Duke Energy is the nation’s worst polluting utility – and it’s pursuing a giant expansion of fracking gas power plants, pipelines and mergers.
Three prominent experts are urging the Utilities Commission to reject Duke’s plans for a huge gas-fired plant in Asheville.
… because it is not needed, would be high-risk for all Duke customers, and would accelerate the global climate crisis at the worst possible time.
Those problems are amplified by a rigged review process – created by Duke Energy’s legislative cronies and bent in its favor by the Commission.
Duke doesn’t have to answer NC WARN’s experts or face cross-examination. And it’s hiding crucial data from critics.
Duke hasn’t even validated its key argument for the plant – that power usage will suddenly begin growing rapidly. Nor explained why it needs new plants instead of using the glut of power supply across the region.
Dr. Robert Howarth of Cornell warns that methane leaking throughout the natural gas industry makes gas-fired power plants “a disastrous strategy” for climate change.
But Duke execs keep pushing their business model: build plants, raise rates, and control state government.
Attorney General Roy Cooper must use his policing authority to reign in this corporate abuse.
Jim Warren
Executive Director
NC WARN
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On the Porch: Lisa Sorg - Data CentersThis Week:
Lisa Sorg is the North Carolina reporter for Inside Climate News. A journalist for 30 years, Sorg covers energy, climate environment and agriculture, as well as the social justice impacts of pollution and corporate malfeasance.
She has won dozens of awards for her news, public service and investigative reporting. In 2022, she received the Stokes Award from the National Press Foundation for her two-part story about the environmental damage from a former missile plant on a Black and Latinx neighborhood in Burlington. Sorg was previously an environmental investigative reporter at NC Newsline, a nonprofit media outlet based in Raleigh. She has also worked at alt-weeklies, dailies and magazines. Originally from rural Indiana, she lives in Durham, N.C.

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