Clean Air and Energy: North Carolina became a national leader in sustainable energy when in 2007 it established a renewable energy portfolio standard, which requires electric utilities to switch over 12.5% of their output to renewable sources by 2021. Also, the Clean Smokestacks Act, signed in 2002 by Gov. Mike Easley, required power companies to reduce their smog- and haze-forming emissions by approximately three-fourths over the next decade.

Global Warming and Cliffside: Dr James Hansen, a world-renowned climate change expert of the Columbia Earth Institute in New York, sent a letter to Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, on March 25, 2008. Citing the lack of carbon sequestering technologies in the Cliffside plans, he warns Rogers that the coal-plant, “…will have to be shut down… [it's] a terrible, foreseeable waste of money.” He also criticizes Rogers claim that in the case of Cliffside, near-term energy needs trump future considerations. Those near-term needs, Hansen retorts, can be met with, “massive but feasible conservation and efficiency programs, cogeneration, solar, wind, and biomass generation.” He also lists several other benefits of energy diversification.

‘Captains of Industry’ will be pivotal in shifting the world’s energy sources away from dangerous, carbon-emitting sources to sustainable and responsible sources. And Duke CEO Jim Rogers has been an outspoken advocate of the need to control global warming emissions. But Duke Energy was part of a consortioum of coal and utility interests backing a group called Americans for Balanced Energy Choices. According to the Washington Post, ABEC spent $35 million in primary and caucus states to promote electricity generated from coal and to rally opposition to Congressional action to address climate change.

Public Health: In 2000, the North Carolina General Assembly lead the Southeast in voluntarily acting to curb emissions from the state’s 14 grandfathered-in coal burning plants. The “Clean Smokestacks Act” is on tract to significantly reduce ozone-forming and sulfur dioxide (acid rain) emissions.

But mercury, a particularly dangerous neurotoxin that affects developing children, remains a significant threat in North Carolina. Our state’s 14 coal plants account for about 70% of mercury emissions in the state. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Colombia ruled that the EPA erred in not forcing utilities to use the best available technologies to suppress mercury emissions. Duke plans to remove only 90% of the mercury from its Cliffside emissions when available technologies can scrub 98% of the mercury from a coal plant’s emissions. Furthermore, the air permit allows Duke to ignore nearly 60 other hazardous chemicals – dioxins, chromium, arsenic, cadmium, etc.

Coal-fired power plants have already gained notoriety in North Carolina for their contributions to bad air days. Emissions include ozone-forming NOx, which is the pollutant of concern for “bad air” days in which children and people with respiratory problems are urged to restrict activities. Coal-fired plants also are a primary source of acid rain forming SOx emissions, which harms surface waters and aquatic populations.

On April 30, 2009, the EPA questioned the decision by NC regulator’s to award Duke Energy a “minor” source permit on one of the larger proposed coal boilers in the nation.

A history of Cliffside: In March of 2007, the NC Utilities Commission denied Duke Energy’s original request to build twin 800 mega-watt coal-fired power plants at the Cliffside location, saying that the utility had failed to prove that both plants were needed. Instead, the state commission gave approval for one plant. The debate over Duke Energy’s proposal to build two new plants was characterized by an outpour of public opposition to the facility and rapidly escalating costs. Originally estimated at $2 billion, the price tag for the twin plants had risen to $3 billion before the Utilities Commission made its ruling.

On January 29, 2008 the NC Division of Air Quality gave Duke Energy the final go-ahead to begin constructing a coal-fired power plant at its Cliffside facility, 55 miles west of Charlotte on the South Carolina border. The new plant would emit 5.5 million tons of carbon dioxide annually (the equivalent of one million automobiles), which, when combined with the emissions of an existing boiler, would bring Cliffside’s per year output of carbon dioxide to 10 million tons. Along with several other environmental organizations, the Sierra Club filed suit against Duke Energy in federal district court on July 16, 2008, in order to halt construction of the new Cliffside coal plant.

On December 2, 2008, the Sierra Club notched another coal victory in its belt when U.S. Circuit Judge Lacy Thornburg ruled that Duke Energy violated the Clean Air Act for starting construction of its new Cliffside Unit 6 coal plant in Rutherford County, North Carolina, without making adequate provisions to regulate toxic air pollution. The court ruling did not halt construction. Nevertheless, the decision effectively close a perceived loophole exploited by utilities and coal plants nationwide to avoid federal pollution standards.

In March of 2009, the NC Division of Air Quality issued a revised and less exacting air permit for the proposed coal boiler based solely on revised emissions projections submitted by Duke. For three years prior to the revised permit, the utility stated it’s new boiler would be a “major” source of pollution. The controversial minor source designation came in light of a federal court ruling that sided with conservation groups who challenged Duke Energy’s failure to use the maximum available control technologies.

