![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The reference to the 1970s when the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was leading the way in utility policy coincided with the tenure of energy guru S. David Freeman at that agency. Freeman has a new book out called "Winning our Energy Independence: An Energy Insider Shows How" of which I have a copy. EV World did an interview with Freeman on this topic. Chapter 3 of the book is entitled "The Three Poisons (The Dangers of Oil, Coal and Nuclear)". In that section, he notes the following regarding his stay at TVA:
"I was responsible for a utility [TVA] that had three large atomic units operating and fourteen under construction. My vote was decisive in stopping construction on eight of these units. It was not the safety concerns that stopped the building of those units, as serious as they were, but rather the skyrocketing costs that triggered rate increases for customers. TVA would almost certainly have been bankrupted long ago had I not shut the nuclear power plants down. I shout them down because they cost too much.
I found that even the cost just to complete the partially built plants would result in higher electricity costs than that of available alternatives. We stopped construction on eight large one-million-kW units and we had to lay off thousands of construction workers. This was not an easy decision to make. Tennessee is my home state and everyone there loved nuclear power. The Oak Ridge, Tennessee, high school football team was called 'The Bombers. But to continue pouring good money into bad ideas would have been ruinous four the TVA ratepayers and for TVA itself."
Tennessee's U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander has recently been promoting a "Manhattan Project" for energy independence. Needless to say, it differs a bit from those ideas of Mr. Freeman but is not that far from the latest TVA policies. ("Clean, Reliable Power" - The Tennessean - 18 May 08)
TVA Plans to Cap Emissions, Look to Nuclear Power - The Tennessean - 20 May 08
"Proposals to find ways to increase renewable energy sources like solar power and to persuade customers to use less electricity — including by offering incentives — were approved, too. The actions, which came as the agency recognizes its 75th anniversary, could mark a return to the leadership role TVA took in energy conservation in the 1970s but later dropped. Nuclear power was listed Monday among the 'clean' energy sources that officials said would be looked to increasingly."
"TVA, which is self-financing, is the largest public power producer in the country, providing virtually all of the electricity used in Tennessee and parts of six other states."
"John McFadden, head of the nonprofit Tennessee Environmental Council in Nashville, said in a phone interview that he was 'glad' about TVA's turn toward energy conservation and cleaner power, a move that some utilities made several years ago. 'It's obvious it's something we've really needed to do for a long time,' he said. 'All you have to do is look at the mountaintops in the Great Smoky Mountains and see all the dead trees. And Knoxville is the asthma capital. They should have been leading the country in this."
Nuclear power, however, should not be in the mix, he said. 'We have no long-term plan to deal with nuclear waste,' he said. 'You can't sell a kilowatt hour of nuclear power for what it costs to produce it. That's why the federal government is having to subsidize the nuclear industry.' TVA is still carrying billions of dollars of debt from its first spurt of nuclear plant building that took place in the 1970s and 1980s, he said."
"I was responsible for a utility [TVA] that had three large atomic units operating and fourteen under construction. My vote was decisive in stopping construction on eight of these units. It was not the safety concerns that stopped the building of those units, as serious as they were, but rather the skyrocketing costs that triggered rate increases for customers. TVA would almost certainly have been bankrupted long ago had I not shut the nuclear power plants down. I shout them down because they cost too much.
I found that even the cost just to complete the partially built plants would result in higher electricity costs than that of available alternatives. We stopped construction on eight large one-million-kW units and we had to lay off thousands of construction workers. This was not an easy decision to make. Tennessee is my home state and everyone there loved nuclear power. The Oak Ridge, Tennessee, high school football team was called 'The Bombers. But to continue pouring good money into bad ideas would have been ruinous four the TVA ratepayers and for TVA itself."
Tennessee's U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander has recently been promoting a "Manhattan Project" for energy independence. Needless to say, it differs a bit from those ideas of Mr. Freeman but is not that far from the latest TVA policies. ("Clean, Reliable Power" - The Tennessean - 18 May 08)
TVA Plans to Cap Emissions, Look to Nuclear Power - The Tennessean - 20 May 08
"Proposals to find ways to increase renewable energy sources like solar power and to persuade customers to use less electricity — including by offering incentives — were approved, too. The actions, which came as the agency recognizes its 75th anniversary, could mark a return to the leadership role TVA took in energy conservation in the 1970s but later dropped. Nuclear power was listed Monday among the 'clean' energy sources that officials said would be looked to increasingly."
"TVA, which is self-financing, is the largest public power producer in the country, providing virtually all of the electricity used in Tennessee and parts of six other states."
"John McFadden, head of the nonprofit Tennessee Environmental Council in Nashville, said in a phone interview that he was 'glad' about TVA's turn toward energy conservation and cleaner power, a move that some utilities made several years ago. 'It's obvious it's something we've really needed to do for a long time,' he said. 'All you have to do is look at the mountaintops in the Great Smoky Mountains and see all the dead trees. And Knoxville is the asthma capital. They should have been leading the country in this."
Nuclear power, however, should not be in the mix, he said. 'We have no long-term plan to deal with nuclear waste,' he said. 'You can't sell a kilowatt hour of nuclear power for what it costs to produce it. That's why the federal government is having to subsidize the nuclear industry.' TVA is still carrying billions of dollars of debt from its first spurt of nuclear plant building that took place in the 1970s and 1980s, he said."
