Displaying items by tag: tva hearing

The CSX rail line through the Nolichucky River Gorge near Erwin, Tennessee was one of many transportation and vital commerce links destroyed by epic river flooding spawned by Tropical Storm Helene Sept. 26-27, 2024. Computer modeling showed Helene was made substantially worse by climate change. Jonathan Mitchell for Hellbender Press

A plea to reject the 'unconscionable' 2026 Integrated Resource Plan and finally focus on clean energy

CLINTON — I urge you, as distinguished members of the TVA Board, not to accept the 2026 Integrated Resource Plan. That deeply flawed plan would commit TVA, which in the past has admirably led the nation in power production, to leading a shameful and costly retreat into clearly outdated and now unconscionable energy generation choices. 

The 2026 IRP predicts AI and other data centers will require increasing amounts of energy. Those needs may well be less than anticipated owing to computer efficiency innovations like quantum computing; new AI models requiring far less data; and rapidly growing public opposition to data centers, but prediction is difficult. Costly overbuilding will be best avoided by waiting and adding readily available and quicker-to-install renewables and storage as required, by which time they will be even cheaper than they already are. 

I agree with most analysts that carbon capture and storage is a fossil fuel industry scam unlikely to ever be effective, let alone cost-effective. 

The IRP’s rosy projections of the economic competitiveness of new nuclear designs fly in the face of nuclear’s long history of massive cost overruns. And nuclear cannot match battery storage’s instant on-off availability switch.  

My overarching concern, though, is this IRP’s abdication of responsibility for climate change. Notwithstanding decades of slick, seemingly believable fossil fuel industry propaganda, an Everest of evidence indicates continuing fossil fuel emissions undeniably will, increasingly and irrevocably, undercut not just our economy but the fundamental quality of life of untold billions of our fellow humans, for as far into that ugly future as we can imagine.