KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The co-chairmen of the TVA Congressional Caucus want the nation's largest public utility to consider a number of renewable energy sources to meet growing pressures to produce cleaner energy.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., hosted a forum Thursday with representatives from TVA, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and renewable energy manufacturing companies to discuss the Tennessee Valley Authority's options.
The pair touted solar panels, underwater river turbines and wood chip burning as promising renewable energy sources - just leave out the wind turbines.
Alexander and Shuler claim wind turbines in the Tennessee Valley Authority's seven-state region wouldn't produce enough energy to make them useful and would spoil the area's natural beauty.
Alexander and Shuler claim wind turbines in the Tennessee Valley Authority's seven-state region wouldn't produce enough energy to make them useful and would spoil the area's natural beauty.
"People come to North Carolina for the mountains. If it gets to the point where people cannot see those mountains, they will not show up," Shuler said.
Congress is considering legislation that would require utilities to produce 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2021. By then, TVA hopes to get more than half of its total electricity from zero or low carbon-emitting sources.
Earlier this month, the TVA board agreed to buy up to 2,000 megawatts of renewable and clean energy by 2011, with some of that power entering the grid as early as next year.
The agency, which supplies some 8.7 million consumers, now generates a small amount of renewable energy at its own solar sites, wind turbines and a methane recovery project at a Memphis wastewater treatment plant. It also buys wind power from 15 privately owned turbines located on TVA's Buffalo Mountain wind farm.
Panelists said the biomass - burning wood chips to produce energy - and the hydropower options are the most feasible options right now.
A series of underwater turbines in the fast-flowing Mississippi River could produce half of the output of the Watts Bar Unit 1 nuclear plant in Spring City, and a plant burning wood chips could produce the equivalent of a 12th of a new nuclear plower unit.
Solar would only be feasible if the cost of producing panels is reduced. Producing solar power costs four times more than using coal.
"In the meantime, TVA should push conservation, new nuclear power plants and air pollution-control equipment for coal plants in order to have both clean air and enough low-cost electricity to keep our jobs, heat our homes and power our computers," Alexander said.
Alexander and Shuler also stressed the importance of conserving energy by switching to fluorescent light bulbs, making homes more efficient and switching from fossil fuel-powered cars to hybrids and electric cars.
"Weather strips and new windows and insulation's not sexy," Shuler said. "By replacing windows, putting in new insulation and weather-stripping in we can lessen in the entire United States 300 coal burning plants and be able to produce millions of jobs for people."
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