Duke Energy buys and burns millions of tons of coal each year. The fuel comes from Appalachian mines - some underground, some atop stripped, flattened mountaintops. Now, to its credit, the Charlotte-based utility is considering whether it should drop mountaintop coal from the mix.
The right answer is yes, even if the remaining coal - from underground mines - is somewhat more expensive. Mountaintop-removal mining, which ravages uplands and lays waste to streams and valleys, is a blight on the central Appalachians. What's the real cost of that?
Too high, say critics who have protested Duke's purchases of mountaintop coal. Jim Rogers, the utility's sometimes surprisingly candid CEO, was quoted last year as saying "I'm under incredible pressure on mountaintop mining." Some of the heat comes from the Obama administration.
Duke recently asked suppliers of Appalachian coal for prices of mountaintop-removal coal vs. coal from underground mines. At present, coal from both sources is mixed up at facilities in Kentucky and West Virginia; perhaps a quarter to half comes from the above-ground mines. So the utility, which notes that it is obliged by regulators in North and South Carolina to produce low-cost electricity, says it needs more information.
That's likely a prelude to asking customers to fork over more in their monthly bills, assuming Duke really is prepared to shift away from mountaintop coal.
Any rate hikes should be carefully weighed by regulators, to make sure the utility doesn't enrich itself at customers' expense (in our state Duke serves mainly western counties, although Chapel Hill and Durham are in its service territory). Assuming that Duke will keep on burning coal despite an atmosphere increasingly heavy on carbon dioxide - an issue for another day - and providing that underground mines are made as safe for their workers as humanly possible, the coal that North Carolina burns should not come from the worst possible place.
