Yesterday afternoon I asked Grant Smith if raising energy rates would encourage people to pay more attention to their energy consumption. His response is included above. He talked about how expensive it is to build coal and nuclear plants and how it's less expensive it is to fund solar and wind projects that can start contributing to the grid much faster.

In his opinion, old-style energy companies are doing things the way they've always done them because that's the way to the bank and that the money for projects like Cliffside could be put to better use if it were redirected toward renewable sources. He said using renewable sources will not raise consumers' bills but that building new, yet antiquated, plants will.

He did not talk about using less energy, but that could be because our conversation was cut short.

I'm going to the protest today and will ask the protesters about their own energy usage. It's something we should all be conscious about, something all of us can actively participate in — at no cost — starting now.

On the top level of Riverbend, there is an old room made out of old, rich wood. It's where teams of workers spent their days moving coal from bins into a moving belt. It was like I could feel the sacrifices made by those people. Industrial society has a dirty history but I was truly in awe standing in that place, contemplating the sacrifices those people made.

Duke's hydro stations are even older, like Ninety-Nine Islands in SC which went online in 1910, http://www.flopeye.net/story.htm

The company relied on hydro until the mid-50s when air conditioners became the norm. That's when Duke transitioned from being a hydro company to a fossil company.