The project by Clean Line Energy Partners to carry Oklahoma wind power 700 miles across the state and through Arkansas to Tennessee has run into a big opponent. Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander took to the Senate floor on Wednesday argue against the project, calling wind power “unreliable” and stating it would only raise electric bills from the Tennessee Valley Authority.
“I come to the floor to express my opposition once again to the possibility that the Tennessee Valley Authority–the TVA as we call it—might raise our electric bills and waste more than $1 billion buying electricity the region does not need by agreeing to purchase power from the Clean Line Energy Partners’ proposed Plains and Eastern wind power transmission project.”
He went on to described the project as “giant, unsightly transmission towers” from Oklahoma to Arkansas then to Tennessee “to carry comparatively more expensive, less reliable electricity to Tennessee and other Southeastern States.”
He argued against Clean Line’s lobbying of the TVA board of directors to move quickly on a purchase agreement.
“Why the rush, I would ask. The answer is this: Federal subsidies for wind power—subsidies that waste billions of dollars of taxpayer money each year—end after 2019,” stated the Senator.
Sen. Alexander the agreement makes no sense because the TVA has already said it doesn’t need any new baseload power.
“Why would the TVA announce that it doesn’t need new ;power for the next 15 years, sell a nuclear power plant capable of producing reliable baseload power for the next 60 years and then turn around and buy unreliable wind power that might only be available for 20 to 30 years until the turbines break down?”
As he concluded his floor speech, the Senator claimed, “Not only is wind power unreliable, it can be more expensive than nuclear, which also produces zero emissions or natural gas which is low emission.”