Environmental groups blasted a rate increase for electricity from the Tennessee Valley Authority, (TVA) Thursday.
The TVA board approved a 5.25 percent rate hike during its meeting Thursday in Florence, Alabama. The move is expected to raise nearly $500 million for TVA. The agency said the average residential bill in its coverage area last year was about $138. The new increase will translate to about an additional $4.35 each month.
“We recognize that people don’t pay rates, they pay bills, and that matters,” said Jeff Lyash, president and chief executive officer of TVA. “We know this is a kitchen table issue for many families across our region. At TVA, we don’t like price increases any more than you do, and that’s why we continually work to reduce expenses by hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
“We have done everything possible to absorb costs as we invest in the reliability of our existing plants, construct new generation to keep up with growth and maximize solar to produce more carbon-free energy,” Lyash added.
The increase came almost exactly one year after the TVA board approved a 4.5 percent rate increase. That increase was expected to add $3.50 to customers’ monthly bills and was needed to improve efficiency and add 30 percent of new power load to the grid, TVA said at the time.
However, the total 9.75 percent rate increase figure was by design, environmental groups said Thursday. If the agency raised rates by 10 percent in a five-year span, that would have triggered re-negotiations with local power suppliers, like Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW).
Knoxville-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) officials said they were frustrated by the lack of public information and input on the rate increase.
”Only in an Orwellian world of misinformation do we see our nation’s largest ’public’ power utility pass a massive rate increase while providing the public the least amount of information compared to ‘private’ utilities,” said SACE executive director Stephen Smith. “It’s highly unusual for a utility the size of TVA to issue a rate increase with zero independent review. This is a broken process, and every ratepayer in the Tennessee Valley is literally paying the price.”
SACE said it could “only guess” at what is driving “TVA’s current financial woes.” And it had a guess: “the largest buildout of fossil gas in the country in a decade,” pointing to new projects for fossil gas pipelines and power plants.
This also drew the ire of Gaby Sarri-Tobar, energy justice campaigner at the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity.
“It’s outrageous that TVA is raising rates again to pay for more dirty fossil-fuel plants and pipelines,” Sarri-Tobar said in a statement. “The country’s largest public utility is planning to build more methane gas capacity this decade than any other utility, defying its duty to be a clean-energy role model.
“By approving this rate hike, the TVA board is responsible for making life-saving power more unaffordable for millions of people, as our climate spins out of control.”
A 4 percent electric rate increase from MLGW began in January. It was the first of three annual increases to “fund continuing infrastructure improvements which will enhance the reliability and resiliency of the local electric grid.” Customers can expect their bills to — at least — increase each year for 2025 and 2026. It was not immediately clear how TVA’s new rate hike would impact MLGW’s scheduled increases.
Tennessee Valley Authority offices in Knoxville. (Photo: TVA)
More than 11 months since she was nominated to become the only Black member of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Board of Directors, Memphian Patrice Robinson is still waiting to take her seat. The nomination awaits approval from the Senate Environment and Public Works committee.
Robinson, a former Memphis City Council member, was nominated by President Joe Biden to the nine-member TVA board on September 11, 2023. She has yet to be confirmed. In fact, she has not even had a confirmation hearing, and it doesn’t look like one will be scheduled any time soon.
Patrice Robinson
“I am still waiting to be confirmed by the Senate. This has just not been a priority,” Robinson said. “It has been a little nerve-wracking, but I am not there yet.”
Currently, eight people are seated on the nine-member board. All are white. None are from West Tennessee.
A federally owned utility company, TVA supplies electricity to parts of seven states. It is the exclusive supplier of electricity to Memphis. As TVA’s single largest power customer, city-owned Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW) pays $1 billion a year for electricity. Yet the city has not had anyone on the TVA board since John Ryder, a Memphis attorney and former general counsel for the Republican National Committee, who died in May 2022, just months after leaving the board.
That is unacceptable, said state Rep. Justin J. Pearson.
“It is imperative that we get representation on the TVA board,” said Pearson (D-Memphis), a frequent critic of TVA. “We provide a significant amount of revenue for TVA. And we in Memphis have the greatest energy burden for any place in the country. We are spending a lot of our money on energy. Our voice is critically important.”
When contacted July 25 about the status of Robinson’s approval, a spokesperson for the the Senate Environment and Public Works committee offered a one-line email response: “The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has yet to schedule further consideration of Patrice Robinson’s nomination.”
