11-13-09

On Tuesday, November 17, the Kingston Fossil Plant will be performing maintenance on some of the units at the plant that are not being used right now. The units are not going to be started up, but smoke will be coming out of the stack for about 16 hours. The fact sheet below explains the procedure. We’re sending this information to elected officials and the media today, and we’ll go door-to-door with this information in the neighborhood near the plant on Monday.

Thanks for your interest in the plant, and please call me at (865) 202-7479 if you have any questions.

Gretchen

Kingston Boiler Maintenance Fact Sheet

November 2009

TVA power system demand is low, and all of the units from the Kingston Plant are not needed right now. In order to maintain the condition of the units at Kingston that are not needed, Kingston Plant will perform specific maintenance activities on four of the nine units on November 17.

These maintenance activities will cause smoke to be emitted out of the north stack (stack 1) for a period of about 16 hours.

The smoke is primarily carbon, but will also contain some nitrogen, water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide. TVA will continue to meet all state air quality requirements.

TVA’s air quality permits, issued by the state of Tennessee, allow for the plant to perform this type of maintenance on the plant. Kingston will constantly monitor the stack emissions during this activity.

How it works

In order to help ensure the units perform better when they do come back into service, plant staff will perform several activities. One activity involves filling the water-carrying tubes in the boilers with water, heating the water and then draining the water out of the tubes. This helps minimize rusting.

In order to heat the water in the boiler tubes, the plant will burn fuel oil. This burning of fuel oil is what will cause the gray to black plume of smoke to be discharged from the north stack for a period of about 16 hours. It is similar to the smoke from an oil lamp, only on a larger scale, as has been seen many times in the past when the Kingston units started operation.

The plant will not be generating power, and coal will not be burned during this activity.

The plant may perform these activities to preserve the other boilers in the future, and the public will be made aware of this beforehand.