TVA’s Bellefonte nuclear plant can be seen from Highway 72.Right now, the Tennessee Valley Authority is drafting a new long-term plan — its Integrated Resource Plan — that will chart a new course for the public utility’s energy investments over the next two decades.
While TVA has started moving away from coal as its primary source of electricity, the utility’s operators and board are still propping up aging coal plants. Instead, TVA should be investing in the future of the Tennessee Valley by maximizing energy efficiency and renewable technologies, like wind and solar power.
Burning coal for power pollutes our air with smog, fouls our drinking water with heavy metals and disrupts our climate. Those polluting impacts are felt disproportionately by the most vulnerable members of our society, including children, the elderly and low-income families. Scientists, medical experts, and public health advocates all agree on the need to reduce smog pollution from coal plants due to an ever-growing body of scientific literature demonstrating that it causes significant harm to those with breathing ailments like asthma and other respiratory diseases.
Coal’s toxic effects on water quality are especially well-known to Tennesseans. We suffered the largest coal ash disaster in U.S. history at TVA’s Kingston coal plant, and too many of our communities are threatened by the health and environmental hazards from unsafe coal ash storage.
To protect public health, TVA must make retirement of its remaining outdated coal plants and replacement of those plants with clean energy central to its long-term plan. Investing in low-cost, low-risk efficiency and reliable, affordable solar and wind power is the best way to reduce electricity bills, grow the economy, create cutting-edge jobs, and protect the environment.