Gridlock on Congressional confirmations is nothing new and not unique to Robinson’s appointment. On July 30 at a U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration hearing, an official with the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service urged Congress to streamline the process of approving presidential appointments, which she said hurts local communities and even threatens national security.
“The work required to select, nominate, and vote on presidential appointees is longer, more complicated, and more uncertain,” testified Jenny Mattingly of Partnership for Public Service in a written statement. “Many positions remain vacant for months or even years; some never will be filled.”
Previous appointments to the TVA board have also waited long periods before getting confirmed. Current board member Beth Geer of Brentwood, who works as the chief of staff for former vice president Al Gore, and two others, were first nominated in spring of 2021 but waited until December of 2022 to be approved.
Biden’s 2021 TVA board nominations included Kim Caudle Lewis, an African-American businesswoman from Huntsville, Alabama, but she withdrew to make an unsuccessful run for the Alabama state senate.
Robinson, 68, completed her two terms on the Memphis City Council in December, where she served as the council’s liaison to MLGW. She also spent 17 years as a supervisor with MLGW. The TVA board position became vacant in January with the retirement of former TVA board chairman Bill Kilbride of Chattanooga.
At the time of her nomination, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) praised Robinson as the ideal person to represent Memphis and West Tennessee on the TVA board.
“Patrice Robinson has a lifetime of experience in utility management and public service and is the ideal candidate for the TVA Board. I am happy to see a Memphian again appointed to the board,” Cohen said in a statement.
Robinson said she has talked to a representative of the Senate committee, but she is right now “in a holding pattern.”
Four of TVA’s current eight board members are from Tennessee. But none of those four live anywhere close to Memphis (Nashville, Brentwood, Chattanooga and Johnson City). The others are from Alabama, Mississippi, Virginia and Kentucky.
Scott Brooks, TVA representative, said TVA has no influence on who is nominated nor confirmed for its board. The board has met twice since January, being one member short for each of those meetings. The board meets again on August 22 in Florence, Alabama.
Memphis has had previous TVA board members in addition to Ryder. Cohen’s office reported that Robinson would follow in the footsteps of these Memphians who previously served on the TVA board: Ron Walter, V. Lynn Evans, and Bishop William Graves.
Pearson suggested that public pressure could help get Robinson’s nomination confirmed, as it has worked in the past when Congressional confirmations have been delayed. Pearson has been highly critical of TVA’s pursuit of fossil-fuel generating plants at the expense of green energy such as wind and solar power.
“It makes no sense that we have no representation on the TVA board,” Pearson said. “We need someone to help elevate our issues. And to speak out against the horrible direction that the TVA is going.”
Robinson declined to comment on whether Memphis and West Tennessee citizens should be concerned that such an important component of the area’s energy supply has no representation. She said she would prefer to focus on her credentials for the job.
“I do believe I would represent West Tennessee and our community well. I have a utility background and a political background, and I cannot think of a better candidate,” Robinson said.
Elon Musk. Photo by Trevor Cokley / Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Memphis environmental groups urged officials to deny an electricity deal for xAI, demanded a public review of the project, and said Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW) ratepayers could subsidize some large portions of the infrastructure deal.
Details on the deal that brought the Elon-Musk-founded company to locate its artificial intelligence hub — called the Gigafactory of Compute — to Memphis remain few, even almost two months after its announcement.
A Tuesday letter from the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) outlined those knowledge gaps, showed confusion and ignorance on the deal by local leaders, said the facility would cause environmental harm to those in South Memphis, and that MLGW CEO Doug McGowen may have overstepped the boundaries of his position in approving the deal.
The letter was written and sent by the SELC on behalf of the Memphis Community Against Pollution (MCAP), Young, Gifted & Green, Sierra Club Tennessee Chapter, and the Sierra Club Chickasaw Group. SELC said, “many of these members will be directly affected by xAI’s operation and its harmful local consequences.”
The letter was sent to the board of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). SELC said MLGW is requesting TVA to provide xAI 150 megawatts of power. In the letter, SELC argues TVA’s Memphis system is not reliable enough to handle that much new consumption. Also, it said, a deal for the much energy needs more local approvals.
The 150 megawatt demand is enough to power 100,000 homes.
Southern Environmental Law Center
“The xAI facility is demanding a jaw-dropping 150 MW of firm power by the end of 2024,” reads the letter. “To put that demand in perspective, 150 MW is enough electricity to power 100,000 homes. The xAI facility would become MLGW’s largest electricity customer, siphoning five percent of MLGW’s total daily load to power its operations.”
