Widows Creek Fossil Plant

Widows Creek Fossil Plant (also known as the Widows Creek Power Plant) was a 1.6-gigawatt (1,600 MW) coal power plant, 4.8 miles (7.7 km) east of Stevenson, Alabama, USA. The plant, operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, generated about nine billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year. It had one of the tallest chimneys in the world at 305 metres (1,001 ft), which was built in 1977, and was removed December 3, 2020 in a controlled demolition.[1] Along with the Chimney of the Harllee Branch Power Plant, it is the tallest chimney to be demolished in the United States.

Widows Creek Fossil Plant
Widows Creek Fossil Plant
CountryUnited States
LocationJackson County, near Stevenson, Alabama
Coordinates34°53′03″N 85°45′18″W
StatusBeing decommissioned
Commission dateUnit 1: July, 1952
Unit 2: October, 1952
Unit 3: November, 1952
Unit 4: January, 1953
Unit 5: June, 1954
Unit 6: July, 1954
Unit 7: February, 1961
Unit 8: February, 1965
Decommission dateUnit 7: September, 2015
Owner(s)Tennessee Valley Authority
Thermal power station
Primary fuelBituminous coal
Cooling sourceTennessee River
Power generation
Units decommissioned8
Nameplate capacity1,600 MW
Annual net output9,000 GWh
External links
CommonsRelated media on Commons

History

Initially, six identical 140-MWe units were built between 1952 and 1954. Two more units (575 and 550 MWe name-plate capacity) were added in 1961 and 1965.[2][3]

The last load of coal was delivered to the plant on September 18, 2015, with only one of its eight generation units working. The coal was enough to power Unit 7 until September 23, 2015.[4][5]

Widows Creek's one-thousand and one foot-tall stack

Accidents and incidents

On January 9, 2009, the plant experienced a dam break on a gypsum slurry pond, and spilled up to 10,000 US gallons (38 m3) of waste (possibly including boron, cadmium, molybdenum and selenium) into the creek of the same name on the property, inundating it with an ashlike substance.[6]

EPA compliance agreement

On April 14, 2011, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a settlement with the Tennessee Valley Authority to resolve alleged Clean Air Act violations at 11 of its coal-fired plants in Alabama, Kentucky, and Tennessee.[7] Under the terms of the agreement, the entire Widows Creek plant was affected:[8]

  • Units 1–6 were retired in stages of two units per year, beginning by July 31, 2013 and ending by July 31, 2015
  • Units 7 & 8 were to be fitted with selective catalytic reduction (SCR) devices to reduce their emissions of nitrogen oxide (NOx)

Future

On June 24, 2015, Google, a multinational technology company, announced it would invest $600 million to install a data center on land made available by the retirement of Units 1-6. A renewable power capacity equivalent to the data center's needs will be added somewhere on the TVA system, so the data center will run on renewable energy.[9] The project broke ground in April 2018.[10]

See also

References
  1. "VIDEO: Demolition of 1,000ft chimney at an old power plant in Alabama | PortandTerminal.com". www.portandterminal.com. Archived from the original on 2021-02-02.
  2. "Widows Creek Fossil Plant Celebrates 50 Years of Service" (Press release). Tennessee Valley Authority. September 12, 2002. Archived from the original on October 18, 2002. Retrieved January 9, 2007.
  3. "Existing Electric Generating Units in the United States, 2006". Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy. 2006. Archived from the original (Excel) on August 22, 2008. Retrieved July 14, 2008.
  4. "Last load of coal delivered at TVA's Widows Creek plant". Times Free Press. September 19, 2015. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  5. "Even Appalachia Is Walking Away From Coal". www.slate.com. The Slate Group. October 2, 2015. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  6. Dewan, Shaila (January 9, 2009). "Waste Spills at Another T.V.A. Power Plant". The New York Times.
  7. Tennessee Valley Authority Clean Air Act Settlement
  8. Federal Facilities Compliance Agreement Between EPA and TVA
  9. Gammons, Patrick (June 24, 2015). "A power plant for the Internet: our newest data center in Alabama". Google. Retrieved June 25, 2015.
  10. Flessner, Dave (April 9, 2018). "Google building $600 million data center on former TVA coal plant". Times Free Press. Retrieved April 9, 2018.
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