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Scrubbers ordered for TVA plant linked to Great Smoky pollution
COAL: Scrubbers ordered for TVA plant linked to Great Smoky pollution (04/03/2008)
Daniel Cusick, E&ENews PM reporter
The Tennessee Valley Authority today authorized nearly $600 million in new spending on pollution controls for its John Sevier Fossil Plant in East Tennessee, a plant whose coal-fired emissions are considered a significant contributor to air quality problems in the Great Smoky Mountains.
Most of that investment will go toward the engineering and construction of a sulfur dioxide (SO2) scrubber and installation of selective catalytic reduction (SCR) technology to curb nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions.
The TVA Board also heard recommendations from its staff on how it can reduce power consumption throughout its seven-state service territory while also improving energy efficiency and reducing carbon dioxide emissions that are believed to contribute to global warming.
TVA officials said the John Sevier pollution control project, to completed in 2012, should reduce SO2 emissions from the 800-megawatt plant by as much as 95 percent, while NOx emissions will drop by more than 90 percent.
The Sevier plant in Rogersville, Tenn., is the easternmost fossil plant in TVA's system and one of three coal-fired plants whose emissions contribute to air quality problems at Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
With the addition of a scrubber and SCR at Sevier, TVA will have controlled for SO2 and NOx at all three of its East Tennessee coal plants. Improved pollution controls are in the process of being installed at the Bull Run Fossil Plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the Kingston Fossil Plant in Kingston, Tenn.
"The air in East Tennessee and the rest of the Tennessee Valley is improving as TVA continues to carry out one of the most aggressive clean-air programs in the country," TVA President and CEO Tom Kilgore said in a statement.
TVA officials said that since 1977, the federally owned utility has spent $4.8 billion on emission controls and other air quality programs, and it expects to spend an additional $3 billion to $4 billion in the coming years.
Yet despite that sizable investment, roughly half of TVA's coal-fired plants continue to operate without the most advanced pollution controls.
Of TVA's 59 coal-fired generation units, only seven are currently equipped with SO2 scrubbers. With the addition of SO2 controls at the three East Tennessee plants, that number of scrubbed units will grow to 11.
Nevertheless, Kilgore touted TVA's air quality accomplishments, noting that systemwide SO2 emissions have dropped by more than 80 percent since 1977, while NOx emissions during the summer ozone season have dropped by more than 80 percent since 1995.
Options for energy efficiency, renewables
The TVA Board also received drafts of the utility's latest "Energy Efficiency and Demand Response Plan," its "Clean Energy Assessment" and an environmental policy document prepared by TVA staff.
The utility has set a goal of reducing growth in peak electricity demand by up to 1,400 megawatts by 2013, roughly the amount of electricity generated by a large nuclear plant. Much of the demand reduction is expected to come through new energy efficiency programs targeted at residential, commercial and industrial customers.
TVA staff also have also recommended adding more renewable energy resources to the utility's generation portfolio while also looking for ways "to reduce carbon emissions in the valley environment while minimizing costs and maintaining a reliable power supply."
Currently, TVA's renewable energy portfolio includes 18 wind turbines atop Buffalo Mountain in East Tennessee capable of producing 29 megawatts of power, as well as smaller amounts of solar-, methane- and biomass-derived energy.
TVA customers can purchase renewable energy for 15 cents per kilowatt hour through the utility's Green Power Switch program.