The new plant is not designed to capture and sequester carbon emissions. Thus, in light of widespread expectations that Congress will act to limit global warming emissions, the new facility is outdated and obsolete before it is built. What’s more, the Division of Air Quality allowed Duke Energy to move forward despite unanswered questions about the impact of Cliffside on the Great Smoky Mountains and other wilderness areas in western North Carolina. Considering recent federal court ruling points, NC Sierra Club continues to  urge regulators to reopen the air quality permit and require more stringent controls on toxic mercury emissions.

Bruce Nilles, director of Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign, has called Cliffside a significant factor in the national effort to move beyond coal. Nilles: “Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers has gained national prominence with his repeated calls for action on global warming. But his green rhetoric doesn’t match Duke’s actions. The nation needs businesses and industry to take a leadership role in fighting global warming, but Cliffside shows that Duke is not yet ready to take on that role.”

Around 60 campuses who signed on to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment still use coal – an ancient, dirty technology that is far too common place in the 21st Century.

One of those campuses is right here in North Carolina in the form of the flagship University of the University of North Carolina system – UNC Chapel Hill.

As a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill this is a deeply personal issue to me. I lived off of Merritt Mill road during my Junior year at UNC and I walked to campus daily. Each time I walked to campus I walked past a power plant that ran off of coal… and I had no idea. At the time I would have bet just about anything it wasn’t “dirty” energy because I knew that UNC was very proud of our environmental reputation.

And rightly so.

In 1989 student leaders had convened a conference that helped give birth to the an expanded environmental movement across campuses nationwide. That commitment and the dedication of subsequent iterations of student leadership kept the environmental cause moving forward.

The University would eventually sign on to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment – as mentioned above – that pledged the school to a 60% reduction of carbon usage by 2050. This move would be partially funded by a $4 per semester “green fee” paid by each student.

The green fee came about as a result of student led efforts and passed by a wide margin during campus elections.

This move made UNC Chapel Hill the 1st school in the Southeast with a green fee – again showing that they were attempting to offer leadership on the environment.

The green fee would help with a “solar thermal” projection when Morrison Dorm (a dorm that holds 1,000 students and a place where I spent a good bit of time in my years at UNC before it was closed for renovation) was renovated. Solar panels now adorn the top of Morrison and heat the majority of the hot water in the dorm. Their is an effort to spread this throughout the campus.

The University also founded a Sustainability Office to help guide their efforts and they have worked on campus plans that would provide better management for future growth and encourage both pedestrians and biking.
Considering all of this one has to wonder why the campus is still powered, in large part, by coal?

I will admit that they have done their part to make the coal plant as clean as it can possibly be all things considered. But it is time for them to offer leadership and eliminate it completely. They have taken steps in the right direction but they need to make strides in the right direction if they wish to offer leadership.

And if I know UNC, and if the kudos I hear about Chancellor Holden Thorp, are correct then I believe they will do the right thing.

That would make me one proud Tar Heel.

LINKS:

http://action.sierraclub.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=131181.0&dlv_id=114321

http://setenergy.org/2009/01/05/solar-campuses-a-success-story-at-unc-chapel-hill/

Opponents of Duke Energy’s increase for North Carolina customers are peeved about not only the amount—13.5 percent, on top of 4.5 percent already levied for fuel costs—but also about its purpose: Part of the money will go toward paying the financing costs for Cliffside, a $2.4 billion, 800-megawatt, coal-fired power plant in Rutherford County near Charlotte. Skeptics have long contended that if state policymakers and utilities focused on energy efficiency, conservation and renewable energy, Cliffside would be unnecessary; the N.C. Utilities Commission agreed, in part, when in 2007 it denied Duke Energy’s request to build two Cliffside plants.

Our National Political Director speaking to a packed tea house in Chapel Hill.

Cathy Duvall, Sierra Club’s National Political Director, spoke last night in Chapel Hill about the future of climate legislation on Capitol Hill and the role North Carolina might play in the vital debate. A sizable crowd filled 3 Cups to the brim to hear how Sierran can play a major role in strengthening what eventually emerges from Congress.

Her talk covered:

1. Energy Inefficiency. The Southeast is the least energy efficient region of the nation, with cheap and abundant energy available to the detriment of Appalachia. Thus, a conservation/efficiency ethic has yet to take hold in the Southeast.
2. The need for a southern success story in order to overcome the argument that the South can’t succeed in a clean energy economy. North Carolina is the only Southern state with a renewable energy portfolio standard; we also have a governor who ran on a clean energy platform.
3. US Senate. Prospects for proactive and responsible legislation on the Senate side of Congress are intricately hitched to other “prime time” legislation like the movement for health care reform, economic recovery, etc.
4. Ways NC can influence the debate. With Congress back from its August recess, debate on Waxman-Markey and Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA) expected companion legislation in the Senate will head towards resolution. Senators from the South – Kay Hagan in particular – will play a key role in the success or failure of any bill that emerges.