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Duking It Out Over Southern Electricity

Everybody has something to say about electricity in the South. Duke thinks it needs to cost more; Duke, on the other hand, thinks there’s no reason it needs to be more expensive.

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


Everybody has something to say about electricity in the South. Duke thinks it needs to cost more; Duke, on the other hand, thinks there's no reason it needs to be more expensive.

Hey, wait a minute.

Okay, that's what happens when your local power company is Duke Energy and the smart guys up the road sit around at Duke University. In these parts, Washington Duke and his sons left something of a large mark.


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The folks at Duke Energy want to make a predictable rate hike -- they're asking for 7.2 percent in North Carolina, which Duke says it needs because of all the money it's spending upgrading transmission lines, replacing power plants, and complying with new pollution controls. The case is still in front of regulators -- Duke settled for a 6 percent hike in South Carolina -- which makes the release of a study by the other Dukes somewhat ill-timed.

The study, called "Myths and facts about electricity in the U.S. South," comes out of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke and the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy and appeared in colume 40 of the journal Energy Policy. It concludes, as its abstract highlights say, that "clean energy myths help lock Southern energy policy in the status quo." Those myths include the belief that energy efficiency and renewable energy can't keep up with growing demand; that not only does the South lack renewable resources but renewable energy requires rate increases; and that power use doesn't much affect water resources.

Well, according to the study authors, "Nuh-unh." Okay, that's not a direct quote, but here's one: “The South has an abundance of sustainable energy technologies and resources, but misperceptions about their availability and readiness result in support for conventional energy systems.” That's from study coauthor Marilyn Brown. She's a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy, but "Tech versus Duke" sounded like an ACC basketball story, so I focused on the Duke side of the study authorship for the headline. Sue me.

The study

urges the use of notes that a carbon tax to go along with energy efficiency and renewable energy, which will can help power companies retire old, inefficient, and polluting plants and replace them with newer, more-efficient ones. Again -- And to be sure, renewable energy can move forward without escalating rates, according to the authors.

Wonder if the regulators are reading the study?

Images: Above, some Dukes, from "Trading Places"; below, some other Dukes. NB: May not be the Dukes referred to in this post.

Updates made 12/4/11 in response to kind clarifications from Erin McKenzie of the Duke Office of News & Communications.

Scott Huler was born in 1959 in Cleveland and raised in that city's eastern suburbs. He graduated from Washington University in 1981; he was made a member of Phi Beta Kappa because of the breadth of his studies, and that breadth has been a signature of his writing work. He has written on everything from the death penalty to bikini waxing, from NASCAR racing to the stealth bomber, for such newspapers as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Los Angeles Times and such magazines as ESPN, Backpacker, and Fortune. His award-winning radio work has been heard on "All Things Considered" and "Day to Day" on National Public Radio and on "Marketplace" and "Splendid Table" on American Public Media. He has been a staff writer for the Philadelphia Daily News and the Raleigh News & Observer and a staff reporter and producer for Nashville Public Radio. He was the founding and managing editor of the Nashville City Paper. He has taught at such colleges as Berry College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

His books include Defining the Wind, about the Beaufort Scale of wind force, and No-Man's Lands, about retracing the journey of Odysseus.

His most recent book, On the Grid, was his sixth. His work has been included in such compilations as Appalachian Adventure and in such anthologies as Literary Trails of the North Carolina Piedmont, The Appalachian Trail Reader and Speed: Stories of Survival from Behind the Wheel.

For 2014-2015 Scott is a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, which is funding his work on the Lawson Trek, an effort to retrace the journey of explorer John Lawson through the Carolinas in 1700-1701.

He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife, the writer June Spence, and their two sons.

More by Scott Huler