On reliability, the group said that TVA admitted in October that it did not have enough generating and transmission power in the area even before xAI cam knocking. Back then, TVA proposed a new natural-gas-powered generation project here. The project was necessary to “improve the stability of its transmission system in the western portion of Tennessee. In this area, additional resources are needed to ensure that adequate transmission voltages are maintained within the desired limits,” SELC said, citing TVA’s report.
“Overcommitting to industrial load, as MLGW and xAI have requested, could have serious and even life-threatening consequences for residential customers in Memphis.
Southern Environmental Law Center
“In other words, TVA had already identified a reliability concern in the Memphis-area grid, even before factoring in xAI’s load,” SELC said. “Overcommitting to industrial load, as MLGW and xAI have requested, could have serious and even life-threatening consequences for residential customers in Memphis, contrary to the purpose of the TVA Act and the board policy. When TVA cannot meet peak demand, families go without power during increasingly severe hot and cold weather.”
Further, TVA’s gas-powered plants here are cooled with water from the Memphis Sand Aquifer. Higher strains on those plants — like during winter-weather events here in 2022 and 2021 — caused a serious draw on the aquifer and threaten well fields ”that provide drinking water for predominantly Black, low-income South Memphis communities.”
For these reasons and more, the group urged TVA board members to study the impacts of xAI’s supercomputer before agreeing to serve the facility. That study should include impacts to air pollution, climate change, water quality, water quantity and access, environmental justice, and transportation, SELC said.
“It cannot reasonably be disputed that xAI will require TVA to generate additional electricity and add capacity to the system,” the letter said. “TVA must disclose how it proposes to provide power to xAI, analyze alternatives, and study of the same categories of impacts identified in [the proposal for the new gas plant here] before committing to provide power to xAI.”
SELC also argues that the request to serve xAI is premature “because MLGW has not obtained approval from the MLGW Board or [the Memphis City Council] to spend millions of dollars of ratepayer money to subsidize xAI.” MLGW leaders told council members earlier this month that it would pay for $760,000 worth of substation upgrades for the project. Also, the utility will provide xAI a “marginal allowance” to recoup some of the $24 million it will spent o build a new, $24 million substation, meaning a big break on the company’s power bill.
”Thus, according to MLGW’s presentation [to the council], it seems that over the next few years, ordinary MLGW ratepayers will be subsidizing millions of dollars in infrastructure investments required to serve xAI, both directly and through bill credits to xAI,” the letter said.
Despite this “apparent massive commitment of ratepayer funds to subsidize xAI’s infrastructure needs,” neither the council nor the MLGW board was aware of the xAI project until it was announced on June 5,” SELC said.
Further, the group said MLGW board members weren’t even aware of MLGW’s request to serve xAI with more power from the TVA as late as two weeks ago. For proof, SELC cited an MLGW board meeting on July 17 in which MLGW board member Mitch Graves said, “On the xAI stuff…I wasn’t aware…that TVA’s got to approve something… hadn’t heard that anywhere…what is that they need to approve?”
“On the xAI stuff…I wasn’t aware…that TVA’s got to approve something… hadn’t heard that anywhere…what is that they need to approve?”
SELC citing MLGW board member Mitch Graves
SELC said McGowen negotiated this deal with xAI without oversight from his board or the city council. Doing so, the group said, is a violation of the charters of the council and the board.
”Proper review by the MLGW board and city council is essential because MLGW faces significant operational constraints that directly affect the Memphis coalition’s members’ access to electricity,” the letter said. ”MLGW must give the MLGW board and city council their charter-given right to evaluate whether it is in the best interest of MLGW ratepayers to subsidize millions of dollars of infrastructure investment in xAI over the next two years, while at the same time struggling to keep the lights on and provide accurate billing statements to residential customers.
”The TVA board should not consider the pending request until MLGW obtains required local approvals.”
Climate problems are starting to find solutions, from solar panels at the Memphis Zoo to state officials readying for potential millions of federal dollars to reduce air pollution.
Memphis:
Zoo officials announced last week it would soon install solar panels on building rooftops, thanks to a $676,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. Memphis Mayor Paul Young said the panels will be the first-ever solar panels installed on any building owned by the city of Memphis.
The grant will also expand community outreach at the zoo and clean energy education programs. A portion of the grant will fund a waste characterization study and regional solid waste master plan for Memphis and Shelby County. Those programs will be run by city and county officials.
These programs further the Memphis Area Climate Action Plan. That plan aims to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emission levels here by 71 percent by 2050. The latest figures from 2020 show the plan is mostly on track. It met GHG reduction targets in the transportation and waste sectors, but missed the mark on energy.
