Four days after TVA decided to revive work on its unfinished Bellefonte Nuclear Plant, the federal utility announced Tuesday it will begin next year to idle its oldest coal units at the nearby Widows Creek Fossil Plant.
“It’s bad news, but last week was great news,” said James Rickey Steele, the mayor of Stevenson, Ala., who lives in the shadow of the Widows Creek plant and only 15 miles from Bellefonte.
TVA announced Tuesday it will shutter nine of its 59 coal-fired units by 2015, including six at Widows Creek, two at the John Sevier plant near Rogersville, Tenn., and one at the Shawnee plant near Paducah, Ky.
The moves will idle 1,000 megawatts of power generation and could cut TVA’s coal staff by more than 200 employees, including many at the 290-employee Widows Creek plant.
TVA President Tom Kilgore said he expects to replace the power with new nuclear and gas-fired generation. Any employee layoffs should be minimized by staggering where and when the coal shutdowns will occur, he said.
“We think we can mitigate the employment effects over time and we hope that most everybody who wants to keep working can find another job at TVA,” Kilgore said. “These are tough decisions for our coal plants, but we know that cleaner air is a priority going forward and that means relying less on coal.”
Only 17 of TVA’s 59 coal-fired units have scrubbers to cut smog emissions and most still don’t have control measures to meet current or upcoming regulations for nitrogen oxides, mercury or carbon emissions. Kilgore said it would be too costly to install pollution controls on the oldest and least-efficient units being idled in the next five years.
Stephen Smith, executive director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, praised TVA for phasing out some of its oldest and dirtiest coal plants.
“There are more plants within the TVA system that need to be considered for additional retirements, but we welcome today’s announcement,” he said.
Power shift
Jackson County, Ala., is at the center of TVA’s power shift from coal to nuclear.
The original six units at Widows Creek were built in 1952 and still lack scrubbers or selective catalytic reduction devices to control the most harmful air emissions. The Unit 5 boiler at Widows Creek is still shut down from a July 14 accident that damaged the 58-year-old facility.
“Widows Creek has been a solid industrial plant for many decades, but some of those units may have run their course,” said Dus Rogers, executive director for the Jackson County Economic Development Authority in Scottsboro, Ala. “We never want to lose jobs, but we’re obviously encouraged about the jobs coming from Bellefonte.”
Construction of the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in Hollywood, Ala., was halted in 1988 when power demand slowed. But TVA directors agreed last week to spend $250 million in the next year on engineering and design work for its revival. At its construction peak, Bellefonte could employ more than 2,000 workers to finish the plant.
In Upper East Tennessee, TVA is building a natural gas plant to help replace power generation lost by the planned shutdown of Units 1 and 2 at the John Sevier Fossil Plant near Rogersville. Like Widows Creek, the John Sevier units were started in 1952 and still lack most modern pollution controls.
“TVA employs 140 workers at John Sevier, which will continue to operate another two units, at least for the next five years,” Kilgore said. “The new gas plant is expected to employ 30 to 40 workers.”
TVA also picked one of the 10 units at its Shawnee Fossil Plant to idle within five years. But Kilgore said the unit may eventually be considered for conversion to use biomass products such as switchgrass or wood waste products.
Kilgore said TVA has no plans to build more coal-fired generation for the next decade. Other coal units could be phased out after 2015, he said, especially if new regulations are adopted to limit carbon dioxide emissions linked with global warming or tighter limits are placed on smog or mercury emissions.
“These are older units; we are faced with increasing regulations, and we have newer generation coming on to replace these plants,” Kilgore said.