CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – The southwest Montgomery County skyline is about to lose a distinctive landmark with the removal of the orange-and-white-striped, 1,000-foot-tall chimneys at the Cumberland Fossil Plant.
Starting this week and continuing for the next several months, TVA crews will be manually removing the first of the two retired concrete stacks.
“These stacks have not been in service since the emissions control scrubber stacks were added,” TVA officials said. “The work is being done manually with specialized equipment rather than with a controlled implosion because the fossil plant is still operating.”
The public nearby may hear loud noises during daylight hours – usually 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. “We apologize for any disruptions these sounds may cause to our neighbors in the community,” TVA said.
The second stack will be removed in 2025. The two other chimneys are active and will remain in place, for now.
It was announced in January 2023 that the high-pollutant two-unit, coal-fired plant will be replaced with a natural gas-fueled combined cycle combustion turbine. TVA plans to decommission the two coal-fired units, one by the end of 2026 and the other by the end of 2028.
Steam plant history
The Cumberland Fossil Plant, commonly called the “steam plant,” sits on about 1,425 acres just over the Montgomery County line in Stewart County, about 20 miles southwest of Clarksville on state Highway 149.
Construction of the plant began in 1968, and the plant has been in operation since 1973, according to the TVA website. The two 1,000-foot-tall chimneys, built in 1970, are two of the tallest in the world.
“We recognize the removal of the stacks will change the skyline that has been familiar to the community for more than 50 years, returning it to its natural state. We appreciate the contributions of the Cumberland Fossil Plant and its employees,” TVA said. “The work is another step in transitioning to cleaner energy generation and keeping the electricity flowing from the Cumberland site using natural gas.”
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The plant has employed as many as 400 people, according to previous reports, and it produces almost 2,500 megawatts of power, making it more powerful than even some nuclear plants.
But that power has come at a price in pollution. In 2016, the Cumberland Fossil Plant ranked as the No. 3 air polluter in the nation, with a combination of greenhouse gases and Toxics Release Inventory emissions, and the worst mercury polluter in the country among coal-fired power plants, according to Leaf-Chronicle archives.
The new gas-fired plant will supply 1,450 megawatts of power by the time the first coal-fired unit is retired by the end of 2026. That’s just over half of the power the 2,500 megawatts the fossil plant currently produces, but TVA plans to integrate 10,000 megawatts of solar onto the system by 2035.
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