Ricky Junquera, ricky.junquera@sierraclub.org
Knoxville, TN – Today, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) released a draft Environmental Impact Statement for the retirement and replacement of the 2,470 megawatts Cumberland coal-fired power plant located northwest of Nashville. Cumberland is one of the nation’s largest and most polluting coal plants, releasing over 8 million tons of carbon pollution into the air each year.
“Today’s proposal is yet another indication that TVA is ready to move beyond coal, but might get stuck in the past with gas,” said Amy Kelly, Campaign Representative for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign in Tennessee. “One less coal plant in the Tennessee Valley means cleaner air, safer water, and progress toward reducing climate-disrupting emissions, but replacing coal with another fossil fuel gas plant makes no economic and environmental sense. In the environmental study released today, TVA is favoring new methane gas plants and pipelines instead of affordable and reliable clean power. If TVA continues on this path, it would commit our electric grid to yet another fossil fuel when price increases are out of control. That is the opposite of reliable, affordable electricity.”
A recent Sierra Club analysis demonstrates that if TVA chooses to build new methane gas plants and pipelines, they would be obsolete in just 10 years due to TVA’s own carbon reduction commitments, leaving TVA ratepayers stuck paying the bill for plants that can’t be used. Instead, with a clean energy resource mix, prices are lower for customers. TVA’s current energy portfolio is 45% fossil-fueled and only 3% solar and wind.
JoAnn McIntosh, a Sierra Club volunteer based in Clarksville added, “Replacing the Cumberland coal plant with gas is a move back to a time when there weren’t better options available. Renewable energy and storage can now provide that replacement power as reliably and more economically than gas, and without the environmental impacts that are making our world increasingly less habitable for us and our children.”
TVA will host three meetings that will be open to the public in May. The federal utility is accepting comments on the draft EIS until June 13, 2022.
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.