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Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest is the chairman of the Energy Policy Council. First of all.
sounds like it's going to involve t drilling and fracking. Am I right?
Well, you're right but it's a kind of an "all the above" approach
I mean, our
responsibility as Energy Policy Council by statute as an all the above
plan and long-term energy strategy
for the State North Carolina something we've never really had before something
that's never really been there as a guideline
for the general assembly and the governor to follow to make sure that we
stay on track for future generations. If the state gets his way, if
Republicans stay in power
and craft those policy decisions, where we heading in north carolina? Well obviously
we're heading towards
shale gas exploration I think that the responsible thing is always exploration
first. You know we don't even know what we have. We have gone decades without any
seismic testing or exploration either onshore or offshore So that, that's goal
number one
so do the testing in the center part central part of our state where that we
think we have a really good shale basin that we can extract natural gas from
and as well as hopefully offshore in the near future there some things moving
with the federal government that may
allow the opportunity for seismic testing off-shore to see what exists there
Do you have any hesitation about either offshore drilling or onshore drilling in
terms of how it affect The Folks?
no I really don't at this point I think that the
the methods for both onshore and offshore drilling have changed
significantly over the past four five decades it's
very environmentally safe now to do the deep well fracturing I mean if you have
ever visited a well you see that these wells are steel pipes encased in
concrete
encased in steel pipes encased in concrete cases steel pipes and they go
down five thousand be well below the water table and in fact there's been well
over a million
fracked wells drilled in America with
studies done by the Environmental Protection Agency and others on
groundwater contamination and have not found one
case of groundwater contamination through those million wells, so
it's a safe procedure there are other issues that you have to deal with the
after you with property rights you have to deal with revenue issues you have to
do a tax issues
infrastructure distribution all these things are pretty important they're very
complex and the
energy and mining commission is creating rules now for the environment that's
pretty important, too.
There is that commission doing all that rulemaking. There's the Energy Policy Council
What are you doing conjunction with them or you separate you tell them what to do?
no no we were not. We're an advisory council so our goal is to advise the
General Assembly on the governor what we believe we're going to be best practices
moving forward with
energy policy not just looking at our state and our mining commission but
looking around the world what other
latest and greatest innovations what should we be doing what should we be
looking for in the future
how do we how do we balance our energy needs you know? We have a base generation
need in our state that is really provided
heavily by nuclear, by coal
and by other fossil fuel methods right now
and we know that renewables are just a blip on the screen so we need to
continue to invest in renewables but it's going to be a long time before
renewables take any kind of hit on the base generation so we have to
continue to focus on bass generation and we're gonna look at that we're gonna
make sure the environment is protected we're gonna make sure that our emergency
energy plan is in place and those types of things. Let's talk about this coal
situation as you're looking at drilling and fracking. That's liquid
petroleum
Coal's out there and now you hear about the pond, the spilled ash into the river
Is coal on its way out even if you're a conservative and have
"all the above " options. Are you looking more toward national gas and get rid of coal?
I you know I don't know it's really hard to say obviously the Obama
administration would like to see coal move out. They've taken a lot of steps
to move coal out. We still have a lot of coal-fired plants in North Carolina
that I can be online for awhile you know these things are aging out. Coal ages out
as well as nuclear aging out. Some of our nuclear plants are aging out in the next 20
years. What happens with these massive generation plants when they
age out? So
that's something we look at I think right now the focus is on the
coal ash ponds and making sure that they're safe making sure there aren't
anymore these leaks into our rivers I think that was something that
probably took to the administration by surprise took a lot of people
by surprise it's my understanding that Duke (Energy) actually did video testing
that very pipe the week it broke and didn't find anything
wrong with it so you know where there's a lot of study that has to be
done unfortunately to figure out
are all these ponds safe? Are they up to date are there any hazards related to
these ponds you know
so that's really where that issue stands right now the pond
I think coal - clean coal - is a viable energy source it's a
very viable natural resource cost effective natural resource so
if we can produce clean coal energy obviously take care of the
environmental concerns that we should continue to use those resources we have
Say this Policy Council of yours
takes traction people start listening in earnest to you, if you could line up
best sources of energy from the top down, say top three, what would you like to see?
Well, we obviously have deep deposits and natural gas
so we would like to have exploration natural gas in production and
distribution
we think that that is a key resource for us for
economic growth as well obviously a lot this plays into jobs in the economy and
revenue
for the state so that's very important nuclear still extremely important as the
majority of our energy
for the state of North Carolina right now we have to make sure that
we move for protecting the facilities that we have for nuclear
energy and there's
there's all kinds of advances that are being made every day for
nuclear energy, for different types of nuclear so
that's not off the table yet it shouldn't be off the table. It should be read front
center as well so that bass generation
issue is first and foremost and we have to
look at nuclear and fossil fuels to be able to provide that base...
baseload energy should the state law remain on the books that helps renewable
energy like solar
version is it time to wipe off those kind of subsidies or
incentives and let the market do what it will? I think investments for
innovation
are always good I think they should be targeted in at innovation they shouldn't
be a
picking favorites are winners are for losers in the market I don't think that
the investments that are are being made into the energy market should say
well here is an investment in solar and now we've just made solar
affordable that's not really the way the market should work those investments
should go towards
innovation to year to further advance capturing that energy for solar to
further advance capturing the wind industry energy and those types
of things but
I've never been in favor of picking winners and losers, whether
it's
in the general economic market place or the energy marketplace
Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest, thank you very much for being on the show. Thank you very much for having me.