NC WARN has long supported combined heat and power technology – when it’s used as an energy-saving measure. What Duke Energy executives are proposing, however, is an unneeded power plant that would expand the burning of shale gas, perpetuating the disastrous fracking boom.
Duke Energy Gas Expansion
Duke Energy is planning a massive increase in its burning of natural gas to produce electricity. This would be a climate disaster because of the large amounts of super-potent methane that leak unburned from gas operations, particularly fracking. Recent science from the United Nations and others show that new gas infrastructure is incompatible with the goal of preventing catastrophic climate change. Read more here and in the news items below about NC WARN’s work to block Duke’s fracking gas future.
Jump to a Subcategory
All News Categories
Students, green groups mount challenge to Duke Energy’s $55M Duke University project — Charlotte Business Journal
Duke Energy – Duke University Fracked Gas Plant Challenged at Utilities Commission — News Release from NC WARN
Today NC WARN filed a motion to intervene in a precedent-setting case whereby Duke Energy seeks to build and operate a fracked gas-burning power plant on the campus of Duke University. Among the many problems with the proposal, it would cause campus greenhouse gas emissions to soar, increase local air pollution, do little to enhance the reliability of campus power supply, and continue driving the highly destructive US fracking boom.
N.C. WARN opposes Duke University turbine project — Durham Herald Sun
A local environmental group has weighed in against the idea of equipping the Duke University campus with a gas-turbine power plant, arguing the institution’s leaders should instead look to solar energy and other sources. See Jim Warren’s reply to this article in the Herald Sun’s Nov. 10 edition.
NC WARN Urges Duke University to Ditch Duke Energy Gas Scheme — News Release from NC WARN
Duke Energy Gas Case Goes Back to NC Appeals Court — News Release from NC WARN
Today, attorneys for NC WARN and The Climate Times again urged the NC Court of Appeals to take charge of a convoluted case involving an unneeded $1 billion power plant, and to not allow state regulators to block our access to the court. Most recently in this nine-month legal fight, the NC Utilities Commission ruled that we cannot appeal its approval of Duke Energy’s Asheville plant because we didn’t post the $98 million bond the commissioners said we must file in order to go to court.
N.C. regulators approve $4.9B Duke Energy-Piedmont Natural Gas deal — Charlotte Business Journal
Three-year Heat Wave Continues Unabated — Note to Journalists from NC WARN
Hottest Year: Duke Energy’s Role — Commentary by NC WARN
Cornell experts and others say that reducing methane leakage and venting throughout the US natural gas industry is the quickest – and only – way to slow global warming in time. As Dr. Robert Howarth emphasizes, “The climate responds very quickly to methane”, a super-potent heat-trapping gas. So curbing methane is all-important.