Duke Energy Vindicated on Majority of EPA Pollution Control Charges
A jury in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana last week ruled in favor of Duke Energy and against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on four of six projects involved in a decade-long pollution controls lawsuit affecting the company’s Midwest power plants. The jury ruled against the company on two Indiana projects.
The litigation stems from an effort that began in 1999, when the EPA filed a number of environmental enforcement actions across the utility industry. The EPA had alleged that Cinergy, which merged with Duke Energy in 2006, undertook six power plant upgrades in Indiana and Ohio without installing modern pollution controls. The agency had said that the company’s work did not qualify as routine maintenance under the New Source Review requirements of the Clean Air Act and that Cinergy should have predicted that the projects would increase emissions at the plants.
The jury found in favor of Duke for three coal-fired projects at its Gibson plant near Princeton, Ind., and Beckjord Station in New Richmond, Ohio, and one project at its Gallagher Station in New Albany, Ind. But it ruled against Duke for changes made to coal pulverizers at two other units at the Gallagher plant, a 560-MW station about 10 miles north of Louisville, finding that the company violated the Clean Air Act.
Marc Manly, Duke Energy’s chief legal officer, said in a press release that he was pleased the company’s position had been vindicated, even though the litigation spanned more than 10 years.
"Although this litigation involves a particular technical issue, what’s important is that between 1998 and 2010, Duke Energy will have invested nearly $5 billion across the five states we serve to substantially reduce our emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and other pollutants from our coal-based power plants," Manly said. "The net result of these investments will be a reduction of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by approximately 70 percent across Duke Energy’s five-state service area by 2010."
In a related story, Duke Energy CEO James Rogers on Tuesday reportedly said that the company—the third-largest U.S. generator of coal-fired power—may be building its last two coal plants. The company is betting on nuclear instead, Rogers said.
“I would go a step further and probably say that these two coal plants we build might well be the last two we build until we have a clear picture on CCS [carbon capture and storage]," he told reporters on the sidelines of a corporate climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. CCS technology was at least a “decade to 15 years off” from commercial deployment, Reuters quoted him as saying.
The CEO suggested “nuclear posed a smaller waste disposal problem than coal plants, because nuclear waste required a far smaller area to store waste and because CCS requires long-distance transport of carbon dioxide gas,” Reuters said.
Sources: Duke Energy, Reuters