Tennessee:
State officials are working to deliver part of Tennessee’s emissions-reduction plan to the feds by March. That’s the deadline for government agencies to get in line for $5 billion in federal grants to develop and implement “ambitious” plans for reducing GHGs, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The funds come from the Inflation Reduction Act.
Tennessee’s plan is called the Tennessee Volunteer Emission Reduction Strategy (TVERS). It is truly a “volunteer” program.
”While other states have imposed mandates to reduce emissions, we hope to reach established goals through voluntary measures that may differ throughout the state,” reads the TVERS website.
TVERS will be the state’s first-ever climate plan. Memphis has one, as noted above. So does Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga.
Late last year, the state took public opinion on taking action on climate change. The vast majority (75 percent) said they were motivated to act out of concern for the environment and future generations. The biggest challenge for them to act, though, was the high cost of efficient or sustainable alternatives.
Credit: state of Tennessee
To be eligible to get the federal funds, states had to identify low-income communities. State officials found that 54 percent of its census tracts were considered to be low-income/disadvantaged communities (LIDACs) by federal standards. Those applying for the funds must show their projects will bring significant benefits to these communities.
Tennessee Valley
Last month, a new study from the University of Tennessee (UT) found that carbon emissions throughout the Tennessee Valley fell 30 percent since 2005, a decrease of abut 78 million tonnes. The report said half of the decrease was attributable to a 50 percent reduction in emissions from Tennessee Valley Authority’s electricity generation. Another large chunk of the decrease (39 percent) came from agriculture, thanks to the adoption of no-till farming.
The Tennessee Valley region, which covers parts of seven southeastern states, emits about 200 million tonnes of carbon each year, about 3 percent of the nation’s total. Of that, the state said in 2019 it emitted about 112 million tonnes. The Memphis-area emitted about 17 million tonnes.
In Tennessee and the Tennessee Valley, transportation emitted the most GHGs. The UT report said electrifying light-duty vehicles was the single largest carbon reduction opportunity for the Valley. In Memphis, the top carbon emitter came from the energy sector.
Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW) has now formally asked customers to voluntarily reduce their electricity usage during the ongoing winter weather event.
The utility began suggesting the reductions almost from the beginning of the event, which brought subfreezing temperatures and several inches of snow across the MLGW service area on Sunday. MLGW and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) issued an “energy conservation alert” that began at 1 p.m. Tuesday.
It’s hoped that the voluntary reductions will help prevent brownouts and blackouts and help the utility “avoid more dramatic actions.”
TVA said its “generating plants and transmission system are performing well.” But it seems to be preparing customers for what’s to come. “As the snow and bitterly cold temperatures move through the Valley, we could set an all-time record for power demand Wednesday morning,” TVA said on X Monday.
Our dedicated employees and contractors are working around the clock to provide reliable power to our region during this extreme cold weather. Our generating plants and transmission system are performing well. As the snow and bitterly cold temperatures move through the Valley,… pic.twitter.com/tU7NEvDorA
Here are MLGW’s tips for fast energy reduction that will make the biggest immediate impact:
• If you are drying clothes, turn the machine off and let the items continue air drying. The clothes dryer is a huge energy hog.
• Set your thermostat to 68 degrees or lower to avoid unnecessary operation of the blower on your furnace or electric heat pump.
• Unplug electric vehicles.
• Turn off all electric space heaters.
• Turn off all interior lights during the day and keep on only enough light at night to feel safe. Don’t forget indoor and outdoor holiday lights, as well as your outside porch light.
• Do not run the clothes washing machine or the dishwasher, and if possible do not use the electric range or electric oven for cooking during the conservation alert.
• Do not use blow dryers, toasters, or other high consumption appliances that use electric resistance as their heat source.
• Keep the refrigerator and freezer on, but keep the doors closed. Every time the door is opened the inside warms up a bit and energy is needed to bring the temperature back down.
• Turn off and unplug everything that isn’t in use and turn off electric power strips.
Environmental groups immediately blasted plans by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to build new electric power generators that run on fossil fuels, saying the move will bring higher electric bills and more pollution.
TVA filed its plans Wednesday, which are to be published in the Federal Register on Thursday. The federal agency said it wants to build six new aeroderivative combustion turbine (CT) units at the Allen Combustion Turbine (ACT) site.
That site sits close to the now-closed Allen Fossil Plant, which used coal to make electricity. The ACT site should not be confused with the new-ish Allen Combined Cycle Plant, which uses natural gas to make power and is the main source of the city’s electricity.
