The North Carolina Division of Air Quality (N.C. DAQ) heard almost 100 public comments regarding Duke Energy’s proposed 800 mega-watt expansion of the Cliffside coal-burning facility in Southwestern North Carolina last Tuesday evening.
About 300 people attended the public hearing on revisions to the air-quality permit for the conventional, dirty coal plant. Activists from the region – including students from Warren Wilson College, UNC- Charlotte, and Furman University (in Greenville, SC) – urged the N.C. DAQ to consider global warming, health effects, and the already declining air quality in the Charlotte metro area that this colossal plant would only exacerbate.
The Cliffside plant has become a symbol of the fight against dirty energy in North Carolina. It’s a given that Duke should not be allowed to build a dirty, old-style plant that will harm this state for the next generation and beyond, especially not at the expense of NC ratepayers. We don’t need new, dirty power plants to pollute our air and our waters for the next 50 years. We don’t need millions more tons of carbon dioxide contributing to the global climate crisis. And we don’t need more environmental degradation in another rural North Carolina county – we have too much to lose.
One of the most powerful speakers Tuesday evening was a business owner in the renewable energy industry. He told the DAQ about how his company was taking engineers trained in the southeast and giving them jobs in states in other parts of the country that have already taken a leadership role in a clean energy future. He mocked the state for being so archaic that we would even still be having a discussion about new coal. Other states have realized that meeting the power needs of the future using the technology of the past is a losing proposition. As a result, new industries, new jobs, and new technologies are sprouting up across the Midwest, New England, and West Coast, while the Southeast is left bickering about dirty vs. dirtier.
North Carolina can – and should – do better. Truly clean alternatives like energy efficiency, conservation and renewable energy are available and feasible in our state.
The North Carolina state motto is “To be rather than to seem.” Duke has done a great job at greenwashing, their own leader Jim Rogers tauting himself as a green CEO. The truth is that Cliffside is a step in the wrong direction – we should not be fooled by these “seemingly” green, but false solutions. We want the real thing. We want better.
The Department of Air Quality will continue to take written comments about the Cliffside Proposal until October 31st. To take action:
-Mail written comments by October 31 to: Don Van der Vaart, DAQ Permits Section, Re: Cliffside Permit, NC Division of Air Quality, 1641 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC, 27699-1641. Email comments to: Donald.vanderVaart@ncmail.net.
-Watch for an upcoming online petition
-Attend the Citizens’ Hearing in Charlotte, NC Tuesday October 16th 6 PM Myers Park Baptist Church
-More Info on the Cliffside fight: http://www.cleanenergy.org/programs/hottopic.cfm?ID=71
heck yeah janie.
i’m really glad you’re gonna be supporting the work in NC this year – so key.