COAL WAR: The Tennessee Valley Authority will shut down 18 coal-fired boilers in a bid to avoid air pollution.
Image: TVA.gov
One of the nation's largest coal-burning utilities said yesterday it will shutter 18 of its coal-fired boilers and pay billions to rein in pollutants at many of its remaining units, underscoring the evolving energy landscape in the United States.
The move by the Tennessee Valley Authority will result in nearly 1 percent of the nation's coal-fired power capacity going offline by the end of 2018, including 1,000 megawatts of coal-fired power TVA said it planned to retire last year. TVA's landmark deal with a suite of states and environmental groups and U.S. EPA resolves a number of lingering violation complaints EPA brought against the company for allegedly failing to comply with Clean Air Act pollution control requirements at 11 of its plants.
Environmentalists yesterday hailed the agreement as a success for public health that will result in major reductions of greenhouse gases on top of targeted benefits in reductions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx).
EPA estimated that the agreement will cut TVA's NOx by 69 percent and SO2 by 67 percent, resulting in about $27 billion in annual health care benefits by averting thousands of early deaths, asthma attacks and heart attacks. EPA did not calculate specific greenhouse gas reduction figures.
The federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority will be closing 18 units at three of its plants in Tennessee and Alabama as part of the agreement, affecting about 16 percent of its coal-fired electricity generating system. TVA will also need to invest in pollution control retrofits for most of its remaining 41 coal-fired plants, which the company said could cost between $3 billion and $5 billion.
Another provision of the agreement requires TVA to inject $350 million into energy projects to slash pollution and save energy, with $240 million of that pot funding energy efficiency initiatives. A $40 million chunk of TVA's funds will also go toward reducing greenhouse gases and other pollutants through waste heat recovery, hybrid electric charging stations, solar installations and waste treatment methane gas capture projects.
"Today's announcement locks in the retirements ahead, so now we'll see what the next steps are for reductions in greenhouse gases and what will replace the coal-fired power plants," said Bruce Nilles, deputy conservation director for the Sierra Club, a group involved in the settlement. "Putting an end to burning millions of tons of coal means huge reductions in greenhouse gases," he said.
15 million tons of CO2 to be eliminated
The 18 units slated for closure emitted about 15 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2008, according to TVA.
To replace the electric capacity, TVA will look to "low-emission or zero-emission electricity sources, including renewable energy, natural gas, nuclear power and energy efficiency," the utility said in a statement.
Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and an unpaid adviser for a group that crafted a long-term strategy for TVA's future resource use, estimates that the closures will shrink TVA's carbon footprint by about 10 percent.
"There are not the workhorse plants. These are older, lower-utilized plants," he said, noting that they would not typically be operating at full capacity.
Still, he called these coal reductions "very important," since TVA is one of the largest coal plant operators in the country and continues to be a major player in the southeastern United States. Other companies will see this choice and follow suit, since it will be expensive to install environmental controls on some of these older, inefficient plants, he said. With this announcement, he said, "you are seeing a major company in the southeastern United States announcing commitments to retire significant amounts of coal."
The central plank of the settlement agreement forged by TVA and EPA requires the retirement of two units at the John Sevier Fossil Plant in eastern Tennessee, six units at the Widows Creek Fossil Plant in northern Alabama, and all 10 of the units at TVA's Johnsonville Plant in central Tennessee. Almost all of those units date back to the 1950s and had no modern pollution controls installed.
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17 Comments
Add CommentYes we need to stop Co2 "what plants breath". We also need to stop S02 which "David Keith" (search SA) suggest we could use to stop global warming. Of course what will really happen is we buy the energy from Mexico like Texas does; We put a bunch of Nuclear power plants on fault lines.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHopefully TVA will pursue Geothermal or tidal generation solutions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDave Hanley
TVA - one of the first great hydro power companies, whatever happened to that? Hydro has it all,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisflood control,
lake habitat,
recreation space,
oxygenation,
power on demand.
Grow mussels in the water and nitrates and bacteria are removed,
CO2 is sequestered in their shells,
what are the drawbacks?
See: hydroscot.webs.com
@ shazzan
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCO2 is not the only problem. It's all the other pollutants that these coal plants are spewing which are causing air pollution.
