TVA is considering shutting down or retrofitting units 1 and 4 at the Shawnee Fossil PlantWhat do you think?TVA will continue to receive comments about the future of the Shawnee plant through Dec. 9. Public comments can be submitted on the TVA website, or in writing to Charles P. Nicholson, PhD, NEPA Compliance, Tennessee Valley Authority, 400 West Summit Hill Drive, WT 11B, Knoxville, TN 37902-1499, or by email at cpnicholson@tva.gov.
After deciding to shut down coal-fired generation at a half dozen other power plants, the Tennessee Valley Authority appears ready to clean up, rather than close down, two more units at its aging Shawnee coal plant in Paducah, Ky.
TVA directors will be asked next month to invest up to $200 million to install pollution controls to keep units 1 and 4 at the Shawnee plant running in western Kentucky. The two units at the 9-unit plant must either be shut down or fitted with coal scrubbers and selective catalytic converters by 2017 to reduce sulfur and nitrogen emissions needed to comply with a 2011 agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The preliminary environmental assessment released Tuesday must still be finalized and approved by the TVA board before the end of the year and may be reversed within the next two years. But the 68-page study found that TVA will need the power from the Shawnee units and the pollution controls will be only a fraction of the $1 billion-plus expense of scrubbers being installed at TVA's larger 4-unit Gallatin plant near Nashville.
"These small coal-fired units have enhanced value on the TVA system because of their load following capabilities," the environmental assessment concluded. "The costs of installing the proposed (pollution control) systems--$175 to $200 million -- also are relatively low compared to those of emission controls installed at other TVA plants."
The two units at Shawnee were among 18 coal units TVA agreed to either clean up or shut down by 2018 under an agreement with the EPA and other environmental groups that had sued TVA a decade ago for air pollution violations.
One of those groups, the Sierra Club, is still urging TVA to shut down the two units at Shawnee rather than invest in scrubbers and other pollution controls.
"With this decision, TVA should take advantage of new, cheaper and healthier alternatives to coal," said Jonathan Levenshus, Tennessee director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign. "Instead, TVA's proposal would prop up an outdated plant that's one of Kentucky's largest sources of air and water pollution. What's more, TVA's own analyses show that these two units aren't even needed for reliability purposes in the area."
But TVA said most of the 85 comments received during the public comment on the future of the Shawnee units favored the plan to keep the units running with pollution controls.
Supporters of the Shawnee plant in Paducah, Ky., said maintaining the 60-year-old units would help maintain power reliability in the northern portions of TVA's service territory while preserving the 277 TVA jobs at the plant.
TVA previously installed pollution controls on seven other units at Shawnee but closed unit 10.
Construction at Shawnee began in 1951 and was completed in 1957. The plant consumes some 9,600 tons of coal a day and generates enough electricity to supply the power needs of about 540,000 homes.
TVA previously examined converting coal units at Shawnee to burn biomass, but it did not prove to be feasible, TVA spokesman Scott Brooks said.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 757-6340.