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North Carolina Green Party passes resolution condemning
Duke Energy’s rate hike request and calling for an end to building
needless and
expensive coal and nuclear plants!
- At
a time of rising unemployment, increasing health care costs, and
stagnant or falling wages, Duke’s consumer rate hike will impose an
extra burden on families.
- Conservation
measures and increases in efficient use of energy can offset the need
for future plants, including the 800 MW Cliffside plant under
construction in Rutherford County.
- Forcing
consumers to pay beforehand for new construction amounts to shifting
risk for new power plants off of Duke shareholders, while ensuring that
profits continue to accrue to Duke Energy.
- The proposed Cliffside facility
would add significant pollution to North Carolina’s air and water.
The
Green
Party of North Carolina opposes Duke Energy’s request for a 13.5%
consumer rate
hike, which when combined with an already approved 4.5% increase to
recover
increased fuel costs will amount to an 18% increase in consumer
electric costs.
“We oppose these rate hikes, and the continued construction of
Cliffside and
other coal and nuclear plants for a variety of reasons” said Wayne
Turner,
co-chair of the state party. The
increase is an unfair burden on consumers, especially on low-income
families,
which are already coping with rising unemployment and increasing health
care
costs, and have experienced wage stagnation for years.
The
rate
increase represents a disturbing departure from accepted ways of doing
business” said Turner. “Instead of obtaining capital to expand via
commercial
banks or stock offerings, the rate increase allows Duke to shift future
risks,
such as the likelihood that the plant will not be needed by the time
construction is complete, or that future
energy availability and
demand will not warrant completion of the plant” onto its ratepayers. Duke Energy has also made
offers to sell
power to cooperatives and companies outside of its service area. The
North
Carolina Utilities Commission recently rejected one such request,
saying that
it would force North Carolina consumers to subsidize the new plants
needed to
expand. In effect Duke is socializing its
risks and privatizing
its profits. The North Carolina Legislature legalized this practice in
the 2007
energy bill.
If
the
Cliffside plant is brought online, it will also impose significant
environmental hazards both within and without its service area.” said
Alan
Burns of the Charlotte Green Party. Among other things, it will add CO2
equivalent to adding one million cars to North Carolina’s roadways, or
six
million tons of CO2 every year for its expected
50-year life.
An
additional hazard is the emission of mercury, a neurotoxin known to
affect the
development of young children, fetuses, and wildlife. The Cliffside
plant would
add 134 pounds of mercury to the atmosphere each year, which
contaminates lakes
and rivers as methyl mercury. Only 1/70th of a
teaspoon of mercury
is needed to contaminate a lake or stream. Already,
a
quarter of the lakes in the United States are found to have unsafe
levels of
mercury in fish, and 48 of 50 states have a mercury advisory for some
lakes in
effect.
Duke
Energy gets 50% of its coal from companies that
practice mountaintop removal to mine coal. This practice is widely
condemned by
environmentalists and many of the residents in the areas where this
horribly
destructive practice is common. Duke Energy acknowledges that it
profits from
this practice. Its CEO, Jim Rogers, has also acknowledged that
mountaintop
removal opponents are “….. on the right side of this issue.”
Numerous public interest
groups, including
NCWARN, have documented that conservation measures and projected drops
in
energy demands negate the need for new plants proposed by Duke Energy.
View the Resolution
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