Tennessee Valley Authority
Pollution Prevention and Reduction
Carbon Dioxide
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a gas released into the air when coal, oil, or natural gas is burned. It makes up less than 0.04 percent of the atmosphere, but that proportion has increased 25 percent in the last century and may double by the end of the next.
Carbon dioxide is a “greenhouse gas,” so named because it traps heat that would ordinarily be radiated into space near the earth’s surface. Some scientists are concerned that as atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases go up, the earth’s climate may change and temperatures may increase, raising the level of the oceans and disrupting food production. The earth’s average temperature has increased 1 degree Celsius in the past 100 years and some estimates indicate that it may rise another 1 or 2 degrees by 2050.
Carbon dioxide emissions at TVA coal fired plants
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What TVA is doing about it
TVA supports voluntary actions to reduce greenhouse gases, and the President’s goal of reducing U.S. greenhouse gas intensity over the next decade. TVA has identified voluntary actions the company can take to reduce, avoid, or sequester CO2 emissions.
TVA was the first utility in the nation to agree to participate in the Department of Energy-sponsored “Climate Challenge,” a voluntary greenhouse gas reduction program for electric utilities. Over the past decade TVA has reduced, avoided, or sequestered approximately 260 million tons of CO2.
TVA continues to pursue opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These actions include:
- Implementing the Green Power Switch program, allowing customers to purchase blocks of power generated by wind, solar,or landfill gas
- Co-firing fuels with coal, including wood wastes and wastewater treatment digester gas (methane)
- Up-rating units 2 and 3 at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant and restarting Unit 1
- Increasing generation at hydro units by modernizing equipment
- Minimizing consumption of energy and natural resources in TVA buildings, including use of energy-efficient lighting, temperature set-backs, high-efficiency motors, occupancy sensors, heat pumps, and passive solar heating
- Using sustainable building designs, including nontoxic recycled-content building materials, geothermal heat pumps, and day lighting
- Managing TVA’s vehicle fleet by purchasing energy-efficient vehicles and reducing the number of high gas-consuming vehicles, and better matching vehicle use to their designed purpose to improve vehicle use efficiency
- Sequestering greenhouse gases through the Utilitree program.
TVA is participating in Power Partners, the voluntary climate partnership between the Department of Energy and the utility sector that is working to avoid, reduce and/or sequester greenhouse gases. The new initiatives TVA is working on through this partnership include:
- Coal Combustion Products Projects, designed to divert coal combustion products from land disposal and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by increasing the beneficial use of these products
- PowerTree Carbon Company, which is further developing reforestation projects in the Lower Mississippi River Valley
- Individually, TVA is working with EPRI and others on the CO2 Capture and Storage Test Centers initiative, a long-term research and development program to investigate technologies for CO2 capture and geologic storage.
TVA is working with DOE and other industrial groups to revise the reporting mechanism that the U.S. Government will use to monitor implementation of the President’s Global Climate Change Initiative, known as the 1605b reporting protocols. The goal is to create a credible, transparent program to report and credit real reductions that various groups make that support the President’s national goals.
Read a summary of TVA’s greenhouse gas reduction activities.