What TVA Should Be Doing to Save the Planet BUT ISN’T!
During his time as TVA Board Chair in the 1970s and 1980s, Dave Freeman was instrumental in making it a national model for promoting energy conservation and renewable energy resources. As the crisis of global warming accelerates across the globe, TVA once again has the potential of becoming a national and world leader in renewable and sustainable energy production.
What has to happen to transform this vision to reality?
That was Freeman’s topic at a public meeting and discussion held on May 20, 2016, at the Church of the Savior in Knoxville.
According to Freeman TVA needs to return to its roots and provide cheap, abundant, power while protecting the environment. How? By completely turning away from fossil fuels and nuclear power and toward solar and wind to create an all-electric U.S. by 2050.
“The Authority was a solar showcase in the 1970’s,” he said. “We installed 10,000 solar water heaters in Memphis. Former Tennessee Sentator Howard Baker called TVA a ‘living laboratory’. It can be that again. The technology is there and it can be done economically. What’s missing is the desire by TVA to do it.”
“Every utility needs to reduce green house gas emissions by 3% annually between now and 2050”, he said, “if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change.” But, he says, “Nuclear power is the most expensive way to do it. Watts Bar (nuclear plant) is the most expensive power plant in the world. If TVA had used the $10 billion it spent on nuclear plants on wind and solar, we’d have clean power now. Plus, after 50 years of nuclear power, we still have no safe place to store radioactive waste.”
He says that natural gas isn’t the answer either. While its carbon emissions are half that of coal, the methane associated with it is 100 times more potent as a greenhouse gas source.
“The cheapest way to reduce greenhouse gases is through energy efficiency”, he said. “but TVA isn’t pursuing it and that’s an insult (to the public). In 1976-77 we were leaders in energy efficiency. It’s inexcusable for TVA to turn away from energy efficiency.”
So, what went wrong?
Part of the problem is a result of restructuring the TVA board and the subsequent change in the focus of the organization. In the past, there were three directors who ran the Authority. Now there are nine part time directors and a CEO. The directors are political patronage appointments. (The chair is said to be the largest Democratic Party contributor in Alabama.) They are from investor owned utilities and not from public utilities like TVA. There is no transparency in board dealings and the CEO is the real person in charge. TVA has become, in effect, an unregulated private monopoly. “TVA is a different animal now,” he said, “and it’s no good.”
Congress won’t address the problem. Senators Alexander and Corker oppose wind and solar. Attempts to have a hearing about TVA were rebuffed by Senator Boxer of CA.
The U.S. President appoints the Board and until he or she feels pressure to appoint people who are supportive of clean energy, nothing will change. Freeman stressed that President Obama should be held accountable for appointing directors who favor non-renewable energy.
Another problem is that TVA is $30 billion in debt. In 1959 TVA received authority to borrow money. (Congress appropriated funding from the Authority’s inception in the early 1930’s until then.) Investment in nuclear power was responsible for much of the debt and “with little return” according to Freeman. “Maybe we should let it go bankrupt and start over,” he said, not totally tongue-in-cheek, “and cut the CEO’s $6 million dollar salary.” Bill Willis, former general manager of TVA, said that while the debt is an albatross around TVA’s neck, “the real problem is greenhouse gases and nuclear waste.”
A third issue is the power distributors (local utilities who buy power from TVA) who want to sell more power to help their financial bottom line. They “pull back the reins” on renewable power. Freeman said TVA can control them and make them have energy efficiency programs. He said some of them are even selling power back to TVA, which helps TVA’s debt problem, but which is probably illegal.
Numerous audience members asked Freeman what could be done to redirect TVA. His answer was to pressure the president to appoint pro-wind/solar directors to TVA’s board along with grass roots efforts to force TVA to change its focus. He acknowledged neither was easy or quick, but both were critically necessary. “TVA used to be a leader,” he said. “Now it’s not even a follower. It’s in a hole and digging.”
You can read more about Dave Freeman’s ideas in his new book All Electric America, available on Amazon.