Perdue calls for end of coal era

Beverly Perdue called for no more coal plants in North Carolina.

As part of an energy plan released Monday, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate said that the recently approved Cliffside coal plant near Charlotte should be the "end of an era," the Charlotte Observer reports.

No new coal plants are currently planned, however. Progress Energy imposed a two-year moratorium on coal plants last May.

And on Monday, Duke Energy's CEO says he won't build any more coal-fired power plants here.

At the Emerging Issues Forum, Jim Rogers said any future plants would have to offer technology that stores carbon dioxide emissions underground—something not available in North Carolina because of its geology, the Observer .

"That plant is just a step, a transition," Rogers told the audience. "We need it now to make that transformation to a low-carbon world."

Instead, Rogers said the company will likely build coal plants in the Midwest and nuclear plants in the South and transmit the electricity back here.