Opinion: TVA's energy obligation needs a jolt of consumer power

Opinion: TVA's energy obligation needs a jolt of consumer power

February 19, 2022 | by Pam Sohn | Copyright © 2022

TVA's original 1933 purpose — set forth in the TVA Act — was to address the Tennessee Valley's most important issues in energy, environmental stewardship and economic development.

That's a statement straight out of the Tennessee Valley Authority's "Our History" website at tva.com.

But these days, we're thinking TVA's chiefs and board of directors need to brush up a bit on that history — particularly on the meaning of the federal utility's "purpose."

These days, the federal utility — and America's largest public power producer — lags the nation in both energy efficiency and in building smart, clean, alternative energy, according to a new report by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and a report commissioned in 2020 for Nashville business and community leaders who fear TVA's slower pace toward renewables weakens the state capitol's future.

Before the screams start, let's be clear: There is no such thing as clean coal, clean gas or clean nuclear power.

Just ask the people who still can't go back to live in Fukushima, Japan, after an earthquake and tsunami led to nuclear melt downs there.

Just ask the folks who can't go back to live in the more than 300 homes and farms TVA had to buy out after the massive Kingston ash spill when the coal plant's fly ash slurry breached a towering earthen landfill wall, swamped fingers of the Emory and Clinch rivers and covered 300 acres of farm and residential land near Harriman, Tennessee.

As for the gas? TVA has already spent $1 billion in ratepayer money on 1500 megawatts of new methane gas plants at shuttered coal plants in Kentucky and Alabama and now is considering similar conversions at its Cumberland and Kingston plants.

The trouble with this idea is that methane, which burns more efficiently than coal, is also a potent greenhouse gas. According to National Geographic, a methane molecule is roughly 90 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than a molecule of carbon dioxide. Can we say more, not less, global warming?

Last July, the Southern Environmental Law Center sent up a red flag on TVA's gas plan.

"As a federal agency, the largest public utility in the nation, and a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, the Tennessee Valley Authority has a unique opportunity to become a leader in the nation's clean energy transition. Instead, the agency is choosing to irresponsibly double-down on fossil fuels. "

SCLC continued: "TVA's proposed shifts toward more methane gas could derail federal climate objectives and undermine the Biden administration's target of carbon-free power by 2035 . That's particularly confounding since TVA is one of the very agencies that President Biden has ordered 'to immediately commence work to confront the climate crisis.'"

TVA claims methane gas is a so-called "bridge fuel."

The question should be bridge to where? SCLC says TVA's claim is "deliberately misleading" since gas-fired power plants are a decades-long investment that often operate for more than 40 years.

Another often mentioned "bridge" is nuclear power, and TVA's board earlier this month authorized spending up to $200 million to design, develop and license a small modular reactor to be built on the Clinch River near Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

TVA's track record on nuclear plants is littered with squandered money and regulatory safety flags. After 50 years of off-again, on-again work, the utility finished only seven of its planned 17 reactors. The last, Unit 2 at Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, was completed in 2016 at more than three times original estimates.

And don't forget the Bellefonte folly — the nuclear plant TVA tried several times to finish, but didn't, to the tune of about $9 billion. TVA sited it, built it, scrapped it, built it again, abandoned it, put it up for sale for pennies on the dollar, then went to court to defend not selling it. The facility and its 300-plus acres still sit idle.

More than once, we have suggested it be made into a solar farm. What we — and you — hear from TVA is crickets.

It's not unlike the sound heard by the White House, the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, all of which have all called for TVA to do more to promote energy efficiency and clean energy.

To the congressional inquiry, TVA said it is working with local power companies like EPB to promote efficiency.

To TVA directors last week, TVA President Jeff Lyash said "low rates are the biggest lever we have to help" in keeping energy costs under control. We live in a region that requires year-round energy use for heating and cooling. That's a variable we don't control."

All the more reason then to control the variable of incentivizing home solar installations — something TVA cut back years ago. And the variable of incentivizing insulation programs and other ways to increase efficiency. TVA cut those in 2018.

To quote the Southern Alliance: "It is hardly surprising then that residential customers in Tennessee consumed nearly 25% more electricity per month in 2020 than the national average — second highest in the country."

Lyash says reducing the energy burden "over time is a priority for us."

Make it a priority now — along with protecting the environment and fighting climate change.

TVA has an obligation.