With only a bare majority of its nine-member board in place, the Tennessee Valley Authority is revamping its operations and deciding how to clean up its old coal plants and build more nuclear power.
TVA President and CEO Tom Kilgore said this week he expects to decide this spring on how the agency will clean up much of its environmental disaster at the Kingston Fossil Plant, where millions of cubic yards of toxin-carrying ash were spilled in December 2008.
By April, the TVA board also is scheduled to decide whether to spend billions of dollars to finish its Bellefonte Nuclear Plant or spend potentially even more on a new reactor at the same site. TVA already has spent billions on the Bellefonte plant.
Such decisions will be made in a year in which Mr. Kilgore said he is launching a “top-to-bottom effort to improve how TVA is structured, managed and operated.”
With five TVA directors on the board, the minimum required for a quorum, the panel can continue to make decisions for the $12 billion-a-year federal utility, he said.
TVA’s board sets policy and makes major decisions about the agency’s operations and leadership. But since Congress revamped TVA’s governance four years ago, the agency’s directors no longer manage daily operations. Those functions have shifted to the board-appointed CEO.
“We’ll be able to manage,” Mr. Kilgore said. “But I’m hoping that the Senate will be able to act and approve the nominees to give us a full slate again on the board before we have to make some of these tough decisions we have ahead.”
President Barack Obama has sent Congress four nominations to the TVA board. A confirmation hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is expected sometime in February, but it is unclear if a confirmation vote and swearing-in ceremony could be held before the next TVA board meeting set Feb. 11 in Bristol, Va.
Without a full board, some TVA critics are urging the agency to hold off on any major decisions.
“It’s my profound hope that the people who have been nominated will be approved before any major decisions are made on any cleanup plan at the Kingston plant,” said Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. “We also feel very strongly that there is no rush to make a decision about Bellefonte. It would absolutely be inappropriate and flawed for TVA to rush into a multibillion-dollar nuclear plant until the full board is seated and has a chance to review this question.”
choices ahead
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week outlined alternatives for cleaning up coal ash spilled on nearly 300 acres around the Kingston Fossil Plant. The plans range in cost from $268.2 million to $741.1 million, depending upon whether all of the ash is shipped elsewhere.
Mr. Kilgore said public comment on the alternatives will be received over the next 60 days, and any cleanup plan adopted by TVA must be approved by EPA. But he said he is eager to move ahead in the next few months once the main channel of the Emory River is cleared of coal ash.
“We have to look at all of the opinions voiced by the public and pick something that satisfies cost, schedule and the public input,” Mr. Kilgore said. “It will come to me for a decision and then, depending upon the magnitude, go to the board.”
At Bellefonte, TVA is conducting studies on whether TVA should finish one of the original reactors at the plant or build a whole new type of reactor. Construction began on the original Bellefonte reactor in 1974, but work was suspended in 1988 because of a decline in the growth of electricity demand.
TVA estimates its original units are about half complete. The utility also is looking at whether it should build a new Westinghouse AP-1000 reactor, which uses a design that helps to ensure safety systems work without as many valves and pumps.
TVA Chairman Mike Duncan said Friday he is eager for Senate confirmation of the TVA nominees to fill the vacant board seats. Mr. Duncan was elected chairman in April to succeed Knoxville businessman Bill Sansom, whose term on the TVA board expired in December 2009. The White House nominated Mr. Sansom for another term in November.
Mr. Sansom is a Republican, but the three other nominees for the board – economics professor Barbara Haskew, Oak Ridge attorney Neil McBride and energy professor Marilyn A. Brown – have supported Democrats in the past.
TVA bylaws require at least five directors to be present at board meetings to make major agency decisions, although the agency can maintain ongoing operations without such a quorum.
“Without a quorum, you could probably vote to buy coal, but you couldn’t vote to buy a new nuclear plant,” TVA Communications Vice President David Mould said.
In a speech to the Rotary Club of Chattanooga this week, Mr. Kilgore said that, even without a full board, he is moving actively to revamp the agency. After the accident at Kingston, the TVA president said changes were needed.
“We’re creating a culture of accountability,” Mr. Kilgore said, stressing that the changes are more than “shuffle-the-deck-chairs” reorganization.
“We want to ensure that TVA is ready for the tough challenges that are surely coming,” he said. “We don’t want TVA to simply survive; we want it to thrive.”