CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – The southwest Montgomery County skyline will lose a prominent landmark with the demolition of the orange-and-white striped, 1,000-foot-tall smokestacks of the Cumberland Fossil Plant.

Starting this week and over the next few months, TVA crews will manually remove the first of the two abandoned concrete piles.

“These chimneys have not been in operation since the scrubbers were installed,” TVA officials said. “The work is being done manually with special equipment and not by controlled implosion, as the fossil-fuel power plant is still in operation.”

During daylight hours – typically between 7:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. – there may be loud noises nearby. “We apologize for any disruption these noises may cause to our neighbors in the community,” TVA said.

The second chimney will be removed in 2025. The other two chimneys are active and will remain for now.

In January 2023, it was announced that the highly polluting two-unit coal-fired power plant would be replaced with a natural gas-fired combined cycle turbine. TVA plans to retire the two coal-fired plants, one by the end of 2026 and the other by the end of 2028.

History of the steam power plant

The Cumberland Fossil Plant, popularly known as the “Steam Plant,” is located on approximately 1,425 acres just across the Montgomery County line in Stewart County, about 20 miles southwest of Clarksville on State Highway 149.

Construction on the plant began in 1968, and according to the TVA website, the plant has been in operation since 1973. The two 1,000-foot-tall smokestacks, built in 1970, are two of the tallest in the world.

“We recognize that removing the smokestacks will alter the skyline that has been familiar to the community for more than 50 years and return 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 the transition to clean energy generation and maintaining electricity supply from the Cumberland site using natural gas.”

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According to previous reports, the power plant employs up to 400 people and generates almost 2,500 megawatts of electricity, making it even more powerful than some nuclear power plants.

But that energy comes at a price: pollution. In 2016, the Cumberland Fossil Plant was the third-largest air polluter in the country in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and Toxics Release Inventory emissions, and the nation’s worst mercury polluter among coal-fired power plants, according to Leaf-Chronicle archives.

The new gas-fired power plant will produce 1,450 megawatts of electricity until the first coal-fired unit is decommissioned at the end of 2026. While that’s just over half of the 2,500 megawatts the fossil-fired power plant currently produces, TVA plans to add 10,000 megawatts of solar power to the system by 2035.

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