More TVA chicanery?
April 12, 2010
Federal Register, Volume 75 Issue 69 (Monday, April 12, 2010)
(Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for Sequoyah Nuclear Plant Units 1 and 2 License Renewals)
Do something, do a little, or do nothing; and the questions begin. Today, the TVA had posted on the
Federal Register site public notice of its plans to possibly extend the life of the two Sequoyah nuclear
plants 1 and 2 by an additional 20 years each.
Nothing like starting early with their new many-layered organization with lots of jobs to do. The present
licenses of the two plants expire in 2020 and 2021.
The supplemental environment impact statement in final form is expected by next spring. TVA says it
will prioritize all comments and statements into a draft form; comments must be received by May 10, 2010,
that’s less than a month from now.
So here’s the TVA strategy; peep open the door for a few days and give TVA a year to chew on the
comments. But this is typical TVA and federal government in general. They really do not want to hear
from anybody.
According to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, TVA will spend $20 million in its supplemental
environmental assessment. But this could be another example of TVA’s money badly spent since
the alternative to do nothing would cost nothing. In any case, it seems unusual to begin this far in
advance to find out whether it is a good idea or not to extend the licenses.
Anyway, the farther out the estimate, the less likely it would be viable at the end. TVA’s management
style is to rule by chaos, by events that were foreseen by weak management but resulting in
catastrophic cost increases. Prevailing TVA culture, in place now for a very long time, would not
seem to bode well for any kind of good decision-making environment.
In reviewing TVA’s filing, some interesting new or little known facts are revealed under
“Supplementary Information”.
n About 9 million people served instead of the usually cited 8 million.
n 155 TVA power distributors instead of the usually quoted 159 distributors
n 56 directly served large industries and Federal facilities.
n About 16,000 miles of transmission lines, (until recently, cited as 17,000 miles). This raises the question
of why and how did this happen? Was it caused by fewer distributors while the estimate served rose from
8 million to 9 million customers? Where actually is the “missing” 1,000 miles of transmission wire? Just
sloppy accounting, poor management? This involves a huge amount of “missing” dollars and right-of-way
accountability.
n “TVA purchases and sells power on an economic basis almost daily”. This does not conform to what my
understanding comprises the “fence”, i.e., selling outside of it.
n The Statement says “(T)he capacity on the TVA power system is about 37,000 MW of electricity.”
However, two months ago in a TVA news release (2/11/10) said, “TVA … supplies up to 36,000
megawatts of electricity”. To paraphrase a famous U.S. senator, “A thousand megawatts here,
a thousand megawatts there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money”.
In a general observation of the filing itself, it appears that this may be just another way for TVA to spend
more for management advice even after spending millions of dollars seeking but not finding the
“root cause” of the Kingston disaster.
Going far beyond what normally would be considered environmental impact data on a license extension,
“The SEIS will include examination of a range of supply-side and demand-side management options
for supplying power as an alternative to renewing SQN operating licenses.” Doesn’t sound much like
environmental impact material to me; TVA already knows that next to hydro, nuclear is the cheapest
after it is up and running; startups are a different matter.
And in this statement about what TVA was designed to do, important pieces were left out and most of
it is hard to connect with the 1933 TVA law. From the Federal Register filing today:
“TVA is an agency and instrumentality of the United States, established by an act of Congress in 1933,
to foster the social and economic welfare of the people of the Tennessee Valley region and to promote
the proper use and conservation of the region's natural resources. One component of this mission is
the generation, transmission, and sale of reliable and affordable electric energy.”
Now read the opening statement of the TVA Act of 1933:
“To improve the navigability and to provide for the flood control of the Tennessee River; to provide for
reforestation and the proper use of marginal lands in the Tennessee Valley; to provide for the agricultural
and industrial development of said valley; to provide for the national defense by the creation of a corporation
for the operation of Government properties at and near Muscle Shoals in the State of Alabama, and for other purposes.”
If you can connect any of the dots between what the law says specifically and the statement submitted for
Federal Register publication that would be considered comparable, please let me know and I’ll give you
the Non-obfuscation Award of the year!
But when TVA is presented with what plainly are dots that connect between the Kingston catastrophe and TVA management, obviously plain connections, TVA turns a blind eye. “It never happened” is a phrase I’ve heard from some TVA employees and to them it is “TVA law”, TVA culture that governs.
I would hope it is not true, but another underhanded reason TVA wants to extend the life of the two Sequoyah nuclear plants is that the money TVA has to set aside for eventual decommissioning will be extended 20 more years. This means that the yearly contribution to the plants for decommissioning will be spread out and therefore less costly in the short run.
TVA is so desperately short of funds it will do almost anything to defer costs. They tried to pull that stunt with most of TVA’s distributors by getting them to fund new generation construction and then promising the distributors a piece of the federal ownership. I believe a 9th grade civics class could see that you can’t sell off pieces of the Washington Monument, for example. That TVA scheme is now on hold.
TVA continues to play it fast and lose with their facts, another reason TVA management must be held accountable for their actions. If these were minor and trivial “mistakes” it would be one thing but these are gross errors which could wind up costing ratepayers billions of dollars more.
Ernest Norsworthy
emnorsworthy@earthlink.net
http://norsworthyopinion.com