May 10--Duke Energy Corp. plans to move ahead with building just one coal-fired power unit in Western North Carolina, Chief Executive Jim Rogers said at the company's annual shareholders meeting this morning.

Environmentalists opposed the Charlotte company's original 2005 request to the N.C. Utilities Commission to build two 800-megawatt power units at its Cliffside facility, located in the Blue Ridge foothills about an hour's drive west of Charlotte. The commission approved only one unit in February, but Rogers didn't indicate until this morning whether the company planned to build it. The project's $1.9 billion cost could go up, and it still must receive its N.C. air quality permit. "They would have to block us," Rogers said. Coal-fired power plants are unpopular with environmentalists because they emit tons of carbon dioxide each year.

The gas is blamed as a cause of global warming, which is melting polar ice and could wreak havoc on the environment. Duke is the nation's third-largest consumer of coal, emitting about 50 million tons of carbon dioxide each year, Rogers said. The Charlotte-based company has 3.9 million customers over five states and depends on coal for 52 percent of its power generati n in the Carolinas. Duke said it needs the extra capacity at Cliffside to meet future energy demand. In the Charlotte-area, the company said it has been adding about 50,000 customers a year over the past five years. ------ Read tomorrow's Charlotte Observer for more details on this developing story.

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