In their annual Dirty Truth report, environmental advocates from the Sierra Club gave Duke Energy an “F” rating for its lack of progress in transitioning away from using climate-harming energy sources like coal and natural gas.
The report finds that Duke Energy is just 24% of the way towards completely retiring the use of coal by 2030 and plans to have more than 8,000 megawatts of natural gas generation in the next ten years, while the goal is zero.
Earlier this year, the Republican-led legislature in North Carolina eliminated the state’s carbon emissions reduction target for 2030 and allowed Duke Energy to charge consumers for the cost of gas and nuclear power plants before they are even operational.
A study by Duke University researchers found that the legislation will encourage greater reliance on natural gas, which could increase household fuel costs by up to $23 billion by 2050.
“What we are finding fairly consistently is the increase in vulnerability and growth in risk to fluctuating gas prices that would really hit ratepayers quite directly in their electricity bills, both from household levels to commercial levels,” Jackson Ewing, co-author of the study and director of energy and climate policy at the Nicholas Institute of Energy, Environment & Sustainability at Duke University, told WRAL.
Furthermore, Duke Energy said it would not pursue offshore wind power development because it was not cost-competitive. By focusing on fossil fuels, Duke Energy is preventing North Carolina households from benefiting from cheaper and faster ways to meet growing energy demand.
“Duke is slow-walking getting proven technology on the grid at the pace and scale that we need,” said Mikaela Curry, the East/South Beyond Coal campaign manager for the Sierra Club.