The Allen Combustion Turbine facility houses 20 turbine units that use a mix of diesel and natural gas to produce energy. These smaller turbines run “rarely,” according to a TVA spokesperson, and “are designed to only be used when peak demand requires.”
However, 16 of those units failed to start during December’s Winter Storm Elliott. This cut TVA’s overall power generation here by 240 megawatts. Those 16 units ceased operations completely and now only two units at the facility are operable, providing a total of 120 megawatts of power at the site.
TVA said Wednesday it hopes to build six of them to generate a total of 200 megawatts. This will “help meet the growing system demand,” the utility said. It will also help “facilitate the integration of renewable generation onto the TVA bulk transmission system.” This means the new turbines would offer backup power to stabilize the TVA grid should renewable sources of energy fail or simply not produce enough power.
“For instance, cloud patterns that temporarily block the sun and reduce solar generation require other generating units to respond to continue to reliably supply power to customers,” reads the TVA document. “Aeroderivative CTs are inherently well-suited to provide flexibility, enabling the remainder of the system to better integrate renewables.”
Construction would take about a year, TVA said. If approved, it would begin sometime in 2025 or 2026.
Environmental groups quickly criticized the move. As it would use fossil fuels, they called it “dirty gas” and said the plan was “the federal utility’s latest move in its multi-billion-dollar gas spending spree, which is the largest fossil fuel buildout in the country.” Further, the new turbines “will lead to higher monthly power bills, reduce grid reliability, and worsen the impacts of the climate crisis.”
”Enough is enough,” KeShaun Pearson, president of Memphis Community Against Pollution said in a statement. “Memphis families shouldn’t be forced to foot the bill for TVA’s fossil fuel spending spree. The utility should instead invest in cheaper energy options, like solar power and energy efficiency programs that meet our energy needs while lowering monthly bills.”
Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) Senior Attorney Amanda Garcia said TVA “is once again plowing ahead with plans to build expensive, unreliable, and outdated fossil fuel infrastructure.”
“Families across the Tennessee Valley already felt the impacts of the federal utility’s obsession with fossil fuels when TVA’s coal and gas plants failed during last year’s winter storm, causing rolling blackouts throughout the region,” Garcia said in a statement. “Instead of putting all its eggs in the fossil fuel basket, TVA should invest in more diverse sources of energy — including renewables and energy efficiency — which can lower power bills while creating a more reliable grid.”
A Sierra Club report issued Tuesday showed TVA has plans to build more gas-powered energy sources than any other utility in the nation, said Amy Kelly, the Field Organizing Strategist for organization.
“Memphis should not have to endure even more pollution and higher electric bills because of TVA’s refusal to seriously incorporate energy efficiency and renewable energy in its planning, planning that is largely hidden from public view,” Kelly said.
The public will have 30 days to weigh in on TVA’s new plan, after it is published Thursday. The agency will also host an in-person, public open-house meeting. Click here for more information on that meeting.
TVA president and CEO Jeff Lyash. (Credit: Toby Sells)
A bipartisan bill filed Tuesday would require the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to make salary information public for employees who make some of its largest paychecks.
U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) and U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Knoxville) introduced the measure that would make public salaries for TVA employees who make more than $109,908, or the maximum basic pay rate for many of the federal government’s top-level positions.
Lyash refused to give salary specifics last month in a hearing before a House committee. In it, Cohen said he has requested that salary information in the past and never received it. He wanted to know why.
Lyash said part of the TVA Act once required those salaries be listed in a report to Congress and the White House. However, that requirement was changed with a 1995 federal law and TVA was asked to stop filing the report. Now, Lyash said his agency is only required to give detailed salary information to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
“That’s not the people that created the TVA,” Cohen said. “That’s not what the TVA Act requires, and that’s just not right, Jeff. It’s not right. You’re part of the government. You’re created by the United States government. You’re part of it.
“Salary should be transparent. And when people are making over $1 billion, the public ought to know who they are and what they’re doing.”
With that, Cohen’s speaking time in the hearing had expired. However, his line of comment was picked up by U.S. Rep. Garrett Graves (R-South Louisiana).
“Your position is unsustainable, if you’re not going to give him the information he’s asking for” Graves said to Lyash. “You’re a government entity. You need to provide him the information.
“Just to give you a little counsel there, I’d strongly urge you to do it. Otherwise, you’re going to be compelled to do it and you can either cooperate or it’s going get a little ugly. I’d urge you to comply with his request.”
Burchett struck an optimistic note in a news release about the new TVA bill.
