OREANDA-NEWS. North Carolina plans to look at building new nuclear generation to comply with federal CO2 standards even as it intends to file a lawsuit to overturn the regulations, the state's top environmental regulator said yesterday.

The state plans to file a lawsuit against the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Clean Power Plan, which it believes will lead to higher costs for ratepayers. But at the same time, the state is taking a closer look at boosting the use of nuclear generation as a way to comply with the regulations, Department of Environmental Quality secretary Donald van der Vaart said.

"The real discussion we need to be having in North Carolina is about nuclear power, and it is a discussion we are having," van der Vaart said at an event hosted by the conservative John Locke Foundation. "[Nuclear] is really the dual plan to put in place in case we lose the litigation, because we need to leapfrog natural gas."

The state's renewable portfolio standard has driven larger deployments of solar capacity, but intermittent renewables may not be enough to replace the expected retirement of coal-fired capacity, requiring the discussion on nuclear, van der Vaart said.

The state has already made significant reductions in CO2 emissions from the power sector by adding natural gas-fired capacity in recent years, he said. As a result, the state is on track to meet its targets under the Clean Power Plan.

"If we prevail in court, then there still will be very large reductions going forward because we will continue to see the replacement of these aging coal-fired power plants," van der Vaart said.

The Clean Power Plan requires North Carolina to either cut its CO2 rate by about 32pc by 2030 from a 2012 baseline of 1,780lb/MWh. The state could also choose to meet an overall emissions target of about 51.3mn short tons by 2030, or about 12pc below its 2012 emissions, according to EPA.