Consider the source: N.C. as global power.

• Position: Utilities

In August and September, during visits to Person, Cumberland and Gaston counties, Gov. Mike Easley announced a total of $1.2 billion in investments in new natural-gas-burning electricity plants. As a site for building so-called peak-load gas-turbine plants, North Carolina keeps plugging into a trend that's electrifying the nation.

North Carolina's current crop of natural-gas plants will produce 5,000 megawatts a year, but most will never light a bulb at home. Duke Energy North America, a division of Duke Energy, based in Charlotte, operates 25 natural-gas plants nationally and expects to build eight to 10 a year for the foreseeable future. Only two -- a 10-yearold plant in Lincoln County and a new one in Mill Creek, S.C. -- generate power for the Carolinas. M ost sell it wholesale or to specific customers. "We go into a state, identify the need and build quickly," Duke spokesman Rick Rhodes says. "Then we've repeatedly found three or four other guys come in right behind us and even build on adjoining sites."

The plants occupy small tracts, typically about 20 acres, and their generators resemble big jet engines -- burning gas turns the turbines, which generate electricity. "The capital investment is fairly low, construction time is shorter than for a base-load or nuclear plant, and a turbine can be started or shut down quickly, as need varies," says Ben Turner, director of the electric division of the public staff of the N.C. Utilities Commission. Power companies say those attributes, plus cheap natural gas, make turbines an ideal answer to anticipated growth in demand for electricity.

That sort of copycat behavior is why Raleigh-based Progress Energy is taking a different tack than Duke -- it's signing up customers first. "The wholesale market's a little soft now, and we don't want to be stuck overbuilding," Progress spokesman Keith Poston says.

Out-of-state companies don't seem to share the fears. They're putting peak-load plants in Richmond, Rowan, Hertford, Gaston, Person, Davidson and Cumberland counties. California-based Newport Generation's Cumberland plant will cost $250 million, and Georgia-based Mirant's Gastonia plant, $500 million.

On other fronts, Duke boosted net earnings through the first three quarters, to $3.5 billion, from $2.7 billion a year earlier. And the company announced its largest buyout ever, of Canada's Westcoast Energy, a natural-gas company, for $8.5 billion. Duke will pick up $5 billion in debt and fork over...