Cliffside power plant construction draws more discussion
He's hearing noise from construction at Duke Energy's Cliffside steam station. Once construction is complete — probably in 2012 — the company plans to shut down four units that were built in the 1940s.
A handful of people stood in a small area on Duke Power Road to protest the coal-fired plant and construction.
"It's a symbolic gesture," said Abby Gage, one of the organizers.
Gage is a farmer from Madison County and brought along her son, Alexander, 7, for the protest.
"The cost of building a coal-fired power plant is going up," she said. "The cost of solar wind power is going down."
Protests are nothing new at the Cliffside location, with arrests happening on the property in the past when protestors chained themselves to equipment.
Earlier, environmentalist groups joined together for a march at Duke Energy's Charlotte headquarters.
Hollis was not involved in the protest, but stopped by to share his support.
"I feel like the people living here are being done a total injustice," he said. "They just say what they are not going to do."
Joyce Norman, who lives nearby, said she doesn't have a problem with the plant or construction. She has lived in her home on Duke Power Road for more than 50 years.
"Whether it's coal or electric, we have to have power," she said.
Bill Conner, who lives about five miles away, is also in favor of the plant. "We always used coal before and never hurt us before," he said. "You don't have enough wind to keep things turning."
Related News

Tesla updates Supercharger billing to add cost of electricity use for other than charging
LOS ANGELES - Tesla has updated its Supercharger billing policy to add the cost of electricity use for things other than charging, like HVAC, battery thermal management, etc, while charging at a Supercharger station.
For a long time, Tesla’s Superchargers were free to use, or rather the use was included in the price of its vehicles. But the automaker has been moving to a pay-to-use model over the last two years in order to finance the growth of the charging network.
Not charging owners for the electricity enabled Tesla to wait on developing a payment system for its Supercharger network.
It didn’t need…