The budget bill signed by President Donald Trump on July 4 and a more recent executive order slash renewable energy credits in favor of coal, gas and nuclear support, triggering expected sector upheaval and backlash over jobs, costs and climate progress.
Duke Energy has reached a settlement with the North Carolina Attorney General, the Sierra Club and Public Staff of the North Carolina Utilities Commission over coal-ash cleanup costs.
With COVID-19 economic slowdowns, and the resulting drop in demand for oil, gas and electricity, the outlook for traditional energy sector growth and capital investment is dim, if not outright grim.
Under a new settlement with state regulators, communities and environmental groups, Duke Energy will spend $3.5 billion to close its last nine coal-ash storage impoundments in North Carolina, bringing the company’s cost of closing all of its coal-ash sites in North and South Carolina to between $8 billion and $9 billion.
The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed two rules that would ease Obama-era requirements for disposal of two streams of waste that result from burning coal to produce electricity—the storage of coal ash and the discharge of contaminated water into waterways.
Duke Energy will decommission its Crystal River nuclear plant in Florida about 50 years earlier than planned under an agreement with Accelerated Decommissioning Partners.
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