Press Mention Inside Climate News January 14, 2026
SACE Quoted
Duke Energy could build a 1,360-megawatt natural gas power plant on company-owned land in western Davidson County
In this mention
Duke Energy is considering building a 1,360-megawatt natural gas power plant on undeveloped agricultural and timber land in Davidson County, North Carolina, according to the company's December 2025 Cluster Study Phase 1 report. Shelley Robbins, senior decarbonization manager at the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, and Maggie Shober, a transmission expert and research director at SACE, uncovered the potential site and expressed concerns about the project's environmental and economic impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions, water resource depletion, and increased ratepayer costs.
These two different types of land use simply are not compatible. It will be expensive, it will be loud, it will be ugly, it will be huge, it will pollute, and it will require water resources, likely from the nearby Yadkin River, that will no longer be available for agriculture. And it isn't even needed. All this complex will do is turn methane gas into combustion pollution and move money from ratepayers' pockets into shareholders' portfolios.
Shelley Robbins
Original clipping
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