Power for the People

John Rowe, 63, has been chief executive officer of Exelon since 2000. Based in Chicago, Exelon is one of the nation's largest utilities (2007 revenues: $19 billion), serving about 5.4 million electricity customers and 480,000 gas customers in Illinois and Pennsylvania. Its 10 nuclear plants constitute about 20 percent of the U.S. nuclear industry's generating capacity. This year Exelon came out with an ambitious plan to offset or displace its current carbon footprint—15 million metric tons of greenhouse emissions annually—by 2020. Rowe spoke with NEWSWEEK's Daniel Gross.

GROSS: What's the aim of this plan?
ROWE: One of the things we hoped to do is to show one utility could come up with a plan to displace its carbon footprint. We hoped that would be a dramatic step forward, as well as a teaching document.

In your plan, less than 10 percent of the reductions are expected to come from renewable energy. Why are you skeptical of the possibilities of wind and solar?
Renewables are a piece of the puzzle. But in the short run they're a very expensive piece. And neither brings capacity with it. When the wind isn't blowing, we still need coal and nuclear to keep the lights on.

You don't have faith that technology and engineering will solve some of these problems?
There will always be issues with the storage of energy. Just because sometimes technological advances deliver improvements truly beyond our dreams—i.e., the Web—doesn't mean it always does.

So what's the answer?
First, focus on energy efficiency—it's the cheapest thing to do upfront. Second, more-efficient use of natural gas. And in the longer run, we need bigger commitments to nuclear and clean coal with carbon sequestration.

Since 2002 you've cut energy consumption at Exelon facilities by 11 percent. How are your customers doing when it comes to efficiency and conservation?
A small portion, let's say 10 percent, of our residential customers are highly committed. A much larger portion, probably the bulk, would like to do things that are more efficient, but have very complex usage patterns for energy. Customers value a lot of things: ambience, simplicity, convenience and quality of life. Programs that subsidize customer energy efficiency can be effective. But a customer may use the rebate we provide for installing a more efficient new refrigerator to buy a plasma TV.