Southern Co CEO Explains How The Company Is Progressing Towards Using Alternative Energy Sources And Shunning Coal

Even though oil and coal have come down significantly, utility companies are not shying away from using other alternative energy sources for electricity generation.

Tom Fanning, Southern Co (NYSE: SO) CEO, was on CNBC Thursday to discuss how the company is progressing towards using more and more alternative energy sources.

Coal Out, Nuclear And Natural Gas In

“We are leading the renaissance of nuclear in America, we are continuing to have great success building our new nuclear plants,” Fanning said. “We have converted a whole lot of our coal production to natural gas, used to produce about 70 percent of our energy from coal. Now it’s going to be about 32, we think this year.”

“And then gas used to be at that time (about 5 years ago) about 16 percent. Now it’s going to be about 48. In terms of technology innovation […] we have remained I think the only company in our industry doing robust proprietary research and development.”

He continued, “We developed our own coal technology, gasifies coal, we will strip out CO2, so from a carbon footprint standpoint, it’s actually cleaner than natural gas. We are deploying that in Mississippi. We think that it has great applications frankly in China and a variety of places around the world including Eastern Europe.”

Tax Benefit: The Key For Solar And Wind

Fanning was asked if the economics of electricity generation through wind and solar work. He replied, “The economics are really tilted towards tax benefits. The energy information administration gives tax preference items to wind and solar about a 100 times more.”
“With the tax benefit it does, without the tax benefits it’s certainly not as competitive.”