Clean Air
Where’s the Dirt?
Electricity looks pretty clean, right? You flip a switch and a light goes on. What’s so messy about that? Well, some of the ways electricity is made can create pollution. For example, electricity can be made by burning coal. When coal burns, chemicals like sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) are released into the air. (Read information from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency about air quality.)
TVA uses air-cleaning equipment at its coal plants to help keep air clean. TVA uses coal as one source of electricity because coal plants can keep the power flowing when other sources of energy are not available.
Clearing the Air
To clean up the air while still providing everyone in the Tennessee Valley with electric power, TVA uses some pretty complex, expensive equipment.
TVA has spent billions of dollars to control the release, or “emission,” of chemicals from its coal-burning power plants. Here’s what it’s doing:
- TVA has put “scrubbers” on almost all of its coal units. These scrubbers help clean up SO2. In addition, TVA has switched to low-sulfur coal at some of its fossil plants.
- The best defense against NOx is something called a selective catalytic reduction system, or SCR. TVA has installed SCRs on its operating coal-fired units.
Making electricity is a bit like creating a huge science project for school. You get all these materials together and mix them up to make something incredible, and then your mom gets on you to clean up the mess you’ve made in the kitchen.
You can’t make anything—a science project, a cake or electric power—without having to clean up afterward. For TVA that means finding ways to make power for millions of homes, schools, farms and businesses, and at the same time keep the environment clean and healthy.
A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas emissions caused by an individual, event, organization, service, or product, expressed as an equivalent of carbon dioxide.