Robin Bravender, E&E reporter
Monday, April 20, 2009

Police today arrested about 40 people protesting Duke Energy Corp.'s planned expansion of a coal-fired power plant in Charlotte, N.C., a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department spokeswoman said.

About 250 people marched to Duke Energy's headquarters in downtown Charlotte, with about 40 being arrested for trespassing, police spokeswoman Jean Wassenaar said.

The protest was organized by a coalition of advocacy groups opposed to plans by Duke Energy and the state to spend $2.4 billion on adding 800 megawatts of new coal-fired generation at the Cliffside Steam Station in Cleveland and Rutherford counties. The project has been a major litigation target for environmentalists, who say the company has skirted key provisions of the Clean Air Act in the plant's design and permitting (Greenwire, Dec. 3, 2008).

"Stopping Cliffside is the best thing North Carolina can do to help stop global warming," James Hansen, a NASA climatologist and outspoken critic of coal-fired power, said in a statement released by Greenpeace.

The plant is predicted to emit an estimated 6 million tons of carbon dioxide every year for the next 50 years, Greenpeace said.

Duke officials have defended the plant's pollution-control measures, saying new technologies would allow for significant reductions in all major air pollutants, including the 99 percent capture of sulfur dioxide and 90 percent capture of nitrogen oxides.

Greenpeace said the protest was one in a series that followed a March blockade of the Capitol Power Plant in Washington, D.C. (E&ENews PM, March 2). Days before that protest, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called for switching the plant to natural gas (E&ENews PM, Feb. 26).

Since the Washington event, protesters have appeared at plants in West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky and other states. More protests are planned for the summer, Greenpeace said.

Duke Energy did not immediately respond to calls for comment.