Editorial: Duke’s greenback revolution

Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers has a plan to end global warming in two easy steps.

One: Give Rogers your money. Two: Lower your expectations. That’s the nutshell description of Duke’s Save-A-Watt program, an energy efficiency plan so bloated, useless and misguided that it’s cre ated an army of opponents about as diverse as political bedfellows get. In addition to the usual suspects — the Southern Environmental Law Center, the North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction Network (NC WARN) — the plan has drawn criticism from the likes of Wal-Mart and the conservative John Locke Foundation.

What’s their beef with Save-A-Watt? Well, for starters, the program would be paid for out of the pockets of Duke Energy customers, all of whom would fork out an annual $15 efficiency surcharge to the coal burning corporate behemoth. Ratepayers who opt in to Save-A-Watt would receive incentives to conduct energy audits, replace old appliances and improve the insulation of their homes.

All of those are good things. Unfortunately, the hundreds of thou sands of North Carolinians living near the poverty line can’t even consider making those kinds of investments — even with incentives. But they’ll still have to pay for them, effectively subsidizing a statewide energy ef ficiency program for middle- and upper-income customers.

Their money would also fund the most ridiculously lucrative efficiency program in the country. Energy expert Richard Spellman said Duke could earn profits of up to 61 percent on Save-A-Watt. Most programs boast profits of about 7 percent, he added.

So Duke gets piles of money. What do consumers get? A paltry — piddling, even — .15 percent reduction in energy use for the first three years. Other utilities have been able to cut consumption by as much as 1 percent a year. The plan is so bad the usually sycophantic utilities commission, stocked as it is with retired energy chiefs and corporate lobbyists, can’t even hold its own brown nose and approve. During the first round of hearings, the public staff called Spellman and two other experts to the stand who roundly criticized the company for the plan’s fiscal excesses and modest environmental returns.

For his part, Rogers doesn’t understand what everyone’s so upset about. In fact, a company spokesman said in the Raleigh News & Observer that the astronomical profit margins are actually the plan’s biggest sell ing point. After all, the only way other utilities will see the logic of invest ing in efficiency is if you replace all that preserving the planet hooey with visions of Scrooge McDuck-style slaloms down Money Mountain.

And Money Mountain won’t build itself. It’ll take geniuses like Rog ers with the vision to bilk clueless customers willing to pay $18.23 for a compact fluorescent bulb that costs $1.65 at Wal-Mart.

This is the same Rogers who has gotten mad props in national publi cations for his green initiatives. The New York Times Magazine expended several thousand words congratulating Rogers for his willingness to sit at the same table as environmentalists, his penchant for brainstorming and his ability to enunciate the words “cap and trade.”

The kind of green Rogers is associated with here in North Carolina isn’t the same kind of green the Times is talking about. Jim Warren of NC WARN wonders whether Save-A-Watt is a joke or sabotage — an effort to render energy efficiency so laughable the state no longer considers it viable.

He would argue that efficiency is the state’s best weapon against air pollution and global warming. It’s so important, in fact, that it shouldn’t be put in the care of a company that profits from selling energy, not sav ing it. Warren has an energy efficiency plan too. It starts with taking it seri ously.

YES! Weekly chooses to exercise its right to express editorial opinion in our publication. In fact we cherish it, considering opinion to be a vital component of any publication. The viewpoints expressed represent a consensus of the YES! Weekly editorial staff, achieved through much deliberation and consideration.

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