![Sample our Communication Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, 2013 & 2014 volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5927/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Information-Science2.jpg"})
Abstract
This study examines the efforts of individuals and advocacy groups seeking to influence a state utilities commission's decisions regarding a large corporate merger and a nuclear power construction project. Such local engagements have wider significance as the nuclear industry attempts to expand its role in the global energy economy. Utilizing participatory field work and analysis of public documents, we extend the concept of rhetorical boundary work by examining two challenges faced by opponents of the merger and the nuclear project. First, the utilities commission's regulatory mandate is limited to economic risks rather than environmental, health, and safety risks. Second, expert authority is consistently privileged over local, vernacular arguments. We explore the rhetorical negotiation of these boundaries and the effects produced.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Dr. Katherine Miller and three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on this manuscript, and the members and staff of NC WARN who supported and encouraged this project
Notes
1. Immediately following the merger's formal completion, the former Duke Energy directors who held a majority position on the combined corporate board voted to dismiss the newly-appointed Chief Executive Officer, the former Progress Energy CEO, replacing him with the former Duke Energy CEO. As this move was contrary to the approved merger plan, it triggered an extended round of controversy, legal challenges, and investigations. Though interesting in its own terms, this episode is outside the scope of the present essay.
2. In comparison, projections of damages resulting from the Fukishima Dai-ichi disaster have ranged as high as $250 billion. As another point of comparison, the approximately $12 billion in the US primary and secondary insurance tiers is comparable to the construction cost for a single new reactor.
3. See http://www.ncuc.net/. The governing statute, the North Carolina Public Utilities Act, is available at http://www.ncleg.net/enactedlegislation/statutes/html/bychapter/chapter_62.html
4. The concepts of regulatory “capture” (Laffont & Tirole, Citation1991) and “recreancy” (Freudenberg, Citation1993) address failures of agencies to meet public mandates due to deference to regulated industries. Such deference often involves the costs of implementing protective measures. The USNRC has long been subject to such critiques, and at the hearings we observed speakers directed this criticism at the NCUC as well.
5. Important national differences exist; for example, nuclear energy is a topic of broad public interest in Germany.
6. Named for a former Duke Energy executive who served as CEO from 1982 to 1994.
8. Subsequent to this hearing, and to the astonishment of critics, shortly after the onset of the events at Japan's Fukishima Dai-ichi plant the USNRC approved licenses for two reactors at the Vogtle site in Georgia, and two at the Virgil Summer site in South Carolina. Financial issues continue to challenge both projects. These licenses were the first granted in the US since 1978, when the USNRC approved construction for Progress Energy's Shearon Harris plant in North Carolina.
9. Duke has chosen not to pursue another path to financing the Lee project, a federal government loan guarantee.
10. The Chairman's position rotates on a four-year basis.
11. The convergence of the Fukushima disaster with the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl became a reference point for nuclear critics in the following weeks.
12. The case was under NCUC jurisdiction because both companies' headquarters were located in that state, but South Carolina organizations and municipalities also had standing as affected parties.
13. Progress Energy had announced plans to lay off as many as 1000 workers associated with its offices in Raleigh; the NCUC later prohibited Progress from using consumer rate charges to fund compensation packages for those workers. The hearing also addressed possible layoffs of electrical field workers.
14. Duke's proposed increase was the topic of the third hearing we observed, on 28 November 2011.
15. Sources of these studies include the Center for American Progress, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Rocky Mountain Institute, and other nationally-recognized organizations with substantial technical expertise. Additionally, NC WARN had recently cosponsored a study by energy economist John Blackburn, a former Duke University Chancellor, concluding that wind and solar energy could potentially provide 75% of North Carolina's electricity needs.
16. Uncertainties about potential taxes on carbon-based fuels, in response to the problem of climate change, were a significant factor in the Commission's analysis. Such taxes had appeared likely at the inception of Duke's project, making nuclear energy more competitive, but appeared less likely at the time of the ruling. Meanwhile, natural gas prices had dropped significantly, largely due to the growth of hydraulic fracturing, providing increased competition with nuclear energy. These intersections of environmental and economic factors further illustrate the persistent refusal of energy policy questions to become “risk-free objects” with “clear boundaries” (Latour, Citation2004).
17. Consideration had been deferred until the state legislature's 2013 session, at the soonest.
18. Some cost mitigation measures for low-income customers had already been adopted following earlier negotiations.