Bull Run Fossil Plant


Bull Run Fossil Plant, commonly known as Bull Run Steam Plant, is a 889 megawatt, coal-fired electric generating station owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The plant is the only coal fired power plant ever constructed by TVA with one unit, and is expected to close in 2023.

Location

Bull Run Plant is located on, in the Claxton community of Anderson County, Tennessee, on the north bank of Bull Run Creek, directly across the Clinch River from Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

History

Construction began on April 2, 1962 and was completed on June 12, 1967, when the plant began commercial operation.
In August 2018, TVA began studying whether to retire Bull Run. On February 14, 2019, the TVA board of directors voted 5-2 to close Bull Run by December 2023, as well as the remaining coal unit at Paradise in Kentucky by December 2020. High operational costs and low capacity were its factors in their decision.

Units and operating parameters

The plant is the only single-generator coal-fired plant in the TVA system. The plant's winter net generating capacity is about 889 MWe. The plant consumes of coal per day, and requires of cooling water per hour. Its supercritical boiler operates at a pressure of and temperature of. When the generator first went into operation, it was the largest in the world measured in terms of the volume of steam produced.

Environmental impact

In 2006, the plant ranked the 70th among the large coal-fired plants in the United States on the list of worst SO2 polluters, having emitted of sulfur dioxide per MWh of energy produced.
Since then, a wet limestone scrubber has been installed, which reduced sulfur dioxide emissions by about 95%. In 2015, the plant released 2,510,476 tons of.