Duke Energy: Wrong
Like all little kids, mine would often make messes, perhaps knocking over a glass of water at the dinner table or dropping a plate of food. Of course, incidents like these tend to be somewhat traumatic, as the person feels clumsy and ashamed. I would always try to lessen that feeling of self-blame, but use it as a “teachable moment” at the same time. I’d immediately jump in and make an attempt to soothe the pain: “It’s OK to make a mess; everyone makes a mess from time to time. What’s not OK, however, is expecting someone else to clean it up for you.”
Looks like Duke Energy, America’s second largest power utility, didn’t grow up with that reasoning. Ordered to excavate the coal ash from its dump sites so as to prevent toxins from leeching into the ground water, Duke has successful convinced the state of North Carolina to let it pass the costs onto its customers.
It’s just plain wrong.
Craig,
Do you actually bother reading anything other than the Readers Digest or Facebook these days ?
Duke Energy is not just “cleaning up” ash pits, but trying to rebuild, restructure and modernize the entire NC grid and all energy plants.
Who on earth do you think always pays for any increased business costs? The only source of revenue is from consumers. In this case since the price of energy is regulated by the State government, Duke Energy is required to seek permission to increase prices.
Duke Energy could borrow money, which would also increase costs, or ask the government to ask the taxpayer to pay, but those are the only other viable alternatives.
Sorry, but the real world isn’t as simplistic as your facebook chums would like it to appear.
This is the trouble with reading only what you want to believe. Reality’s a bitch, and will bite you hard unless you widen your perception and stop conversing only with fellow travelers like a group of old curmudgeons ’round a cracker barrel.
It may also come as a shock to you(although you will probable simply put on your rose tinted glasses with your fingers firmly in your ears) to learn that despite your breathless enthusiasm at the announcement that Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund will dump all oil stocks, this hasn’t actually occurred and nor will it do so in the foreseeable future.
The actual divestment by Norway’s $1.1 trillion wealth fund’s has been so small it hardly matters.
The Fund always concealed a hidden condition (or political compromise) that shielded the world’s biggest oil companies.
The resulting ‘technical adjustments’ reduced any divestment by a further 30%, meaning the selloff was smaller than the $37 billion fund’s roughly $6 billion stake in oil giant Royal Dutch Shell.
The reinvestment of divested funds went into fossil fuel technology infrastructure corporations (pipelines etc), and similar investments.
A viably distressed Professor Knut Anton Mork, economist and environmental activist stated, ” It’s like the mountain that gave birth to a mouse,” ,Professor Mork is an economics professor and former bank economist who led a commission into the fund’s development strategy.
Professor Mork admitted he was deeply dismayed by the almost total failure of what he once believed was a hugely successful campaign to force Wealth Funds to divest from fossil fuel investments.
Martin Norman, Greenpeace’s finance campaign director summed up the situation as “completely scandalous,” ! In a passionate speech he described this as ‘just the latest in a long string of broken promises by hundreds of so called “ethical” investment funds, who only pay lip service to divestiture “.
Such is life !
While on the subject of Scandinavia, how do all those passionate Democrats blame the President for mass shootings, explain the recent storming of Mosque in Norway by lone gunman in an attempted imitation of the NZ massacre?
Norway, like all of Scandinavia has universal health care and very strict gun control laws !
In Sweden (a country you much admire), a similar incident was narrowly averted by a quick thinking British Soldier on holiday, who disarmed a crazed killer. The gunman wanted to imitate other mass shooters and carried pictures of Chairman Mao and even more obscurely, Fredrick Engels.
The motivation of these killers seems to gain media notoriety than any genuine political philosophy.