+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Duke CEO Urges Democrats to Cap Carbon in Senate Energy Bill
2010-07-22 13:56:46.451 GMT
By Simon Lomax
July 22 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Senate Democrats should
include a plan for cutting carbon dioxide output from power
plants in a planned energy bill, said James Rogers, chairman,
president and chief executive officer of Duke Energy Corp.
Democrats plan to meet today for a closed-door discussion
on what measures should be included in the bill, which may be
taken up in the Senate as early as next week. They are split
over whether the bill should include a cap-and-trade program in
which power plants buy and sell a declining number of carbon
dioxide pollution rights.
The legislation must include a "utility carbon title,"
Rogers said in a letter yesterday to Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat. Existing regulations for smog,
soot, mercury and other pollutants may lead to the closure of up
to one-third of coal-fired power plants in the U.S., the head of
the Charlotte, North Carolina-based utility said.
Those plants won't be replaced with new coal-fired units
that capture their pollution or nuclear reactors that don't
release carbon dioxide into the air unless Congress passes
legislation setting clear rules for the greenhouse gases
scientists have linked to climate change, Rogers said.
Power companies will instead choose plants fueled with
natural gas, which produces roughly half the carbon dioxide per
megawatt-hour as coal, while they wait for a "coherent carbon
policy in the U.S.," he said.
"This doesn't work for climate policy as we cannot reach
our long-term climate goals merely by shifting to another fossil
fuel with a significant carbon footprint," Rogers said. Higher
demand for natural gas in the electricity sector will make the
fuel more expensive, hurting factories, farms and households, he
said.
For Related News and Information:
Top environment stories: GREEN <GO>
Stories about U.S. and climate: TNI US CLIMATE <GO>
Global emissions data: EMIS <GO>
Northeast U.S. trading: RGGI <GO>
--Editors: Charlotte Porter, Richard Stubbe.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Simon Lomax in Washington at +1-202-654-4305 or
slomax@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Dan Stets at +1-212-617-4403 or dstets@bloomberg.net.
