Cumberland Fossil Plant in Stewart County will close in 2028. The utility’s other remaining coal fired plants, Gallatin Fossil Plant, Kingston Fossil Plant and Shawnee Fossil Plant will all close before 2035.
TVA is the largest public provider of electricity in the United States. It supplies wholesale power to every major municipal provider in Tennessee, as well as other metropolitan areas and smaller utility districts and cooperatives within its seven-state service area.
TVA stated it gave Bull Run Fossil Plant workers a choice to work at other TVA facilities, retire, or continue working at Bull Run Fossil Plant to help it transition toward closing.
If not coal then what?
“To ensure reliability, we will not retire a plant without replacement generation in place,” TVA states on its official website.
The utility lists natural gas plants as one such replacement. It’s said that switching to gas will reduce sulfur dioxide by nearly 100 percent, reduce nitrogen oxide by more than 90 percent and reduce carbon by more than 60 percent. Other methods TVA listed to replace coal include increased nuclear capacity, renewable energy and energy efficiency programs.
Environmentalists have criticized the focus on new natural gas plants, noting that TVA’s reports ignore upstream methane leakage, which makes methane worse than coal.
“Natural gas does pollute less than coal, but that’s a low bar,” Chelsea Bowling, staff attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center said at a meeting regarding the Kingston Fossil Plant.
“I urge TVA when seriously considering energy infrastructure to not waste more time and money with outdated natural gas projects. These projects do not serve as a bridge. What they do is tie us up for years, even decades, on unsustainable natural gas,” The Sierra Club’s Dana Moran said.