Major coal utilities are now publicly endorsing electricity decarbonization, an all but unimaginable position even 12 months ago. And although Duke is a member of USCAP, which was the basis of Waxman-Markey, it remains remarkable that the company has joined the call for strong climate action (see How does Duke CEO Jim Rogers sleep at night, generating so much coal-fired CO2: “Lunesta”).
Jim Turner, chief operating officer of Duke Energy Corp, explains the utility’s view in an Energy Daily (subs. req’d) column:
For over 100 years electricity has powered the economic growth of this nation. In the last 30 years, the real price of electricity has declined on average, even as reliability improved to meet the demands of an increasingly automated economy. This combination powered a period of economic ascendancy that is without historical precedent in this country or in the world.
Best of all, these dramatic gains in efficiency and productivity occurred even as our economy was investing hundreds of billions of dollars to reduce the environmental footprint of industrial America. Utilities participated actively in this effort with capital investments that have substantially reduced emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury, particulate matter and other pollutants from America’s coal-based generation.
This context is important as Congress discusses the prospect of regulating carbon dioxide (CO2) for the first time in human history. The debate has been and will continue to be spirited and robust, as it should be.
But there is one thing we should not debate, and that is the importance of ensuring that the United States has the cleanest, but also the most affordable and reliable, supply of electricity to be found anywhere in the world. It is the relentless pursuit of these parallel objectives that will keep existing businesses on our shore, attract new industry and jobs to our country, and position America to continue its pre-eminent role in the world’s economy.
This objective should seem obvious. Yet, almost daily we hear people calling for Congress to use climate legislation to achieve other social objectives. Some have argued that we should push the real price of electricity higher so that renewable energy resources can flourish even though already heavily subsidized.
More recently, on the pages of this publication we heard an argument in support of an “auction and recycle” approach to climate regulation, which appears to have as its central theme a desire to raise electricity prices high enough to force price-responsive behavior by consumers. In other words, reduce CO2 by making electricity so expensive no one will want to consume it.
Undeniably, enhanced renewable energy and energy conservation are laudable objectives and should be part of a comprehensive solution to climate change. But our ultimate objective must be to transition to a lower carbon economy in a manner that inflicts the least economic pain on America’s consumers and businesses.
Electricity can be the low-cost and reliable engine that transports us into a prosperous and “decarbonized” future, but not if we allow it to be used as a high-priced sledge hammer to pound out other societal priorities or as shock therapy to induce an energy starvation diet.
If the Waxman-Markey bill is any indication, Congress appears to have come a long way in understanding the complexities of addressing climate change in a responsible manner and appears eager to move forward in a fair and responsible manner, recognizing that climate legislation will impact different regions differently.
The cap-and-trade approach embodied in Waxman-Markey is not unprecedented. We need look no further back than 1990, when Congress passed the Clean Air Act Amendments and ushered in huge reductions in sulfur dioxide and other pollutants in a manner that improved air quality and advanced our economic growth.
Technology and American ingenuity will allow for the development of lower carbon technologies that propel our economy forward. Cap and trade along the lines proposed by the Waxman-Markey bill can be the catalyst for that to happen. Making unreasonable demands on business, industry and consumers to achieve different social objectives will not accelerate the decarbonization process, but would decelerate an economic recovery. Our country can’t afford that.
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Wow. I’ve not seen so much double talk in a long time. Mr. Turner is a fear monger. He claims those who proprose actions needed to avoid disasterous global warming have a not so well hidden agenda of societal change that would strip him and his ilk of power. Well, he and his bet that global warming wasn’t for real, or wouldn’t be that bad, or couldn’t be addressed (wrong, wrong and wrong) and so now things have been delayed long enough that it will be tough to avoid disaster. We will have to make sacrifices. So now they play their last card. Get the public scared enough to pitch themselves headlong into the abyss so long as Mr. Turner and company get through this without getting dusted up. This is no different than a FOX news segment I saw last night where the anchor stated that President Obama is going to kill a bunch of Americans because small cars that he mandates are unsafe. Maybe Duke needs to hire fear monger extrordinare Dick Cheney.
Well said Andy. Turner and Jim Rogers are trying to protect the value of their current toxic assets. Reagan won more supporters than Nixon did, by smiling, and inculcating fear (of “evil empire.”) Duke learned the lesson well.
May be just the serious threat of nationalization is all that is needed….
Coal has become a turd-on-the-table to Duke Energy
Now they want to redefine their product — they may sell coal, but they want to deliver hope – all this asking us to pay no attention to that smoking, dirty CO2 source. This rebranding, to deliver a delusional energy technology is just the first step in keeping business going.
Some have argued that we should push the real price of electricity higher so that renewable energy resources can flourish even though already heavily subsidized.
The price to produce electricity does not reflect the “real” price of electricity since the costs of pollution and waste have been successfully externalized. This is an enormous subsidy which we are trying to end, possibly too late. I’m sure that Duke would like nothing better than to have us overlook this glaring problem.
“did i mention we like offsets? you will never hear me talk about offsets as a ‘social goal.’ and CCS! now that is some good old hometown business value. nothing political about that one, either.”
What the phrase I’m looking for? Oh, yeah:
Talk is cheap.
Nowhere in this statement did Mr. Turner mention that he or his company are planning to double or triple the amount of electricity they generate from clean sources over the next 10 years. Or any other time frame. He merely says he understands our concern.
I feel so much better now.
Why does this press release even qualify as “news”? It just more of the same After all the feel-good CEO-speak, the last couple of lines in the statement tell the real tale:
“Making ‘unreasonable’ demands on business, industry and consumers to achieve different social objectives will not accelerate the decarbonization process, but would decelerate an economic recovery. Our country can’t afford that.”
Ah, right. So dramatically reducing CO2 is a “social objective”, not a scientific necessity.
This is the same old corporate song and dance: “It won’t work” (but we don’t say why not) and “we can’t afford it ” (meaning our corporate balance sheet wouldn’t like it).
Yes, threaten to nationalize him.
Expropriate sounds so much better than stealing.
Question: Why do we care what Duke says?
I know they have political power & a megaphone–but what if we just blew them off, auctioned 100% of the permits, and, instead, gave that money to Wal-Mart, Hollywood, or some other big industry with political power or (gasp) back to the public.
Here’s another idea–Let’s give a couple hundred million in free allocations to the NRA, the Heritage Institute and the Chamber of Commerce and be done with this (just kidding).
I’ve never understood why the big green environmental groups gave the coal/utilities so much power (legitimacy) in this policy fight instead of building strong allies from other industries and working their butts off to discredit the big polluters.
I won’t be the least bit surprised if the polluters pull the same thing the insurance companies just pulled when the chips are down.
In an emergency that threatens the existence of the biosphere, private property rights are an abstraction that is easily done away with.
Nationalize the coal fired power plants.
Duke Energy and their ilk have victimized the planet long enough with their lying and delay tactics.
What was recently done in the banking industry without any real problems, to Citibank for example, could easily be done to the coal fired power plants.
They should then be either shut down or converted into carbon negative power plants, IMO.
The property rights of the uberwealthy concern me much, much less than the fate of the biosphere.
If we have to buy them, rather than just seize them, well it would be worth the money, IMO.
We need to convert them to carbon negative or carbon neutral power plants, turn the corner on this terrible onrushing problem, and avoid runaway global heating.