Exelon CEO: "We Can't Make False Promises That We're Going To Make Fossil Fuel Cool Again"
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On the climate threat, Crane said, "It's just imperative that we build the tent that can help to make the story known and we take it away from what has become just a polarizing partisan bickering." Crane said companies that produce zero-carbon electricity should focus on expanding the reach of their message by 2020.
"We can't make false promises to parts of the country that we're going to make fossil fuel cool again. We have to worry about what this is going to do to the whole country," Crane said, speaking of the carbon emissions from power plants that burn coal, natural gas and oil. Exelon has faced messaging issues of its own, as its push for support for Illinois nuclear plants triggered opposition from some environmental groups and energy suppliers that compete with nuclear power (Energywire, Sept. 14).
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Crane said his company is seeing first-hand the evidence of damaging climate change. Its utilities operate in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and it generates electric power in 19 states and Canada. "I can tell you as an operator, the climate is changing, as the storms come through and the ferocity of the storms that come through," he said. "The wind speeds we designed our systems to withstand are not the wind speeds we're seeing," he added at another point, one of several times he came back to the impact on the company, the nation's fifth largest gas and electric utility.
"I can tell you from the storm patterns we're dealing with. I can tell you from the dispatch of our utility workers to the South, to Texas, Florida, to South Carolina, the flooding. The environment is changing. "Is it man-made totally? I don't know that. Is there some natural effect. I don't know that," he said. "I'm not a climate scientist. I am a realist. We are not going to deny it. We're going to try to get out in front of it."
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https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060104061
