Jim Rogers, the former chairman and CEO of Duke Energy, died December 17 in Louisville, Kentucky, at the age of 71.

Rogers became president and CEO of Duke Energy following the merger between Duke Energy and Cinergy in 2006. Before the merger, he served as Cinergy's chairman and CEO for more than 11 years.

Rogers earlier served as chairman, president and CEO of PSI Energy from 1988 until 1994. He retired as Duke Energy CEO in 2013. He was the founding chairman of the Institute for Electric Efficiency, former co-chair of the Alliance to Save Energy and past co-chair of the National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Rogers spent most of his childhood in Danville, Kentucky. He earned his undergraduate and law degrees at the University of Kentucky. Rogers worked as a reporter at the Lexington Herald-Leader early in his career. He later served as a law clerk for the Supreme Court of Kentucky and held numerous legal positions in the government and private sectors.

Carbon Price

Duke Energy had deep roots in the coal industry. The 1976 Oscar-winning documentary Harlan County USA focused on an extended and bitter strike by union coal miners against a Duke-owned coal mine. So Rogers' acceptance of climate change science, along with his advocacy for a national price on carbon, had added significance in the electric power sector, which traditionally was based on long-lived power plant assets that depended on price certainty and steady regulation.

Former Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers. Credit: Duke EnergyWith Rogers taking the position that it was more a matter of "when" rather than "if" a national price on carbon would be adopted, the US Congress nearly passed such a measure in 2010. As much as anything, an established carbon tax would have provided certainty around future utility investments in coal-fired power plants, not to mention emerging technologies to capture and sequester carbon from power plant operations. Congress's failure to pass the tax will be remembered as one of a string of factors--including the success of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas production and the rapid decline in the cost of renewable energy resources--that heralded coal's decline as a fuel for power generation.

An Advocate of "Negawatts"

Rogers' advocacy was more successful, however, in moving energy efficiency to the mainstream of utility resource planning.

The sector long had defined "fuels" as including fossil fuels (coal, natural gas and petroleum), nuclear and renewable energy. Rogers added energy efficiency to that list, arguing that "negawatts" could be planned for as a generating resource as consumers embraced energy efficient appliances, home insulation and other efficiency measures. Not only would the energy savings be long-term, but they also would be less expensive compared with major power plant additions.

Here, too, Rogers' leadership as the head of one of the country's largest utilities added weight to his position on energy efficiency and helped it gain acceptance as a "fourth fuel" for utility investment.

Rogers' years at the helm of Duke Energy also saw the utility invest significantly in renewable energy resources, and maintain its baseload nuclear power plants, which benefited Duke's environmental footprint. He also was a booster of his adopted hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, home to Duke Energy's corporate offices.

Since leaving Duke Energy, he focused on the issue of how rural people in low-income nations can get access to clean, sustainable electricity.

In 2013, he was awarded the Edison Electric Institute's Distinguished Leadership Award.