Nuclear is much better if it's implemented safely. Solar/wind/geothermal would be ideal though
dave- not a whole lot of tidal action in the Tennessee valley, and geothermal is not nearly as cost effective in this part of the country either. I agree, we need to get rid of old inefficient coal plants, but natural gas or nuclear are the best way to go for now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisennui- Just like clockwork.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFilthy stinking,deadly particulate, GHG, NOX and radioactive radon gas spewing natural gas which because of system wide methane spews as almost as many GHG's as coal killing for certain thousands in North America annually is just as bad as the coal plant it replaces.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnly nuclear power can replace coal.
*sigh* will you never learn? My hyperspatial matter transfer array technology can be used to generate more power by several orders of magnitude than your primitive flying saucer technology. The aliens certainly don't have it else why would they come here in their puny flying saucers?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry, I couldn't help it. Seriously though, a small step but in the right direction. It's pretty amazing though at the number of people who still think that dirty inefficient coal burning plants are the way forward in the 21st century. Either they didn't read the article or think that Tom Kilgore is lying when he said "These units are among the first built by TVA and have served us well over the years. But as times change, TVA must adapt to meet future challenges". Yeah, it's cheap to mine coal thru mountain top removal in West Virgina and ship it to Tennessee to burn in old coal burning plants with substandard pollution controls but that doesn't mean it's the best way.
One per cent is a very small reduction in US energy consumption, which could easily be offset by energy efficiency measures. But it is a step in the right direction, and one which the government should be congratulated on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHydro electricity certainly offers much. It ticks two important boxes: it's green; it's sustainable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDraw backs are potentially that it requires a mountainous terrain, there must be abundant water, and should be regarded as unsuitable for seismically active regions.
Perhaps the vast hot, arid regions, e.g. the Sahara could use solar energy.
Postman1, the trick that is used by the Flying Saucers is this:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe know, that one Horsepower is the equivalent of 746 watts, released in one second.
Now, if we release that energy in a millisecond, it acts as if it is 746,000 watts.
That is how these Flying Saucers work.
These big spheres underneath are Monopole High Voltage Generators.
The technology is based on a pproblem, advanced by Faraday in the mid 1800's.
Two concentric metal spheres do no touch and form a
(2-terminal) capacitor C. This one is charged up to a potential V.
Then then the outside sphere is removed,
The remaining sphere is a 1-terminal capacitor c.
The potential on that sphere is momentarily:
C/c x V. A High Voltage pulse.
Almost impossible to do with spheres, nobody seems ever have succeeded in doing it.
So, what is inside these spheres of a Flying Saucer?
A few tubes of the fluorescent type, without the phosphors (that white stuff).
The tube is enveloped by a metal substance like copper or aluminum foil.
When the tube is fired, we have a 2-terminal Capacitor consistiing of the ionized gas, the glass insulator and the metal foil.
That capacitor is charged up to a high voltage.
Then the "light" is extinguished. The 2-terminal Capacitor changes into a 1-terminal capacitor and gives a high voltage pulse.
In a Saucer Sphere, the foil is connected to it.
As inside a conductor no charge can exist it goes to the outside.
The sphere becomes the 1-terminal capacitor and emits the pulse.
If the saucer is on the ground and emits a positive pulse, the ground becomes positive there too for a moment. The second sphere gives the pulse and then the third one. The earth cannot abosorb that . It is now very positive at that place. And like charges repel. The Saucer comes off the ground.
Then the magnetic field of the earth is seen by these pulses as "ground" and repels itself. The Saucer flies.
That system can be used to lift heavy weights. The Atlanteans used it to construct the pyramids.
With my very first experiment, I used three tubes and generated over 500,000 volts.
I got the Mother of all pokes when the voltage arced across the switch and almost broke my arm.
It also blew the Power Transformer on a pole, 150 feet away, serving the neighborhood, up .
r
When I was lifting pebbles in my backyard, I was generating pulses of 500,000 volts. They were seen by the Radar guys in Rochester, across Lake Ontario, 40 miles away from my home town Ajax, in Ontario.
Within five minutes two American Jet Fighters were buzzing my home.
