The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter on May 18, 1933, to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development to the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected by the Great Depression. Senator George W. Norris (R-Nebraska) was a strong sponsor of this project. TVA was envisioned not only as a provider, but also as a regional economic development agency that would use federal experts and rural electrification to help modernize the rural region's economy and society.
Widows Creek Fossil Plant was a 1.6-gigawatt 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.
Cumberland Fossil Plant is a pulverized coal-fired power station located west of Cumberland City, Tennessee, USA, on the south bank of Lake Barkley on the Cumberland River. Owned and operated by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), it has a gross capacity of 2,470 MW, and is the most powerful power station in Tennessee.
Kingston Fossil Plant, commonly known as Kingston Steam Plant, is a 1.4-gigawatt coal-fired power plant located in Roane County, just outside Kingston, Tennessee on the shore of Watts Bar Lake. It is operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The plant is known for the Kingston Fossil Plant fly ash spill which occurred in December 2008.
"Paradise" is a song written by John Prine for his father, and recorded for his 1971 debut album, John Prine. Prine also re-recorded the song for his 1986 album, German Afternoons. The song is about the devastating impact of strip mining for coal, whereby the top layers of soil are blasted off with dynamite or dug away with steam shovels to reach the coal seam below. The song is also about what happened to the area around the Green River in Kentucky because of strip mining. The song references the Peabody Coal Company, and a town called Paradise in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, where the Tennessee Valley Authority operated the Paradise Fossil Plant, a coal-fired electric generating station. The area has suffered serious economic downturn because of the decline of coal mining, caused mainly by the abundance of natural gas. Paradise Fossil Plant Units 1 and 2 went on-line in 1963 and were retired in 2017; Unit 3 went on-line in 1970 and was retired in 2020. In the song Prine asks to have his ashes dispersed on the Green River. After his death in 2020 this wish was fulfilled. TVA replaced the Fossil Plant with the natural-gas fired Paradise Combined Cycle Plant.
Bull Run Fossil Plant, commonly known as Bull Run Steam Plant, is a 889 megawatt (MW), coal-fired electric generating station owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The plant is the only coal fired power plant ever constructed by TVA with one unit, and is expected to close in 2023.
The Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill was an environmental and industrial disaster that occurred on Monday December 22, 2008, when a dike ruptured at a coal ash pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tennessee, releasing 1.1 billion US gallons of coal fly ash slurry. The coal-fired power plant, located across the Clinch River from the city of Kingston, used a series of ponds to store and dewater the fly ash, a byproduct of coal combustion. The spill released a slurry of fly ash and water, which traveled across the Emory River and its Swan Pond embayment, onto the opposite shore, covering up to 300 acres (1.2 km2) of the surrounding land. The spill damaged multiple homes and flowed into nearby waterways including the Emory River and Clinch River, both tributaries of the Tennessee River. It was the largest industrial spill in United States history.
Cherokee Dam is a hydroelectric dam located on the Holston River in Grainger County and Jefferson County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The dam is operated and maintained by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the early 1940s to help meet urgent demands for energy at the outbreak of World War II. Cherokee Dam is 175 feet (53 m) high and impounds the 28,780-acre (11,650 ha) Cherokee Lake. It has a generating capacity of 135,200 kilowatts. The dam was named for the Cherokee, a Native American tribe that controlled much of East Tennessee when the first European settlers arrived in the mid-18th century.
Fort Patrick Henry Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the South Fork Holston River within the city of Kingsport, in Sullivan County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the lowermost of three dams on the South Fork Holston owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the early 1950s to take advantage of the hydroelectric potential created by the regulation of river flow with the completion of Watauga Dam, South Holston Dam, and Boone Dam further upstream in preceding years. The dam impounds the 872-acre (353 ha) Fort Patrick Henry Lake. While originally built for hydroelectric generation, the dam now plays an important role in the regulation of water flow and water temperature for the John Sevier Fossil Plant and other industrial plants downstream. The dam and associated infrastructure were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.
The Shawnee Fossil Plant is a coal-fired power plant owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, located near Paducah, Kentucky. The closest city is Metropolis, Illinois, across the Ohio River to the northeast.
The Paradise Combined Cycle Plant is a natural gas power plant operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Located just east of Drakesboro, Kentucky, it was the largest megawatt capacity power plant in Kentucky. The plant currently has a capacity of 1.02-gigawatts. The plant originally consisted of three coal units, with a combined capacity of 2,632 MW. Units 1 and 2 were retired in 2017, and replaced with the natural gas units, and Unit 3 was retired in 2020.
The Johnsonville Combustion Turbine Plant is a 1.2-gigawatt, simple cycle natural gas power plant located in New Johnsonville, Tennessee in Humphreys County, Tennessee. It is operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
The Johnsonville Fossil Plant was a 1.5-gigawatt, coal power plant located in New Johnsonville, Tennessee in Humphreys County, Tennessee. The plant generated electricity from 1951 to 2017. It was operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
The Allen Combined Cycle Plant is a 1.1-gigawatt natural gas power plant located south of Memphis, Tennessee that began generating electricity in 2018. It is operated by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
The Allen Fossil Plant was a 741-megawatt (MW), coal power plant located south of Memphis, Tennessee. It generated electricity from 1959 to 2018. At the time of its closure, the plant was operated by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
The Gallatin Fossil Plant is a coal and natural gas-fired power plant near Gallatin, Tennessee operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The plant was originally entirely a coal-fired plant, constructed in the 1950s, and natural gas units were added later.
Watts Bar Steam Plant was a 267-megawatt (MW), coal power plant operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) located in Rhea County, Tennessee near the present site of Watts Bar Nuclear Plant and Watts Bar Dam. The plant was the first coal-fired power plant constructed by TVA.
