Shawnee Fossil Plant
{{#badges: CoalSwarm}} Shawnee Fossil Plant is a coal-fired power station owned and operated by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and is located about 10 miles northwest of Paducah, Kentucky, on the Ohio River.
Shawnee has nine active generating units with a summer net generating capacity of 1,206 megawatts. The plant's Unit 10 was idled in 2010 and retired in 2014.[1]
Contents
- 1 Background
- 2 Coal unit retirements
- 3 Plant Data
- 4 Emissions Data
- 5 Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from the Shawnee Fossil Plant
- 6 Shawnee ranked 60th on list of most polluting power plants in terms of coal waste
- 7 Coal Ash Waste and Water Contamination
- 8 Citizen groups
- 9 Articles and Resources
Background
In 2008 TVA stated that "the plant consumes some 12,350 tons of coal a day." Construction of the power station commenced in 1951 and was commissioned in 1957. According to the TVA the "plant consumes about 9,600 tons of coal a day."[2]
Coal unit retirements
On August 24, 2010 TVA announced that it will retire 9 coal-fired generating units totaling about 1,000 megawatts of capacity at three locations beginning in fiscal year 2011, including Shawnee Fossil Plant Unit 10 in Kentucky.[3] Shawnee Unit 10 was the nation's first commercial-scale atmospheric fluidized-bed combustion boiler.[4]
In May 2013, TVA said two units--Units 1 and 4--were being looked at for possible closure.[5]
In June 2013 the USEC enriched uranium plant in Paducah, KY, said it was shutting its doors and ending its longstanding power purchase contract with the TVA, due to declining demand for nuclear power and enriched uranium. TVA’s Shawnee coal plant has provided power to the USEC plant for 60 years, accounting for about 5% of TVA power sales. TVA will need to decide whether to retrofit the remaining eight units with new air pollution controls to comply with EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards regulations, or retire them.[5]
In December 2014 TVA said it had decided to install scrubbers on units 1 and 4, rather than retire them.[6]
Plant Data
- Owner/Parent Company: Tennessee Valley Authority
- Plant Nameplate Capacity: 1,750 MW
- Units and In-Service Dates: 175 MW (1953), 175 MW (1953), 175 MW (1953), 175 MW (1954), 175 MW (1954), 175 MW (1954), 175 MW (1954), 175 MW (1955), 175 MW (1955), 175 MW (1956)
- Location: 7900 Metropolis Lake Rd., West Paducah, KY 42086
- GPS Coordinates: 37.151667, -88.777222
- Coal Consumption:
- Coal Source:
- Number of Employees:
Emissions Data
- 2006 CO2 Emissions: 10,527,302 tons
- 2006 SO2 Emissions: 35,815 tons
- 2006 SO2 Emissions per MWh:
- 2006 NOx Emissions: 18,216 tons
- 2005 Mercury Emissions: 180 lb.
Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from the Shawnee Fossil Plant
In 2010, Abt Associates issued a study commissioned by the Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, quantifying the deaths and other health effects attributable to fine particle pollution from coal-fired power plants.[7] The study found that over 13,000 deaths and tens of thousands of cases of chronic bronchitis, acute bronchitis, asthma-related episodes and asthma-related emergency room visits, congestive heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, dysrhythmia, ischemic heart disease, chronic lung disease, peneumonia each year are attributable to fine particle pollution from U.S. coal-fired power plants. Fine particle pollution is formed from a combination of soot, acid droplets, and heavy metals formed from sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and soot. Among those particles, the most dangerous are the smallest (smaller than 2.5 microns), which are so tiny that they can evade the lung's natural defenses, enter the bloodstream, and be transported to vital organs. Impacts are especially severe among the elderly, children, and those with respiratory disease. Low-income and minority populations are disproportionately impacted as well, due to the tendency of companies to avoid locating power plants upwind of affluent communities.
The table below estimates the death and illness attributable to the Shawnee Fossil Plant. Abt assigned a value of $7,300,000 to each 2010 mortality, based on a range of government and private studies. Valuations of illnesses ranged from $52 for an asthma episode to $440,000 for a case of chronic bronchitis.[8]
Table 1: Death and disease attributable to fine particle pollution from the Shawnee Fossil Plant
| Type of Impact | Annual Incidence | Valuation |
|---|---|---|
| Deaths | 71 | $520,000 |
| Heart attacks | 110 | $12,000,000 |
| Asthma attacks | 1,200 | $61,000 |
| Hospital admissions | 50 | $1,200,000 |
| Chronic bronchitis | 43 | $19,000,000 |
| Asthma ER visits | 73 | $27,000 |
Source: "Find Your Risk from Power Plant Pollution," Clean Air Task Force interactive table, accessed February 2011
Shawnee ranked 60th 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.[9] The data came from the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) for 2006, the most recent year available.[10]
Shawnee Fossil Plant ranked number 60 on the list, with 467,616 pounds of coal combustion waste released to surface impoundments in 2006.[9]
Coal Ash Waste and Water Contamination
In August 2010 a study released by the Environmental Integrity Project, the Sierra Club and Earthjustice reported that Kentucky, along with 34 states, had significant groundwater contamination from coal ash that is not currently regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The report, in an attempt to pressure the EPA to regulate coal ash, noted that most states do not monitor drinking water contamination levels near waste disposal sites.[11] The report mentioned Kentucky based Mill Creek Station, Shawnee Fossil Plant and the Spurlock Power Station were three sites that have groundwater contamination due to coal ash waste.[12]
Citizen groups
- Coal River Mountain Watch
- Kentuckians for the Commonwealth
- Kentucky Environmental Foundation
- Kentucky Riverkeeper
- New Power
- Kentucky Environmental Foundation, Berea, KY, phone: (859) 986-7565
- Sierra Club Cumberland Chapter
Articles and Resources
References
- ↑ Tennessee Valley Authority, "Shawnee Fossil Plant", Tennessee Valley Authority website, accessed Jan 2017
- ↑ Tennessee Valley Authority, "Shawnee Fossil Plant", Tennessee Valley Authority website, accessed June 2008.
- ↑ "TVA to idle 9 coal-fired units," Tennessee Valley Authority press release, August 24, 2010.
- ↑ "Shawnee Fossil Plant," Tennessee Valley Authority website, accessed August 31, 2010
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Angela Garrone "TVA Loses Largest Customer Leaving Future of Coal Plant Uncertain," CleanEnergy.org, June 6, 2013.
- ↑ "Powerful choice: TVA expected to keep Kentucky coal plant after shutting down 32 other coal units," Times Free Press, December 30, 2014
- ↑ "The Toll from Coal: An Updated Assessment of Death and Disease from America's Dirtiest Energy Source," Clean Air Task Force, September 2010.
- ↑ "Technical Support Document for the Powerplant Impact Estimator Software Tool," Prepared for the Clean Air Task Force by Abt Associates, July 2010
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Sue Sturgis, "Coal's ticking timebomb: Could disaster strike a coal ash dump near you?," Institute for Southern Studies, January 4, 2009.
- ↑ TRI Explorer, EPA, accessed January 2009.
- ↑ "Study of coal ash sites finds extensive water contamination" Renee Schoff, Miami Herald, August 26, 2010.
- ↑ "Enviro groups: ND, SD coal ash polluting water" Associated Press, August 24, 2010.
External Sources
- Ranajit Sahu, "Dry Sorbent Injection (DSI) and Its Applicability to TVA’s Shawnee Fossil Plant (SHF)," The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, April 2013.
- 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.
