Court: Energy firm can pass $55M cleanup costs to customers

[Jimbo101]

ABC News

The Ohio Supreme Court says an energy company is allowed to pass on the $55 million cost of cleaning up two polluted sites to its customers in the form of an added charge on their monthly bills.

Duke Energy has been adding $1.67 to bills in Ohio for about three years to help pay for the cleanup of two long-closed facilities in Cincinnati. A spokeswoman says the charge will likely continue for two more years.

The Supreme Court ruled last week that cleanup costs can be treated like other business expenses.

[Lee-Lee]

1. I'm torn on this as the same thing is happening here in NC

It's not like there is any other source of funds for the utility, so no matter how you cut it cleanup will be funded by the rate payers.

I was against the fee hike until a friend mentioned that all the time they were making the mess instead of properly disposing of it they were able to keep rates lower by dodging the expense, so all the customers are just paying later what they would have paid then.

[Loki Liesmith]

2. That's a good point and agree

But the rate payers are getting hit all at once with those costs... and they had imperfect information when they made their economic choices. They didn't know the company was acting improperly. That said there's no choice but to do this, really. Unless we break up the company and sell off some assets to others. But that would disrupt the cleanup and remediation.

[Lee-Lee]

3. Even then they didn't really have a choice

Power companies are monopolies so their openly choice would have been not have electricity.

A lot of these messes date back to the 40's-60's when people didn't have the same environmental awareness we do now and even given a choice likely would have just opted for the cheap power.

[HAB911]

4. Doing the same in Florida

[GeorgeGist]

5. There not exactly non-profit .,..

https://www.duke-energy.com/_/media/pdfs/our-company/investors/de-annual-reports/2016/2016annualreport.pdf

[dsc]

8. This is why those who make these decisions should face jail time

and frankly felony murder when their shortcuts kill people. Let a utility CEO spend a few decades in jail for spreading poison and maybe the rest of them won't do it.

[onethatcares]

6. as a rate payer in Florida

i get rhe privelege of paying for a nuclear power plant that they willl never build.

I am a lucky duck

[Bengus81]

7. In Kansas I've been paying out the azzz for a Nuke plant they DID build.........

It went on-line back in the late 80's. It was so far over cost during construction it would have bankrupted the utility company IF they weren't allowed to NAIL rate payers with a huge rate hike well before it became operational. And they of course DID. At one point in time after it had been up and running for a few years we had the highest electric rates in a five state area--don't EVER belive any BS PR about how cheap a Nuke plant will be once built and then running,it's a LIE.

I'm not sure how long a nuke plant can run before needing to be de-commissioned but I've heard that cost makes the original const look like peanuts. We're coming up on year 30 pretty soon.

Luckily they came to their senses around here years ago and started building wind farms. Gosh...the wind blows all the time in Kansas,duhhhh. They've also been ramping up on solar too. By the end of this year we'll be at about 33% generation using renewables.

[dsc]

9. I was a teenager when a nuclear plant was being built in my area

we were literally told that electricity would be so plentiful and cheap they wouldn't meter it. Of course, that was a total crock.