Vaccine mandates and risks to the electrical grid
The largest public utility in the U.S. is in between a rock and hard place
Originally posted on my Power and Markets Substack, please feel free to share and subscribe to my newsletter to get these articles in your inbox!
The federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates are coming hard and fast. The Biden Administration’s executive order on immunization sets deadlines of November 22 and December 8, 2021, for federal employees and federal contractors, respectively. 1 The OSHA mandate for private sector employers with 100+ employees is set to be dropped at any point. Retailers and trucking organizations are seeking at least a 90-day implementation period for employers to be in compliance, pushing the deadline into February 2022. 2
The unintended consequences of such a sweeping edict are going to be devastating. We already observed widespread flight cancellations at Southwest and American Airlines, which I covered in this Substack post in greater detail.
For today, I will write about a very serious situation regarding the United States’ largest public utility: Tennessee Valley Authority. 3
The Tennessee Valley Authority, or TVA, was established on May 18, 1933 by a congressional charter signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This federal corporation was tasked by FDR with constructing dams, controlling flooding, and providing electricity for the Tennessee Valley region in the Appalachian Mountains. 4 TVA employees are classified as federal employees and subject to the November 22, 2021 COVID-19 vaccination deadline.
According to an October 1 memo sent out by the United States Office of Personnel Management, federal workers must have their final vaccine dose by November 8th to be fully vaccinated by November 22nd. Federal agencies are able to issue disciplinary actions including suspensions starting on November 9th for noncompliance. 5
As with the airlines, there is significant pushback to this mandate within TVA. Tennessee has one of the lowest fully vaccinated rates in the country sitting at only 47% as of October 29, 2021. 6 Lawmakers are especially concerned about the impact the ultimatum will have on TVA staffing, especially at nuclear facilities. TVA employees have contacted US congressmen indicating their intentions of resigning, retiring, or going into completely different fields altogether. 7
This raises grave concerns regarding the US’ electrical grid. TVA resides within the Eastern Interconnection, the largest power grid in North America. Given the sheer size of TVA, being the largest public power utility in the country, these impacts could be severe especially heading into winter. Natural gas prices are already putting pressure on utilities following the February 2021 blackouts. If nuclear power plants at TVA, or any power generator, has to go into outage due to lack of staffing, that’s less capacity available to grid operators. With more people working mandatory overtime, the risks for mistakes increase. You also run into lowered morale for the remaining workforce that could add to more resignations.
Many of these jobs cannot be readily replaced. Given Tennessee’s already low fully vaccinated rate of <50%, where are the replacements going to come from? How long does it take to train them? The higher vaccination rates go up with each age group. The issue is the average fully vaccinated rate is supported by those 50 years of age and up. The 20–49 year olds have much lower rates of vaccination and are likely more hesitant to do so. That’s another obstacle when dissecting the remaining labor pool.
Quite simply, this is a bad idea and bad policy with implications we cannot even begin to contemplate fully. TVA is just one specific company in one segment of the economy. The impact is going to be widespread. Also, with the pending OSHA mandate, almost every utility in the country will be facing similar problems. TVA may have the “first mover” benefit of recruiting national talent willing to move to the state to fill these vacancies, but it just shifts the problems elsewhere.
When other utilities have their mandates, where will they recruit from? Those who resigned, were fired, or retired, due to this mandate won’t be available. The talent pool capable of working these jobs shrinks tremendously. These are serious risks to a fundamental core necessity of modern life. Without reliable electricity, what good is any material thing we own? And then, of course, what good is the quality of life as it rolls into rampant shortages for basic necessities?
We all take reliable electricity for granted. When we want a light turned on, we flip a switch. When we want to do laundry, we push a button. This is only made possible with our power grid operated by qualified professionals. These same individuals are contemplating leaving their jobs for a decision forced upon them without recourse. For our sake, whether you’re vaccinated or not, we cannot let it come to that. Unfortunately, we are marching in that direction.
If you enjoyed this article, please share it. If you’d like to learn more about the US power grid, I’ve written several other pieces on it before. You can learn more about it below:
Blackout — How high natural gas prices bankrupted Texas’ oldest electric power cooperative
Why does Texas have its own power grid?
Grid reliability concerns with growth of residential solar in California
Originally published at https://powerandmarkets.substack.com on November 1, 2021.
