There are some really nice views from up on the mountain, but not all the views are so great. The best place to see the furthest is the end of the road that goes past our house. But that also happens to be the place where the power lines cross the mountain.

Powerlines and the view from Lavender Mountain

This was taken in the morning, while fog was still covering the Coosa River. The fog covering the river is visible on the left just below the horizon, and to the right of the mountain behind the suspension towers. You can also see Plant Hammond and a little of its stack plume on the right, and a paper mill a little upriver, which is spewing quite a plume of steam right behind the tower.

The power lines start on the other side of the mountain in Texas Valley at the Rocky Mountain Pump Storage Facility, which is owned and operated by Georgia Power and Oglethorpe Power. The valley is unusual in that it is nearly a completely enclosed pocket with just a small outlet, and with a mountain (Rocky Mountain) located in the center. It’s so unusual that it’s easily recognizable from airliner altitude. The upper storage part of the pump-storage facility is on top of the mountain. There are two or three lakes down in the valley that also store water.

A pump-storage powerplant operates by impounding water at a relatively low elevation. During off-peak times, when the demand for power is low, electric power is used to pump water uphill to a storage impoundment at a higher elevation, in this case, on the top of Rocky Mountain. Then, when there is a higher demand for power, the water runs down through generators and ends up back in the lower reservoirs. The laws of physics mean that a pump-storage power plant is a net consumer of energy. In other words, it uses more electrical energy than it produces. It only makes economic sense because the power companies can charge more for the power it produces during peak demand times than it costs for the power it consumes during off-peak times.

Three power generation facilities are visible from just behind where I was standing to take this picture. As I mentioned, you can see Georgia Power’s Plant Hammond from this point. On a clear day you can also see Georgia Power’s Plant Bowen, which is on the Etowah River. The Etowah flows to Rome where it joins with the Oostanaula River to form the Coosa. Both of those power plants are coal-fired. Back in 2006 a report by the Environmental Integrity Project said that Plant Bowen led the country in sulfur emissions from power plants. Bowen has a huge generating capacity. It’s rated at over 3000 MW. Hammond is relatively small at only 800 MW. The Rocky Mountain facility is rated at 215 MW, which is smaller than any coal-fired plant, although quite respectable by hydroelectric standards. I guess that’s because of the greater head, or difference between the upper water level and the lower water level. Of course we have to pay to put virtually all that water up on top of Rocky Mountain, while Mother Nature puts the water behind the dams for free. Both Hammond and Bowen produce pollutants in the form of sulfur compounds and particulates, both of which are harmful in their own ways. Rocky Mountain doesn’t directly produce much of any pollutants. All of its pollutants are emitted by other power plants, probably including both Hammond and Bowen.

There’s no free ride.