“I have seen the TVA improve its transparency in recent years, and I want to make sure that continues,” Burchett said in a news release. “This bill will help Congress keep TVA accountable for how it pays its employees, which is an important part of preserving its public trust.”
The new bill is not the first time the two Tennessee lawmakers worked together on pay at TVA. Last year, they introduced another bill that would likely lower the pay of TVA’s CEO, Jeff Lyash. The bill would have reduced his pay to a level comparable with those of CEOs at other public utilities.
Lyash is the highest-paid federal employee, making up to nearly $10 million annually after benefits and bonuses. In 2020, then-President Donald Trump called Lyash’s pay “ridiculous” and threatened (but failed) to cut that pay “by a lot.”
Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW) rejected Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) 20-year rolling contract Wednesday morning but will continue to be a TVA customer “for the foreseeable future.”
MLGW began evaluating its nearly 80-year relationship with TVA in 2018. The local utility company is TVA’s largest customer. Others (including Siemens) claimed MLGW could save between $130 million-$450 million each year if it left TVA.
MLGW is not leaving TVA, however. It will remain with TVA “for the foreseeable future,” according to an MLGW statement issued after the board’s decision Wednesday morning. But it can more freely keep its options to other power suppliers open after voting down the contract.
The board members ultimately rejected TVA’s now-standard, 20-year rolling contract, which most of its other local power companies have signed, based mostly on the length of the term. Board chairman Mitch Graves said, simply, the 20-year deal was “too long of an agreement.”
TVA accentuated the positives of the move Wednesday, highlighting the fact that MLGW will remain with them for now. TVA said the decision “is a reinforcement of the longstanding relationship with TVA in delivering affordable, reliable, and clean energy to the people and communities across Memphis and Shelby County.”
“We are proud of our partnership with MLGW, and we are excited to move forward,” TVA Chief External Relations Officer Jeannette Mills said in a statement. “We believe the people of Memphis and Shelby County deserve a partner that cares about serving their needs and addressing real issues like energy burden and revitalization of the city’s core communities. Our continued partnership with MLGW provides the best option for making this happen.”
Other groups, like the Southern Environmental Law Center, saw the decision a little differently.
“Big news out of Memphis as the city’s utility rejects a restrictive, never-ending power supply contract with TVA, looking for more renewable energy sources and lower bills for residents,” the group tweeted after the meeting.
Protect Our Aquifer tweeted this on Tuesday ahead of the board meeting:
TOMORROW MLGW Board is expected to vote on TVA's never-ending contract. If you would like to speak at the comment period before the vote, you can sign up on our website. (Action link: https://t.co/Jj0aKxDfhx) pic.twitter.com/3wifTwljBv
The group said it was at the hearing Wednesday to speak against the contract.
Memphis Community Against the Pipeline (MCAP) called the move “another win for the people.”
Another win for the People! Thanks for submitting your public comments, sharing our posts to inform others, and supporting the Movement. #betterdeal901pic.twitter.com/dU07bvuWHl
— Memphis Community Against the Pipeline (@MemphisCAP_org) December 7, 2022
(Credit: Ford I 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning Platinum)
Tennessee will further ingrain itself in the Battery Belt and help develop a Southeast Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (H2Hubs) thanks to federal investments in clean energy.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) will fund two major initiatives here to push battery manufacturing for electric cars and more and make hydrogen power more accessible for consumers and businesses.
Tennessee is already well established in the emerging Battery Belt, areas in the South and Midwest expected to get economic jolts from producing power cells for electric cars, homes, and power grids. Ford’s Blue Oval City will house onsite battery maker SK On to make the lithium-ion battery cells for Ford’s F-150 Lightning trucks. GM and LG Energy will build batteries in Spring Hill. Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant began assembling its all-electric ID.4 in July.
The IIJA contains $2.8 billion to support new and expanded facilities to process the raw materials (like lithium and graphite) for battery production. The bill also supports facilities to build battery components and find ways to recycle battery components.
“Producing advanced batteries and components here at home will accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels to meet the strong demand for electric vehicles, creating more good-paying jobs across the country,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said when the funds were announced in October.
Three Tennessee firms were awarded more than a collective $491 million from the government with private investment valued at a total of over $1.6 billion. Microvast, Novonix Anode Materials, and Piedmont Lithium — all in Middle or East Tennessee — won federal investment.
The funds were awarded as President Joe Biden launched his American Battery Material Initiative. It aims to accelerate the development of the country’s battery supply chain.
The Tennessee Valley Authority announced Thursday it joined with other Southeastern utilities to respond to the federal government’s $8 billion effort to develop H2Hubs.
