Nashville mayor calls on TVA to convert coal plant to solar energy — not gas

Nashville city leaders formally opposed the Tennessee Valley Authority’s plans for a new natural gas plant in Stewart County this week.

Mayor John Cooper submitted a letter to the public utility late Thursday calling instead for an investment in renewable energy.

“Any plan that would establish a new gas pipeline or conscript Nashville into decades of carbon polluting methane is unacceptable,” Cooper wrote in the letter. “The city of Nashville calls on TVA to serve as a leader in addressing the existential threat of climate change.”

TVA is currently in the process of an environmental review for the retirement of the Cumberland Fossil Plant, its largest coal plant, and the replacement of that generation. It is between gas and solar, and, in April, TVA said it wants gas — months before this, Kinder Morgan started planning a gas pipeline to the Cumberland site, which sits near Clarksville.

As a federal public utility, TVA is required to consider the environmental impacts of its decisions in a review process that mandates a public comment period.

Before the mayor, the Nashville Electric Service Board submitted an opinion that TVA should ditch its current plans for environmental and economic reasons.

The city also acknowledged the financial risks associated with new fossil fuel infrastructure.

“We want to make sure as a customer of TVA that we’re not on the hook for paying for assets far into the future that are going to have greenhouse gas emissions,” said Kendra Abkowitz, Nashville’s sustainability chief.

Last year, the city adopted a plan to reduce Nashville’s climate pollution by 80% from 2014 levels in the next few decades. Abkowitz says a new gas plant would hinder that goal.

Natural gas is mostly methane, which emits carbon dioxide when burned. But natural gas systems are also a significant source of direct methane pollution due to pipeline leaks.

Over a century, methane is about 25 times more potent than CO2. In a 20-year time frame — and methane usually only stays in the atmosphere for about 12 years — methane is more than 80 times more potent.

“It’s a really serious short-term problem,” said Amanda Garcia, director of the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Tennessee office. “Which undercuts the notion that methane is or should be seen as a bridge fuel, which is what TVA always calls it. It’s a bridge to nowhere.”

The public comment period ends Monday.