This is Progress

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Monday, March 26, 2007

Carol Peterson Interviewed

1. Carol, I'm So Glad To See You



2. A Community Effort



3. Were Alternative Considered?



4. Plant Not Needed



5. No Secret Meetings



6. A Good Decision



7. Challenges of Leadership



8. Representing NC on the DNC



9. What's Best For the Most



10. One Big Political Background

Progress Energy Lease

Here's a link to the Progress Energy lease. Dirty, dirty, dirty.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Full Text of Buncombe County Board of Commissioners Letter to the NCUC

March 12, 2007


North Carolina Utilities Commission
4325 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4325

Honorable Commission Members:

In January of this year, Buncombe County Commissioners agreed to lease property to Progress Energy for the construction of a power plant. Progress Energy sought this location after losing their long term contract for importing electricity from the Ohio Valley. They were unable to secure purchase contracts for 250 megawatts of power to replace the contracts so they chose to construct a plant using combustion turbine technology on our location. They have informed this Board that this plant will be a “peaking” power generation facility and will run during heavy usage.

Buncombe County citizens are concerned that this plant will not only be used during peaking periods, but will be used for the generation and sale of power to other communities. While this Board realizes the need to supply power to our growing County and that Progress Energy is required by your Commission to provide for the energy needs of this area, we too are concerned about the production of power to sell.

Therefore, this Board hereby requests that your Commission not permit this facility to produce power for sale to other communities that is above and beyond what our community needs. We feel that the lease of property to Progress Energy to meet the energy needs of our community is a good partnership; however, partnering to produce power for sale is not acceptable to the citizens of our County or to this Board. We realize that the production and delivery of electricity is an extremely complex issue and we rely heavily on the technical expertise of your commission and staff to make sure that the environment here in Western North Carolina is protected while our energy needs are met reliably, affordably, efficiently.

Thank you for your consideration of our request and we urge you to get in touch with us with questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Nathan Ramsey
Nathan Ramsey, Chairman

Carol Peterson David Gantt
Carol Peterson, Vice Chair David Gantt, Commissioner

Bill Stanley David Young
Bill Stanley, Commissioner David Young, Commissioner