Widows Creek Fossil Plant

{{#badges: Climate change |CoalSwarm}} Widows Creek Fossil Plant is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and is located on Guntersville Reservoir on the Tennessee River in northeast Alabama.

The power station has eight coal-fired generating units and "net dependable generating capacity" of approximately 1,629 megawatts. Construction of the power station commenced in 1950 and was commissioned in 1965. According to the TVA the "plant consumes about 10,000 tons of coal a day."

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August 2009: TVA considering shutting down some aging coal plants

In August 2009, CEO Tom D. Kilgore announced that TVA was studying the possibility of closing its John Sevier Fossil Plant in Tennessee and the oldest six units at Widows Creek. A federal judge has ordered TVA to install pollution equipment on the plants by the end of 2013, at an estimated cost of more than $1 billion. However, the company has not yet budgeted any money for the improvements. In 2010 TVA is planning to begin building an $820 million gas-powered plant to replace the generation at its John Servier Plant. The agency has already reduced power production from the oldest six units at Widows Creek. Environmental groups want TVA to shut down or convert to cleaner fuels the oldest and least efficient of its coal plants, including Widows Creek, John Sevier, and Johnsonville plants.

August 2010: TVA Announces Plans to Retire Widows Creek Units 1-6

On August 24, 2010 TVA announced that it will retire 9 coal-fired generating units totalling about 1,000 megawatts of capacity at three locations beginning in fiscal year 2011: Shawnee Fossil Plant Unit 10 in Kentucky, John Sevier Fossil Plant Units 1 and 2 in Tennessee, and Widows Creek Fossil Plant Units 1-6 in Alabama, including six units at the Widows Creek Fossil Plant. In addition TVA stated that it will going to eliminate 200 jobs at these plants starting in 2011, but the workers will be placed in other positions within TVA. CEO Tom D. Kilgore said that TVA would replace the sidelined coal power with greater reliance on nuclear power and energy efficiency.

Plant Data

• Owner/Parent Company: Tennessee Valley Authority
• Plant Nameplate Capacity: 1,969 MW
• Units and In-Service Dates: 141 MW (1952), 141 MW (1952), 141 MW (1952), 141 MW (1953), 141 MW (1954), 141 MW (1954), 575 MW (1961), 550 MW (1965)
• Location: County Road 96, Stevenson, AL 35772
• GPS Coordinates: 34.891361, -85.750778
• Coal Consumption:
• Coal Source:
• Number of Employees:

Emissions Data

• 2006 CO₂ Emissions: 10,793,074 tons
• 2006 SO₂ Emissions: 33,507 tons
• 2006 SO₂ Emissions per MWh:
• 2006 NO_x Emissions: 17,184 tons
• 2005 Mercury Emissions: 270 lb.

Widows Creek ranked 20th on list of most polluting power plants in terms of coal waste

In January 2009, Sue Sturgis of the Institute of Southern Studies compiled a list of the 100 most polluting coal plants in the United States in terms of coal combustion waste (CCW) stored in surface impoundments like the one involved in the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant coal ash spill. The data came from the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) for 2006, the most recent year available.

Widows Creek Fossil Plant ranked number 20 on the list, with 1,864,177 pounds of coal combustion waste released to surface impoundments in 2006.

"High Hazard" Surface Impoundment

In July 2009, TVA reclassified the surface impoundment at Widow's Creek as having High Hazard Potential. The rating applies to sites at which a dam failure would most likely cause loss of human life, but does not assess of the likelihood of such an event. TVA had originally ranked all of its sites as "low" risk, but revised those rankings two weeks after the EPA released its list of 44 "high hazard" coal ash dumps.

Articles and Resources

Sources

• Existing Electric Generating Units in the United States, 2005, Energy Information Administration, accessed Jan. 2009.
• Environmental Integrity Project, "Dirty Kilowatts: America’s Most Polluting Power Plants", July 2007.
• Facility Registry System, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, accessed Jan. 2009.

Related SourceWatch Articles

• Existing U.S. Coal Plants
• Alabama and coal
• Tennessee Valley Authority
• United States and coal
• Global warming

External Articles

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