At a public hearing Wednesday at the Durham County Courthouse, about a dozen people offered feedback to the North Carolina Utilities Commission on Duke Energy’s latest proposed plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
Overall, people expressed concern about delaying the retirement of some coal plants and building new natural gas plants. People also voiced worries about air pollution caused by the continued use of fossil fuels.
“In order to reduce air pollution and its harms on our communities, and also to reduce the impact on climate, I urge you to require Duke (Energy) to turn much harder toward renewable energy,” Perri Morgan, a physician assistant at Duke Health, said to commissioners. “We should not build new gas plants. They will be obsolete nearly as soon as they are built. They will raise costs for consumers and have negative impacts on health.”…