Staff Report
Published March 3, 2011

Whether you are selling “pork or loan portfolios or even kilowatts,” the greatest competition is global, Duke Energy Corp. CEO Jim Rogers said Wednesday.

“The change begins with us — North Carolina and American businesses,” Rogers told an audience at the annual meeting for the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce. “The only way to get our mojo back as a country is through innovation, drive and creativity, and that’s what purpose-driven capitalism can do.”

Rogers made a push for nuclear power, stating the need to modernize the power infrastructure in the United States.

“New nuclear generation is an important part of our decarbonization strategy because it’s the only source of carbon-free, base load power,” he said. “Nuclear is expensive in the short-term, but actually low-cost in the long term. We know this well in the Carolinas because nuclear provides half of our generation. It’s a large part of the reason why our electricity rates are so much lower than the national average.”

Right now, four new nuclear plants are being planned in South Carolina, two at the V.C. Summer Station operated by S.C. Electric & Gas Co. in Jenkinsville and two at the Lee Nuclear Station plant run by Duke Energy in Gaffney.

“Today we benefit from decisions made decades ago to invest in nuclear power,” Rogers said. “We need to continue that tradition and be willing to invest more now so future generations can pay less in the future.”

In January, Duke Energy announced it will acquire Raleigh, N.C.-based Progress Energy Inc. in a stock purchase and debt assumption agreement valued at $26 billion. The merger makes Duke Energy the nation’s largest utility, with 7.1 million electric customers in six states and a combined enterprise value of $65 billion.

Charlotte-based Duke Energy serves territories in South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio.

“Our merger with Progress Energy will help make the construction of new nuclear generation possible because our combined company will have a stronger balance sheet with more diverse earnings,” Rogers said. “This is important in order to access the large amounts of capital needed to build new nuclear plants.”

The real estate bubble, excessive leverage and flawed regulation in financial services hurt the economy, Rogers said.

“But at a deeper level, what happened is that business lost its sense of purpose in the U.S.,” he said.

“We need to refocus on purpose now, on values, on significance,” he said. “Wealth for wealth’s sake is meaningless, just as getting big simply to get large is misguided, and sometimes tragic. This reorientation is purpose-driven capitalism.”