Cliffside Coal Plant Hearing
August 30, 2006 - Charlotte, NC
Delivered by Kathryn Kuppers

I appreciate the opportunity to speak before the State of North Carolina Utilities Commission on behalf of the Charlotte Area Green Party. I would like to urge the Commission not to allow Duke Energy to expand the Cliffside coal-burning plant. Duke should first be required to make every effort to increase efficiency, both in its production of electricity and in its consumers’ use of electricity. To meet growing energy demands in the near future, local and state governments should require energy conservation in the operation and construction of all government facilities and all public schools and hospitals. Programs to encourage efficient energy usage by the private sector should be expanded.

Increased efficiency in energy production and usage could cover the increasing demand for electricity for several years. To ensure a sufficient supply of energy in the more distant future, Duke Energy should be developing facilities which use solar and wind resources. In North Carolina, carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming have increased 30% since 1990. Twenty years ago was the time to act to dramatically reduce burning of fossil fuels in our state. There is no justification for increasing our use of fossil fuels in the years ahead.

One issue relating to the use of coal that is easy for us to ignore in North Carolina, which must be brought to everyone’s attention, is the practice of mountain top removal in the coal-mining industry. In West Virginia, Kentucky, and Virginia, whole mountain tops are dynamited to extract coal. This process not only pollutes streams, it has literally buried thousands of miles of streams. It has destroyed thousand of acres of hardwood forest and forever changed the landscape of sections of the Appalachian Mountains. This type of environmental catastrophe should outrage even those who are skeptical of the threat of global warming. It is time for Americans to stop mining and burning coal.

Please do not allow the Cliffside expansion.


Cliffside Coal Plant Permit Hearing
October 16, 2007 - Charlotte, NC
Delivered by Alan Burns

My name is Alan Burns, a co-chair of the North Carolina Green Party. Many of the arguments I heard at the Forest City hearing from local Chambers of Commerce and Duke Energy employees focused on the reduction of emissions of many harmful toxins. The one that was avoided is the one that most concerns me, and that is Carbon Dioxide – CO2. Whatever scrubbers are envisaged for the Cliffside plant will not in any way reduce CO2 emissions, and we know that CO2 is the greenhouse gas most responsible for global warming.

We’re also told that coal is cheap. The Duke Energy bill we receive in the mail does not show the real cost of our energy: the Energy Bill passed earlier this year includes subsidies to coal and nuclear totaling $ 21 billion. Not on the bill, but we pay that through taxes. I would rather we invest that $ 21 billion in solar, wind and wave power.

Others have and will comment on the science, but another coal-fired plant will only add to the ongoing acceleration of global warming. I want to highlight some positive alternatives which I would urge Duke Energy and the Division of Air Quality to take into consideration. There are clear alternatives which can produce 800 megawatts of energy.

First let’s look at California. They are in process of implementing solar power generation at a cost of $3 billion. But for that they expect 3,000 megawatts. If Cliffside is anticipated to cost almost $2 billion for only 800 megawatts it looks like a bad deal. California, I read, also expects a return of $9 from this investment in the coming years.

Being from Europe I often check out the media there and there is much that is never reported here. In Europe global warming is taken very seriously and they have already established many clean energy alternatives to coal. In the last few weeks I have read of two significant developments which I will mention now. The first is taking place in Portugal. Using technology developed in Scotland, Portugal is putting in place wave power, which combined with their solar power facilities are expected to deliver between 39 and 45 per cent of their total energy needs by 2010 – just 2 or 3 years from today. North Carolina has a coastline and plenty of sun.

Just on Sunday it was announced in the London Observer that a consortium of energy companies will begin placement of 200 wind turbines off the Scottish coast – German technology. Those turbines will generate 1000 megawatts of electricity. Zero CO2 emissions. We need to ask why Europe is so dedicated to clean alternative energy. So let me cite an unpublished Pentagon study from 2004 – leaked to the London media – which asserts that global warming is a far more serious threat to our national security than terrorism or Al-Quaeda. It states that climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters: it speaks of nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting erupting across the world. That’s our Pentagon saying that! And James Hansen, NASA’s chief climatologist, said just over a year ago, I quote: “I think we have a brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change . . . no longer than a decade at most”.

Another coal-fired plant is the last thing we need in today’s world. When the Utilities Commission said “No” to Duke building two 800 megawatt stations at a cost of $3 billion, Duke said it needed both – one was not cost effective. Now they want one at well over half that cost. We need to say “No” very clearly. Duke is thinking 20th century technology when the rest of the world recognized the future is jeopardized by that old technology. It’s dangerous, expensive and seriously affects our health and the health of future generations.