Jim Warren: Duke Energy’s ‘greenwashing’

Duke Energy is claiming it is already on track to meet the carbon reduction targets in the new EPA Clean Power Plan. In an Aug. 3 news release, Duke CEO Lynn Good claimed, “Even without federal regulations, our company has reduced carbon dioxide emissions from our power plants by 22 percent since 2005.”

In fact, the 22 percent claim pretends Duke’s multi-state electricity sales – thus emissions – didn’t plummet during the prolonged recession, although former CEO Jim Rogers stated it would take many years for Duke to regain earlier sales levels.

Good also claimed Duke has invested “more than $9 billion to lower emissions” by building gas-fired power plants and even “highly efficient” coal units. Duke’s new “highly efficient” Cliffside coal-fired unit spews far more carbon into the air annually than the combined emissions of all the small, little-used coal units Duke Energy Carolinas has retired.

The new fracking gas-burning plants are even worse than coal because of the well-documented leakage of methane – a highly potent greenhouse gas – during the mining of natural gas.

Duke Energy pretends methane leakage doesn’t count when calculating carbon emissions. Thus continues the corporate greenwashing from the nation’s largest utility polluter.

This story was originally published August 11, 2015 at 5:10 PM with the headline "Jim Warren: Duke Energy’s ‘greenwashing’."