Environmental groups allege they’re being iced out of meaningful participation during Tennessee Valley Authority’s quarterly Board of Directors meetings as they call TVA’s aspiration for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 painfully drawn out.
The federal agency has not held a meeting with live public input since February 2020. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, it held regular listening sessions a day prior to board meetings, giving residents a chance to speak directly to the board.
The Tennessee Valley Energy Democracy Movement (TVEDM), a grassroots organization, held a “Take Back TVA” rally outside of the agency’s Knoxville, Tenn., headquarters the same day as its Aug. 18 board meeting. The event also involved Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), Appalachian Voices, Center for Biological Diversity, and Sunrise Movement, a climate activist group.
The groups said their list of demands include a 100% clean energy goal by 2030, a commitment to retire all remaining coal plants and not build new fossil plants, protection of communities and workers facing exposure to coal ash, and good-paying union jobs during the clean energy transition. They’ve also demanded TVA restore public listening sessions.
TVA Board Chair John Ryder said the agency was holding the board meeting without a live audience to follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s protocols.
“I have to confess I have a great deal of disappointment over that,” he said, urging residents to get vaccinated. “The TVA board misses the opportunity to hear directly from the public.”
Ryder said that although all board members are vaccinated, they continue to sit six feet apart during meetings.
Ombudsman Wilson Taylor said TVA was eager to begin in-person listening sessions as soon as the pandemic eases. In the meantime, he urged stakeholders to reach out to him with input. TVA accepts written comments ahead of board meetings, and Ryder assured a virtual, muted audience that directors read the submissions.
But the groups say TVA’s explanations for abandoning all live public input are flimsy.
“Legislative bodies and agencies across the country have adopted virtual participation and public comment sessions in response to COVID-19, but TVA still hasn’t opened the door to public participation — even virtually — during its board meetings,” TVEDM countered in a press release.
Maggie Shober, SACE’s director of utility reform, said barring the public means the TVA board doesn’t have to hear from widows or ailing workers affected by the 2008 Kingston Fossil Plant coal-ash disaster.
“It’s a different thing to read comments at a meeting,” Shober told RTO Insider. “The idea that COVID [means] that they can’t listen to the public at all is ridiculous.”
Shober said SACE and TVEDM have held their own public listening sessions on Zoom with 100 speakers and attendees.
“We’re going to keep up the pressure. This is the beginning,” Shober said. “We’re not giving up.”
Decarbonization Calls
TVA is targeting an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2035 before reaching a net-zero carbon goal by 2050. The agency’s goal falls short of the Biden administration’s aim to decarbonize the nation’s electric grid by 2035.
By 2038, TVA still plans to emit more than 34 million tons of carbon dioxide on an annual basis, according to its latest 20-year integrated resource plan. It has shrunk carbon emissions 63% from 2005 levels.
SACE criticized the decarbonization timeline as too sluggish. It has said TVA’s plans for new fossil fuel plants makes meeting its 2050 decarbonization target improbable.
“While a step in the right direction, being coal-free is not equivalent to being carbon-free,” the group wrote in a May press release. “Without announcing formal resource plans that greatly increase utilization of clean energy like solar, energy efficiency, and battery storage that can be analyzed through an integrated resource planning [IRP] process, there is no guarantee TVA will reach net-zero emissions even by 2050.”
TVA CEO Jeff Lyash has said decarbonization will require license extensions at its three nuclear plants, adding small modular reactors, and making considerable investments in energy storage and carbon capture and sequestration. The agency has said it won’t extend the life of any of its coal units but only has one planned retirement: the 865-MW Bull Run Fossil Plant, which dates back to the ‘60s, by December 2023. Lyash has indicated TVA will retire its five remaining coal-fired plants by 2035. (See TVA May Retire All Coal by 2035.)
Most of TVA’s coal units began operations between 1951 and 1973. A decade ago, the federal corporation operated 11 coal plants. TVA is moving ahead with plans to build and energize by 2023 1,500 MW of natural gas capacity. It could add up to 17 GW in natural gas generation additions over the next 20 years, according to its latest IRP.
Shober said TVA’s plans to build up to three large gas plants to replace its retiring coal generation could saddle it with significant stranded costs.
“Planning to build gas plants after 2025, in 2028, 2030, is just not in line with what the Biden administration has planned,” she said.
The TVA board could look very different soon. President Biden in April nominated Beth Geer, chief of staff for former Vice President Al Gore; Robert Klein, vice president with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; Kimberly Lewis, first minority owner of North Alabama’s only locally owned broadcast television station; and Michelle Moore, who led President Obama’s sustainability team, to the TVA board, a move that stands to make the federal corporation more climate conscious.
“It is the reality that TVA is living in a Biden administration with a Trump board,” Shober said. “The big question is how long it takes them to come to that realization [that 2050 is too late for decarbonization]. Because every day, week and month is time we’re losing if we want to limit warming.”
Escalating Peaks
COO Don Moul told the board that TVA has contended with 30 GW summer peaks, its highest since 2012, during July and August. He credited the organization’s coal, nuclear, gas, and pumped storage fleets for reliably managing the record demand.
“TVA’s fleet is one of the most diverse in the nation,” Lyash said. “That diversity enables us to deploy the most cost-effective resources.”
Lyash also touted Watts Bar Nuclear Plant’s Unit 2 as the “first new nuclear generation of the 21st century.” He said nuclear, storage and solar generation additions will help TVA meet its decarbonization goal. The green investment initiative includes about 2,000 MW of solar power currently, with a plan to have 10 GW of solar capacity by 2035.
“We’re proud of these reductions, but we’re not satisfied,” Lyash told directors. “We have much to do.”
TVA’s board meeting featured a prerecorded message from Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon, who thanked TVA for its decarbonization efforts and solar development. She said Knoxville’s emissions goals wouldn’t be possible without TVA’s dedication to clean energy.
But Lyash said most importantly, TVA supplies cost-effective power.
“It doesn’t matter how reliable, resilient or clean you are if no one can afford it,” he said. He added that TVA’s wholesale rates are projected to remain flat over the next decade.
Shober said the clean or inexpensive energy choice is false dichotomy.
“We’ve heard this for years. It stopped being a relevant talking point years ago,” she said. “TVA needs to update their talking points.”
Clean energy is more cost effective, and gas prices are on the upswing, Shober said. She said increasing gas prices are especially concerning for TVA, which passes fuel costs directly to its customers.