1% is pathetic. They should shut down all fossil fuel burning power plants throughout America and replace each and every one of them with either Geothermal or Nuclear or both. That 1 trillion dollars that the Bush and Obama administrations gave to oil, coal and natural gas could already had been on its way of getting this country off fossil fuel of all kinds. I know that nuclear is a fossil fuel that has to be extracted from the ground and it is the most deadly of all the fossil fuels, but dealing with just one is better than dealing with many. Our goal set for 2020 should be to be completely away from burning fossil fuels in our environment and our autos. Two trillion dollars could replace every fossil fuel burning vehicle in America with a clean electric or hydrogen burning vehicle. What's wrong with returning our tax dollars to us in the form of an electric or hydrogen car? What's wrong with returning our tax dollars to us in the form of a Geothermal or Nuclear Power Plant? What's wrong with returning our tax dollars to us in the form of placing solar panels on every roof in America? We can do it...yes we can! Get the democrats and republicans heads out of their a**es and get them replacing these old fossil fuel burning vehicles and power plants with Nuclear and Geothermal, and placing solar panels on every roof in America.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe do not want to come and picket the capital, but we will if you force us to.
Read my reply to Postman 1.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen the patent was granted it was looked over by Dr. Kahn of the Hudson Institute, who informed my Patent Lawyer, Mr. Farkas, that their study of the invention had evaluated it at a $600 Billion if the USA would have it before Russia.
Both Gentlemen predicted the Nobel Prize for me.
But you never know. Dr.Hynek predicted that it would take 250 years before we would find out how a Flying Saucer works.
Several Scientific Bodies in Canada informed me that anyone, who claimed to have found how a Flying Saucer works, had to be an idiot.
Bewertow has it right when he says the shutdown of the coal plants is more then just reducing CO2 output but also reducing the noxious polutants such as SO2. The article could have mentioned mercury as well which is one of the most toxic of substances spewed out by coal-fired plants.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShazzan could stand to bring his understanding of basic science into the 21st century about CO2. Tomes of food science have been written about the warming effect of increasing CO2 levels. Much still has be done to further our understanding future predications, but what is out there now is far and away beyond what the skeptics have to offer.
And in response to aquaponics.me.uk, if hydro power is done with an eye on environmental impact studies taken into account then hydro can be a very good alternative to coal. However in many places in the US and the world large dams have had a devastating effect on the local environment from clearing of virgin rain forest in South America-The Tucurui dam in Brazil to the enormous reservoir created by the Three Gorges Dam which has a number of serious side effects to the local environment. In addition the dams in the northwest of the US have caused the near extinction to several species of salmon. That is just the beginning.
Gravity Control can be used to generate power in massive amounts at the most economical way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese big spheres under a Saucer are the Propulsion Units. They can lift a 100 ton or 1000 ton vehicle off the ground and beyond.
A Power Station would have two Silos, side by side.
In Silo #1, the PU would initially be powered by an outside source and push the weight to maximum height.
The power would disconnect and the weight coming down would activate the generator and power the PU in Silo # 2, where it would lift the weight there.
When the weight in Silo#1 is near the bottom, the weight in Silo#2 would be at the top and takes over the work.
It will keep on working till something wears out.
A Power Station can be Micro ( a few hundred kilowatts), Mega size or Giga size.
Power at 1 cent per Kilowatt or less.
Even the Giga would cost a fraction of a Nuclear plant.
A few electricians would run the operation.
The PUs would be LEASED only, to give investors and Taxman their due.
The Power Plants can be built anywhere in the world, even on a big cruise ship or Aircraft Carrier.
Invest in that and
The PUs would be leased to give the investors and Tax man their due.
The coal fired plants could be replaced with low emissions, carbon neutral biomass energy plants. And given the degree of flooding currently occurring along the Mississippi River, this energy could easily be held and harnessed. Any concerns about CO2 emissions (for those non believers)from biomass combustion would easily be offset from the use of hydro.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe coal fired plants could be replaced with low emissions, carbon neutral biomass energy plants. And given the degree of flooding currently occurring along the Mississippi River, this energy could easily be held and harnessed. Any concerns about CO2 emissions (for those non believers)from biomass combustion would easily be offset from the use of hydro.
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