Members of Fossil Free N.C. State, an environmental activist group, promoted the Association of Student Governments resolution to reach carbon neutrality within the UNC-System on the Brickyard Thursday.
The resolution calls for Duke Energy to provide 100 percent clean energy at no additional costs to the UNC-System and for the energy company to help the UNC-System reach its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.
Because student body presidents from around the state will vote Saturday on the resolution on N.C. State’s campus Saturday, members of Fossil Free said they wanted students to sign a petition and support its bill, according to Hannah Frank, a freshman in nutrition science and the media spokesperson for the event.
The ASG meeting will begin Saturday at 9 a.m. at Withers Hall room 140 and will be open to the public.
The event that took place on the Brickyard was part of a state-wide day of action, where more than 30 students across the state with the North Carolina Student Energy Network held similar events at their respective campuses, according to Frank.
“I think we have a lot of buying power as students and that we can really make this happen,” Frank said.
Fossil free members stood directly in front of D.H. Hill Library with seven cans of various colors of paint, so students who signed the petition could place their handprints and signatures on a banner that read: “Duke Energy: We need 100 percent clean.”
The organization also plans to present the banner to ASG members, according to Frank.
Members have also prepared a 15-minute presentation for the ASG meeting Saturday. The meeting will decide the fate of the organization’s bill. The bill also calls for UNC-system President Tom Ross and the UNC-System board of governors to meet the students’ demand and pressure Duke Energy to provide 100 percent clean energy on the 17 campuses across the state.
Frank said Fossil Free also met with Student Body President Alex Parker and seven other UNC-System student body presidents, and they signed a letter to support the organization’s cause.
Parker made an appearance at the event to talk about the logistics of Saturday’s ASG meeting with Fossil Free members. Though Parker said he isn’t sponsoring the bill because he was not the author, he will be present at the meeting to yield questions to Fossil Free members if anyone at the meeting has questions about the resolution.
Fossil Free has also reached out to Duke Energy in the past. In 2013, members worked with Ross to send a letter to Duke Energy to open a dialogue on the UNC-System and renewable energy.
“They weren’t willing to give us all that we wanted, but we are really willing to work with them because there is no way we can do it without them,” Frank said. “We need the energy, but we want to be funding clean energy as opposed to dirty energy.”
Duke Energy, which is the largest utility company in the world, currently generates 1 percent of its power through renewable means, and it plans to increase that number to 3 percent in the next 20 years, according to Fossil Free.
However, some Fossil Free members, such as Amy Thai, a sophomore in international studies, said the energy company will fail to meet the UNC-System’s carbon neutrality goal.
“The UNC-System has committed to carbon neutrality, and with the measly 3 percent they are planning to produce from clean or renewable sources,” Thai said. “We are not going to meet that, so that’s a huge deal politically.”
Recently, Duke Energy announced its plan to double the amount of solar energy in North Carolina within the next two years, according to Randy Wheeless, a spokesperson for Duke Energy.
“There is definitely a push to get more renewable energies,” Wheeless said. “We are definitely looking in that direction. The toughest thing to remember, as of seven years ago, we didn’t have any renewable energy at all.”
The company invested a little more than $3 billion in renewable energy, wind and solar, across the nation, according to Wheeless.
Wheeless said the company has done a lot, but it’s a slow process because every percentage point is going to take a lot of investment and time.
“It’s hard to say we can go from zero to 50 percent in just a few years, but the momentum is there,” Wheeless said in response to the Fossil Free event.
Wheeless also said renewable energy has its limitations and traditional electricity generation, such as nuclear or coal, compliments it.
“There isn’t a way to say we can be 100 percent renewable in any certain time frame in the future,” Wheeless said. “But working with some of the other traditional sources of generation I think we can honestly move ahead.”
Caroline Hansley, the North Carolina Student Energy Network lead organizer and author of the resolution, said it’s “convenient timing” that Duke Energy announced a plan to double its solar energy in North Carolina, especially, two weeks after the coal ash spill in the Dan River.
Hansley also said, in response to Wheeless’ comments, if it’s such a slow process, North Carolina wouldn’t be second in the nation, last year, for its solid solar capacity.
Hansley said Duke Energy is actively seeking to attack renewable energy.
If Duke Energy really supported one of its largest customers, the UNC-System, and the 220,000 students that are going to be supporting this resolution on Saturday calling for 100 percent clean energy, they would be acting a lot differently than talking about it in a roundabout way, according to Hansley.
“Duke Energy who made $19 billion in profits last year can obsoletely finance this resolution but they are actually actively trying to stop it, and that’s not acceptable for us, “ Hansley said. “And that’s why the resolution is calling for them to act.”
