Directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority announced Tuesday they will have a special board meeting at 10 a.m. next Tuesday, via webcast, to vote on a proposal to install pollution controls on two of the nine units at the Shawnee coal-fired plant in Kentucky.
TVA's staff previously determined that the federal utility needed the power and maintaining the coal-fired units, even with the up to $200 million for scrubbers and other pollution controls, would be cheaper than building other power generation.
Units 1 and 4 at the Shawnee plant in Paducah, Ky., must either be shut down or be 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 public may access the TVA board meeting at the TVA web site at www.tva.gov.
In other news, two new directors joined the agency on Tuesday after a rare roll call confirmation vote by Congress.