would be the 41st biggest emitting nation in the world.

Rogers' enthusiasm for gasification is overstated but the concept deserves trials, especially because it could be used in processing biomass and other waste as well as coal. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
Rogers, after mentioning coal, natural gas, nuclear energy New Energies: "None of them are perfect choices. There is no silver bullet…We need all of them in the mix."