Utility 2050 Zero-Emissions Pledges Show Stranded Assets More Important Than Habitable Earth
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One way to quickly assess the seriousness of a utility's emissions-reduction plan is to look at how it deals with coal-fired power plants, which are the leading sources of carbon emissions from the power sector, said Daniel Cohan, a Rice University environmental engineering professor. "Any plan that leaves a substantial amount of coal around isn't a serious climate plan," he said.
Most of the country's largest investor-owned utilities have released carbon-reduction plans in recent months, often in response to intensifying demands from shareholders and customers to address climate change. The announcements reached an inflection point last month when Duke Energy, the utility behemoth that generates more electricity than any other U.S. company, issued its plan to get to net-zero carbon by 2050. DTE followed a week later.
The plans tend to have ambitious long-term targets, but many of the utilities, like Detroit-based DTE, wait decades to make major changes rather than starting an ambitious phase-out quickly, and some expect to rely on carbon capture technology. That's drawing criticism from analysts and environmental advocates. DTE pledged to get its operations to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, yet it still intends to run the Monroe plant, one of the largest coal-fired generators in the country, until 2040.
Southern Company has said its system will be "low to no carbon" by 2050, but its Georgia Power subsidiary told regulators this summer that the corporate carbon pledge has played no role in the drafting of a separate plan for Georgia power plants.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15102019/utilities-zero-emissions-plans-urgency-coal-gas-duke-dte-xcel