“Clean hydrogen hubs will create networks of hydrogen producers, consumers, and local connective infrastructure to accelerate the use of hydrogen as a clean energy carrier that can deliver or store tremendous amounts of energy,” reads a statement from the U.S. Department of Energy about the program.
In 2003, then-President George W. Bush touted the future of the “hydrogen economy.” Some environmentalists claim the speech was a greenwashing dodge to avoid tightening fuel economy standards. The tech — hydrogen fuel cells — existed but the national infrastructure to deliver power for them did not. Not a finger, it seemed, was lifted in the country to forge Bush’s hydrogen economy.
California is, really, the only state with anything resembling real hydrogen infrastructure, with 62 retail hydrogen refueling stations open. The state has $10 billion in funding available to grow its hydrogen economy and plans, also, to compete for one of the federal H2Hub grants.
Making hydrogen often (but not always) includes the use of fossil fuels, most commonly natural gas. However, when consumed in a fuel cell, hydrogen produces only water. This makes it attractive to utilities and others with de-carbonization goals.
“Hydrogen will be crucial for accelerating the transition to clean power so we can meet the demand for low-carbon energy throughout our region and across the country,” Dr. Joe Hoagland, vice president, TVA Innovation & Research said in a statement.
TVA’s H2Hub coalition includes Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Louisville Gas & Electric Company and Kentucky Utilities Company (LG&E and KU), and Southern Company, along with science and tech consultants Battelle.
TVA’s coal ash dumps at the now-defunct Allen Fossil Plant rank as the 10th worst contaminated sites in the country in a report released earlier this month that examined groundwater monitoring data from coal-fired plant operators, including TVA.
TVA’s own monitoring data shows its Memphis dumps are leaking arsenic at levels nearly 300 times safe drinking water limits. Unsafe levels of boron, lead and molybdenum are also being recorded there.
The report, prepared and published by the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice, shows that coal ash dumps at every TVA coal-fired facility across Tennessee are leaking dangerous contaminants at unsafe levels, including arsenic, cobalt, lithium, molybedenum, boron, lead and sulfate, into groundwater.
Coal plant owners are ignoring the law and avoiding cleanup because they don’t want to pay for it.
– Lisa Evans, senior ttorney at Earthjustice
TVA, the nation’s largest public power company, was ordered in 2015 to investigate the extent of contamination caused by its coal ash dumps, come up with a plan to clean up its coal ash pollution and decide what to do with the dumps to prevent future contamination.
But the utility still hasn’t completed its investigation at all its Tennessee plants or announced final plans for the millions of tons of coal ash — the byproduct from burning coal to produce electricity — TVA has stashed away in unlined, leaky dirt pits across the state.
The utility is not alone in dallying to comply with the 2015 directive, known as the Environmental Protection Agency’s “coal ash rule,” according to the new report — Poisonous Coverup: The Widespread Failure of the Power Industry to Clean Up Coal Ash Dumps.
“Seven years after the EPA imposed the first federal rules requiring the cleanup of coal ash waste dumps, only about half of the power plants that are contaminating groundwater agree that cleanup is necessary, and 96 percent of these power plants are not proposing any groundwater treatment,” the report stated.
Report: Ongoing contamination in Memphis
According to the report, 91 percent of the 292 coal ash dump sites in the nation are leaking dangerous toxins, heavy metals and radioactive material into groundwater at dangerous levels, “often threatening streams, rivers and drinking water aquifers.”
“In every state where coal is burned, power companies are violating federal health protections,” said Lisa Evans, Senior Attorney at Earthjustice. “Coal plant owners are ignoring the law and avoiding cleanup because they don’t want to pay for it.”
TVA officials responded to the report’s claims in a statement:
“It’s important to note that the Earthjustice report is a flawed document. For example, it does not account for state regulations of coal ash sites that either complement the federal coal ash rule or serve the purpose of applying additional, more stringent oversight over coal ash sites.
“This is the case in Tennessee where TVA is under a commissioner’s order to conduct a thorough environmental study of the sites to help determine the closure method.
“According to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC), Tennessee is the only state in the nation that has all coal-fired power plants under orders to complete investigation and remediation. Tennessee is the only state in the nation to require an electric utility to conduct an environmental investigation and remediation of coal ash disposal locations that include both active permitted coal ash disposal areas, as well as historical coal ash disposal areas.
