Approval of Duke Energy’s Roxboro Gas Plant Means More Pollution, Excessive Costs for North Carolinians
Decision exposes Person County - Woodland Elementary’s school children in particular - to ongoing pollution, and locks all of us into decades of climate-warming carbon emissions
CHAPEL HILL, N.C.— The North Carolina Utilities Commission’s approval late Friday, December 6, of Duke Energy’s proposal for a new methane gas-fired power plant in Person County would mean more pollution and excessive construction and fuel costs for ratepayers. The monopoly utility’s fossil-fueled facility risks saddling customers with unnecessarily high bills and climate pollution, according to a brief filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center at the North Carolina Utilities Commission. SELC represents the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Sierra Club, and Natural Resources Defense Council in the proposed methane gas plant proceeding.
“We’re disappointed in the commission’s decision to greenlight Duke’s expensive proposal as part of a broader plan to delay compliance with state climate law, gambling North Carolinians’ hard-earned money on volatile and unpredictable methane gas prices,” said SELC Senior Attorney David Neal. “Duke can and must instead invest substantially more in no-regrets, fuel-free resources like wind, solar paired with battery storage, and energy efficiency to better serve North Carolinians.”
According to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s draft air permit, Duke’s proposed gas plant would generate higher levels of dangerous pollutants than its coal plant located at the same site that it would replace. Located across the street from an elementary school, the Roxboro plant would generate significantly higher levels of carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds – chemicals which can cause liver, kidney, and nervous system damage. Duke’s own analysis reveals the proposed plant may increase the risk of cancer from toxic air pollution in nearby communities.
In addition, Duke Energy’s Roxboro gas plant, part of a massive gas plant buildout planned over the next several years, will put the state on an unrealistic pathway for complying with a federal law that requires carbon pollution limits for new methane gas plants. The utility’s proposed workarounds – including limiting how much the new power plant operates or attempting to convert the plant to run on hydrogen – could send customers’ costs soaring.
Expert witnesses in the proceeding previously testified that Duke had inadequately planned for the plant’s construction and risked further burdening customers with the cost of project delays.
Shelley Hudson Robbins, Senior Decarbonization Manager at the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said, “SACE is disappointed with the NC Utilities Commission’s approval of the Roxboro fossil gas plant in Person County. This decision commits ratepayers to higher electric bills, exposes Person County – and Woodland Elementary’s school children in particular – to ongoing pollution, and locks all of us into decades of climate-warming carbon emissions. Duke has not fully considered non-combustion alternatives such as aggressive demand-side programs that could benefit all customers and renewables and battery storage that can take advantage of the existing grid interconnection at Roxboro. We cannot afford to keep expanding our reliance on dirty fossil fuels.”
The proposed power plant would rely on methane gas, which pollutes and warms the climate at 80 times the rate of carbon dioxide in the short term when leaked to the atmosphere. Duke’s own modeling, advocates noted, reveals a diminishing need in coming decades for methane gas as the use of clean energy resources like solar, wind, energy efficiency, and battery storage expands.
A bipartisan North Carolina law requires Duke to take the least-cost pathway toward reducing carbon pollution by 70% from 2005 levels by 2030. But the regulated monopoly plans to delay compliance for five to eight years past 2030.
“Duke’s plan for another costly, polluting gas-fired plant is out of step with the needs of its customers, who already experience the devastating impacts of climate change,” said Luis Martinez, Senior Attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Methane gas worsens air quality and helps drive the climate emergency, halting progress at a time when state law requires decisive, forward-looking climate action.”
“I’m not surprised that Duke failed to consider non-fossil fuel combustion options at this site, but I am stunned that regulators didn’t require it to do so,” said Mikaela Curry, Campaign Manager at the Sierra Club. “Failing to evaluate clean energy options is a disservice to the health and financial welfare of fence-line communities, like Woodland Elementary that is less than one mile from the site, which will be impacted by decades of new air pollution from the power plant.”