Chatham County Energy Issues

In Chatham county a crossroads of energy futures is represented.

See Also:
 * Emissions Reports
 * RePowering Chatham
 * Hadley Studios Energy Show

Fossil Fuels

 * Cape Fear Power Plant. Currently the Cape Fear power plant burns coal to produce electricity but will be retrofitted to use natural gas. Most of the coal for the Cape Fear plant comes from mines in Colombia and some comes from the highly destructive process of mountain top removal happening in the Appalachia mountains. (See Hydrofracking below)
 * Proportionally, Chatham county produces twice as much CO2 from transportation than N.C. averages for transportation relative to other sources.
 * Hydrofracking (Fracking) is quickly becoming a hot topic in the region. Prospectors for natural gas from fracking are signing predatory land lease options mainly in Lee county. Meanwhile the legislature is taking steps towards legalizing horizontal drilling in N.C. paving the way for hydrofracking.

Nuclear

 * Shearon Harris Nuclear Power plant sits on the border of Chatham county.
 * Some hazards that Shearon Harris represents are:
 * Has one of the largest waste storage pools in the country
 * Sits on an old fault line (problematic when considering issues such as hydrofracking injection waste disposal method as this has been shown to produce earthquakes in some parts of the country.)
 * Fire hazards have not been adequately addressed. The industry captured NRC continues to forgo enforcement of fire safety rules in favor of inadequate modeling by industry.
 * The current proposed merger between Progress Energy and Duke energy represent an attempt by the utilities to bulk up their assets to attract investments for new nuclear including a new reactor at Shearon Harris. Solar surpased nuclear in cost efficiency in 2010. Solar costs consitnue to decrease while nuclear costs continue to rise.

Alternative Energy

 * Piedmont Biofuels is a local biodiesel producer. Piedmont biofuels currently uses waste grease from local restaurants to make fuel.
 * Central Carolina Community College is leading the way with courses on renewable energy. The campus itself is a model for green building techniques and technologies.
 * Local farmers are growing in popularity and gaining support from consumers