UNLIKE SOME OF HIS COUNTERPARTS in the corporate world, David Ratcliffe, the chief executive officer of Southern Co., has not attempted to jump feet first out of the smoke emanating from his company’s more than 200 coal, oil and gas generating units and into the warm green haze of the global climate change movement.
He’s certainly careful to detail Southern Co.’s environmentally friendly efforts: planting 45 million trees to absorb carbon dioxide; owning a 30-megawatt geothermal power plant that provides about 15 percent of Hawaii’s power; and partnering with the U.S. Department of Energy to build a cleaner coal facility in Orlando, Fla., designed to one day power 285,000 households. But he’s equally careful to say that coal, natural gas and nuclear energy-coupled with efficiency measures-are the real future of power here, not sun and wind.
