Fly Ash Should Be Managed As A Resource
Fly Ash is a by-product of burning coal to produce electricity. Fly Ash is also a critical ingredient in the production of high-performance, durable concrete products for residential, commercial and public infrastructure projects. Incorporating Fly Ash into concrete makes it stronger, more durable, and more economical to produce, saving both private and taxpayer money across the TVA service area.
In addition, using Fly Ash as a component in ready mix concrete is a safe, permanent, and responsible method of mitigating health and environmental risks associated with any other method of managing Fly Ash at coal-fired power plants. Other methods of storing and managing Fly Ash may not provide a permanent solution to the risks associated with such storage, and those methods waste a valuable resource while costing TVA money.
This critical resource (Fly Ash) has a proven market value and there are several commercially viable methods of treating fly ash – including fly ash already stored in pits or ponds – to make it a saleable product. Fly Ash used in the production of ready mixed concrete and other similar products no longer has to be stored or managed, and Fly Ash used in this manner is chemically bound into the concrete matrix and rendered safe. In fact, based on US EPA’s extensive evaluation of the use of fly ash in concrete, its 2014 conclusion was that “EPA supports the continued beneficial use of coal fly ash in concrete."
Focusing on Fly Ash as an important construction resource will permanently reduce the amount of Fly Ash that has to be stored and managed in perpetuity by TVA, at a continuing expense to TVA and a continuing risk to our environment. TVA should choose beneficiation as the first option at all operating coal-fired plants to prevent the need for Fly Ash to be landfilled in the first place, and should begin a focused effort to beneficiate and sell Fly Ash that has already been landfilled in either pits or ponds.
The signatories below are calling on TVA to make beneficial reuse of fly ash their primary strategy at all coal-fired power plants, both operating and closed: