Rolling elect. blackouts from TVA

[rphillips]

Rolling blackouts issued by TVA for a big part of their service area. I had trouble finding if it was the the total TVA area or not, but did find for sure all of Tennessee is included. Just seems odd as TVA started a new nuclear power plant in Hartsville, (middle) TN., back in the mid 70's. They started construction on the new plant, got the cooling towers completed and many buildings and stuff built, including right of ways bought all across middle tn. for their transmission lines and many of the transmission towers built, continued construction for appx. 10 yrs. then decided they wouldn't be needing it, they were already producing all the elect. they would ever need. Then spent appx. 5 yrs dismantling a large portion of the Hartsville plant that they had already built and much of it is still standing there today. Now I'm hearing of these rolling blackouts for lack of elect. Then remember hearing of TVA shutting down some of their coal fired plants. A quick search found within the past 10 yrs TVA has shut down 6 of their coal fired power plants, but I had trouble finding new ones going on line to replace the ones going off, only one I found was a natural gas plant that went on line in 2018 near Memphis, and a new $300 million Operations center, that produces 0 electricity, in Meigs Co. tn. Maybe it's not as simple as it seems but It just seems that before you'd start building a nuclear power plant, and building on it for 10 yrs., you'd be sure you needed it and before taking a half dozed plants off line, you'd be sure there were enough existing plants to carry the load or have new plants in place before killing the old ones... Oh yeah, I forgot, a federally owned Co. I guess it should run kind'f like the Federal Govt.

[marvinsc]

There is a very wealthy man here who got much wealthier because of poor planning by TVA 25 or so years ago. He lived here but owned coal mines in Eastern Kentucky. TVA let contracts out for bid on huge amounts of coal for the coal fired power plants. This man landed a contract and went out and bought millions of dollars worth of equipment to mine the coal to fulfill those contracts. TVA changed their mind and attempted to cancel those contracts. Mr. Coal sued using a local lawyer and won! No official dollar amount was published but he got richer and the Lawyer became a millionaire. Just another example of our tax dollars at work...........

[GS1150Pilot]

Nuclear power was THE solution once upon a time, and it may still be that. Coal certainly cannot be seen as even an intermediate path to any sure future, but between Chernobyl and Fukushima, people went cold toward what is probably still the best bet we have.

[Baatfam]

Going back to the TVA. Looking at their main web page, https://www.tva.com/ it is clear why they weren't prepared better...
See if you can see it....

[rphillips]

Not sure what's clear to ya'll, but possibly in the past, they purposely kept plenty of surplus elect. on hand, to cover things in extreme cold. Now after closing 6 power plants and opening only 1 to replace them, they are now running without that surplus that they've always kept on hand and closer to their limit, so the reserve needed in the extreme cold, as we're having now, is no longer available.

[Baatfam]

Not sure what's clear to ya'll, but possibly in the past, they purposely kept plenty of surplus elect. on hand, to cover things in extreme cold. Now after closing 6 power plants and opening only 1 to replace them, they are now running without that surplus that they've always kept on hand and closer to their limit, so the reserve needed in the extreme cold, as we're having now, is no longer available.

They are calling this a "once in a lifetime" storm. It wasn't. It was a warning.
This storm, the droughts, the floods, the ice storms in Texas, the fires....It's all the new normal. This is our world now.
But enjoy what we still have, as it will probably get worse before it gets better.

[rphillips]

Not once in a lifetime at all, I remember well back in 1985 it stayed in single digits, around here for a full week, on the coldest day that week, our Hi for the coldest day was -7 and down to -17 that night, but I sure don't remember no rolling blackouts. Wondering if they're counting on, now that we have "Global Warming", we won't have cold spells any more... Also hope they realize we may need even more elect. when we all start driving elect. automobiles.

[Rob S.]

I remember very well the Blizzard of '77. I've lost count of how many "500 year" storms I've lived through.

[rphillips]

Rob, how many 500 yr. storms? you must be older than you've led us to believe.

[1978GS750E]

They are calling this a "once in a lifetime" storm. It wasn't. It was a warning.
This storm, the droughts, the floods, the ice storms in Texas, the fires....It's all the new normal. This is our world now.
But enjoy what we still have, as it will probably get worse before it gets better.

Better get used to these rolling blackouts! You can thank all the "clean energy" people for closing the coal and natural gas power plants. (of course, China and India have closed theirs also!) LOL

Soon we will all have a wind turbine in our backyard and be riding our electric scooter to the organic farmers market to buy a $10 tomato!

Scheesh!

[Rob S.]

Soon we will all have a wind turbine in our backyard and be riding our electric scooter to the organic farmers market to buy a $10 tomato!

Scheesh!

I hate when that happens!

[Grimly]

Going back to the TVA. Looking at their main web page, https://www.tva.com/ it is clear why they weren't prepared better...
See if you can see it....

Oddly, the History page dealing with the 1940s studiously avoids mentioning Oak Ridge, which TVA supplied every erg of energy to.

[dpep]

I do not have any specific knowledge of TVA's situation but in general all utility providers have to strike a balance when it comes to excess capacity. There is a cost to maintaining that capacity even if it is never used. That cost gets passed on to the utility customer. How much extra are you willing to pay month in/month out in order to avoid a temporary inconvenience once every few years?

The major factor responsible for the closing of coal fired plants has been economic, not environmental. Coal has not been competitive with natural gas for some time and recently has fallen behind renewables as well.

To compare the net effect of plant closures vs new plants we need to know what each was producing in megawatts. One huge new plant might provide more electricity than six small aging plants.

The frontier for energy advancement is storage, not production. Enough sun energy falls on the earth every day to power all the world's current energy needs thousands of times over. The trick is to collect it and most crucially to store it.

[rphillips]

Reminds me of the old Margarine commercial from back in the 70's that said "It's Not Nice To Fool Mother Nature ...Nobody nowhere will ever manage the demand of mother nature, especially when she gets all stirred up... The best we can do is be well prepared for the worst things have ever been, then have an extra reserve on top of that, Like evidently TVA had done back in the storm of1985.... Then still just hope for the best... It seems maybe TVA has abandoned that strategy... Maybe TVA should of got adequate storage before taking older plants off line.

[Baatfam]

Reminds me of the old Margarine commercial from back in the 70's that said "It's Not Nice To Fool Mother Nature ...Nobody nowhere will ever manage the demand of mother nature, especially when she gets all stirred up... The best we can do is be well prepared for the worst things have ever been, then have an extra reserve on top of that, Like evidently TVA had done back in the storm of1985.... Then still just hope for the best... It seems maybe TVA has abandoned that strategy... Maybe TVA should of got adequate storage before taking older plants off line.

Maybe you should do a little reading about the TVA... Try this first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennes...lley_Authority
As Don said above, the plants taken off line were done for reasons.
They restarted a nuke plant in '07 and started a new in '16, before closing a couple of some of the coal plants. All coal will be done by 2035.

All this "aw shucks, I don't know" stuff is because you don't take advantage of readily available information.
Turn off Fox entertainment and find a real news source.