Duke Energy hearts Bank of America

By

Duke Energy’s in-construction coal plant in Cliffside, North Carolina is the target of a protest planned for April 20th.

Duke’s Cliffside plant is one of over 150 new coal fired power plants that have been proposed in the past couple years, and is one of over 60 plants around the country that activists are currently fighting to stop from going on-line. At RAN, we try to help stop the construction of all these new coal plants by keeping track of which banks are financing the coal industry so that we can pressure banks to stop financing dirty energy projects, and fund renewables instead. Duke Energy is one of the largest energy companies in the United States, and as we would expect, have long relationships with Bank of America, Citi, and JP Morgan Chase.

Companies like Duke Energy need A LOT of cash from time to time so that they can pay for a variety of corporate expenses, such as building a new coal fired power plant. A (unfortunately) great example of Duke’s relationships with banks came up just a couple months ago. In January 2009, Duke energy sold $750 million in bonds and Bank of America, JP Morgan, and Morgan Stanley served as the book-running managers, providing Duke with $202,500,000 each. That’s a lot of money. We’ve traced Duke’s financial relationships to several banks, especially Bank of America, Citi and JP Morgan Chase back several years, and billions of dollars.

So on April 20th lets support the activists in Cliffside by joining them in person or in spirit. And those who are interested in sticking around North Carolina for a bit can join RAN at Bank of America’s annual shareholder meeting in Charlotte on April 29. Contact Scott for more info.