Detroit Edison
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Detroit Edison, founded in 1903, is an investor-owned electric company which serves most of Southeast Michigan. Its parent company, DTE Energy Co., provides energy services to a variety of clients beyond Detroit Edison's service area.
Contents
Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council
Detroit Edison has been a corporate funder of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)[1]. See ALEC Corporations for more.
| About ALEC |
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ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills. Learn more at the Center for Media and Democracy's ALECexposed.org, and check out breaking news on our ExposedbyCMD.org site.
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History
Detroit Edison was part of a large holding company called North American Edison Company. North American's stock had once been one of the twelve component stocks of the May 1896 original Dow Jones Industrial Average.[2] North American Company was broken up by the Securities and Exchange Commission, following the United States Supreme Court decision of April 1, 1946.[3]
After that Detroit Edison operated independently, and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, under the ticker symbol DTE through the mid 1990s. In early 1996, it became an operating subsidiary of the new holding company, DTE Energy Company, which replaced Detroit Edison Company on the stock exchange, and took over the trading ticker symbol.[4]
Energy transmission
Due to electric utility deregulation in Michigan, DTE Energy was forced to sell off Detroit Edison's sister subsidiary involved in high-voltage energy transmission: International Transmission Co. (ITC).[5]
Energy distribution
Detroit Edison's near 11-gigawatt generating capacity is offered to its 7600 square mile service area, which encompasses 13 counties in the southeastern portion of Michigan's lower peninsula. Energy is distributed throughout Huron County, Tuscola County, Sanilac County, St. Clair County, Lapeer County, Livingston County, Ingham County, Oakland County, Macomb County, Wayne County, Washtenaw County, Lenawee County, and Monroe County, covered by over a million utility poles and 4400 square miles of power lines.[citation needed]
Coal lobbying
Detroit Edison is a member of the American Coal Ash Association (ACAA), an umbrella lobbying group for all coal ash interests that includes major coal burners Duke Energy, Southern Company and American Electric Power as well as dozens of other companies. The group argues that the so-called "beneficial-use industry" would be eliminated if a "hazardous" designation was given for coal ash waste.[6]
ACAA set up a front group called Citizens for Recycling First, which argues that using toxic coal ash as fill in other products is safe, despite evidence to the contrary.[6]
Existing Coal Plants
The utility operates eleven fossil-fuel generating plants, and uses fossil fuels (mainly coal) to generate 80-85 percent of its total electrical output, with the bulk of the remainder coming from nuclear power.[7] Here is a list of DTE's coal power plants with capacity over 100 MW that Detroit Edison operates:[8][9][10]
| Plant Name | State | County | Year(s) Built | Capacity | 2007 CO2 Emissions | 2006 SO2 Emissions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monroe | MI | Monroe | 1971, 1973, 1974 | 3280 MW | 15,900,000 tons | 103,570 tons |
| St. Clair | MI | St. Clair | 1953, 1954, 1961, 1969 | 1547 MW | 7,769,000 tons | 42,374 tons |
| Belle River | MI | St. Clair | 1984, 1985 | 1395 MW | 9,885,000 tons | 24,128 tons |
| Trenton Channel | MI | Wayne | 1949, 1950, 1968 | 776 MW | 4,759,000 tons | 29,066 tons |
| River Rouge | MI | Wayne | 1957, 1958 | 651 MW | 3,433,000 tons | 13,307 tons |
| Marysville | MI | St. Clair | 1943, 1947 | 150 MW | 1,306,000 tons | 504 tons |
| Harbor Beach | MI | Huron | 1968 | 121 MW | 256,000 tons | 945 tons |
Articles and Resources
Sources
- ↑ Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research, project of the Environmental Working Group, Information on American Legislative Exchange Council, archived organizational profile, archived by Wayback Machine December 2, 2000, accessed August 19, 2011
- ↑ Jeremy J. Siegel,Stocks for the Long Run, McGraw-Hill, Second Edition, 1998, ISBN 0-07-058043-X
- ↑ "327 US 686 North American Co v. Securities and Exchange Commission", Open Jurist, April 1, 1946.
- ↑ Standard & Poor's Stock Guide, April 1996
- ↑ "DTE Energy to Sell Transmission Business to KKR and Trimaran Capital Partners", Transmission & Distribution World, undated but approx 2002 or early 2003, accessed August 2009.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Coal-Fired Utilities to American Public: Kiss my Ash DeSmogBlog.com & PolluterWatch, October 27, 2010.
- ↑ "About DTE-Environmental Policies", DTE Website, August 2009.
- ↑ Existing Electric Generating Units in the United States, 2005, Energy Information Administration, accessed April 2008.
- ↑ Environmental Integrity Project, Dirty Kilowatts: America’s Most Polluting Power Plants, July 2007.
- ↑ Dig Deeper, Carbon Monitoring for Action database, accessed June 2008.
Related SourceWatch Articles
- Existing U.S. Coal Plants
- Massachusetts and coal
- DTE Energy
- United States and coal
- Global warming
- Coal
External Articles
Wikipedia also has an article on Detroit Edison. This article may use content from the Wikipedia article under the terms of the GFDL.