“TVA is an industry leader in the safe, secure management of coal ash, implementing best practices years before they were required by the 2015 federal coal ash rule and pioneering new technology to ensure our coal ash sites are safe. For example, six years before the federal coal ash rule was enacted, TVA committed to eliminating wet handling of coal ash at all our facilities. The conversion from wet to dry handling is completed.
“TVA’s robust network of more than 450 groundwater monitoring wells ensures the protection of water resources and the environment. Where groundwater monitoring results indicate corrective action is necessary, TVA is following the corrective action process outlined in the federal coal ash rule and applicable state rules.
“Decisions regarding the closure and long-term storage and management of coal ash sites are based on the unique characteristics of each site. In Tennessee, TVA is under a commissioner’s order to conduct a thorough environmental study of the sites to help determine the closure method. Kentucky and Alabama regulators are similarly exercising their oversight through their state regulations. TVA, with oversight from its regulators, will continue to use science, data, and analysis to inform those decisions and each site will be closed in an environmentally safe manner,” concluded the statement.
The coal ash dumps at TVA’s plant in Memphis had been leaking levels of arsenic as high as 300 times safe drinking water standards for years before the utility publicly acknowledged the contamination in 2017.
“It’s important to note that the Earthjustice report is a flawed document. For example, it does not account for state regulations of coal ash sites that either complement the federal coal ash rule or serve the purpose of applying additional, more stringent oversight over coal ash sites.” — Statement from TVA in response to Earthjustice report.
TVA shut down the Allen plant in 2018 and later announced it would remove 4 million tons of coal ash from leaky dirt pits there and haul it to an above-ground landfill in a black residential neighborhood in south Memphis.
The EIP and Earthjustice report says TVA isn’t doing enough to prevent future contamination at the Allen site. According to the report, TVA “has not posted groundwater monitoring data or otherwise implemented the coal ash rule” at one of the dumps at the Allen plant because the utility “believes the pond is exempt from” the rule.
Aerial of the TVA plant in Kingston Tennessee, on the Clinch River. An ash dam spill on December 22 2008 resulted in a major environmental issue for the area. (Photo: Karen Kasmauski for Getty Images)
“We know that TVA has monitored the groundwater pursuant to state law, and that the data show ongoing contamination with high concentrations of boron, molybdenum, and other pollutants,” the report stated.
“TVA should use these data to immediately confirm exceedances in both detection and assessment monitoring and proceed through the coal ash rule’s corrective action process,” the report continued.
Residents in south Memphis have complained that TVA intentionally targeted a Black community when choosing a landfill site and did not allow them a say in its decision.
Dangerous contaminants at unsafe levels
TVA is not required to monitor groundwater contamination for many of the 26 dangerous ingredients in coal ash, so data on the levels of deadly constituents including radium are not publicly available. But of the handful of contaminants TVA is required to track under the coal ash rule, the utility’s Tennessee coal ash dumps are leaking unsafe levels of most of them, the report stated.
TVA’s coal ash dumps at its Gallatin Fossil Plant are polluting groundwater with lithium at 41 times safe limits as well as dangerous levels of arsenic, boron, cobalt and molybdenum. Dumps at that Middle Tennessee plant rank 80th on the list of 292 worst contaminated sites.
Dumps at TVA’s Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County — the site of the nation’s largest coal ash waste spill in 2008 and the impetus behind the enactment of the federal coal ash rule — are leaking arsenic at levels 16 times higher than safe drinking water limits, the report stated. Dumps there are also leaking cobalt at levels 20 times safe standards, lithium at 10 times safe standards and molybdenum at five times safe standards. Kingston ranks 82nd on the list of worst contaminated sites.
Coal ash dumps at TVA’s Bull Run Fossil Plant in Anderson County are contaminating groundwater with lithium at a rate of 13 times the safe standard, arsenic at a rate of seven times the safe standard, boron at nine times the safe standard and molybdenum at five times the safe standard, according to the report. Bull Run’s dumps rank 101 on the list.
The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Cumberland Fossil Plant. (Photo: Courtesy of TVA)
TVA’s coal ash dumps at its Cumberland Fossil Plant in Stewart County, Tenn., rank 115th on the list, leaking boron at 22 times safe levels, as well as unsafe levels of arsenic, cobalt, lithium and molybdenum, the report showed.
Dumps at TVA’s Johnsonville Fossil Plant in Humphreys County, Tenn., are leaking cobalt at nine times safe levels and boron at four times safe levels, according to the report. Coal ash pits at its long-shuttered John Sevier plant in Hawkins County, Tenn., are leaking lithium at unsafe levels, the report stated.
Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and Twitter.
