Some concerned about UI’s use of coal boilers
While the University of Iowa has made plans to reduce its use of coal to produce energy, some UI students said it’s not happening soon enough.
Student environmental advocates said they’re unhappy with the lack of progress made toward establishing a definite plan for coal reduction after meeting with a university official for roughly 90 minutes late last week.
“It’s great in that we voiced our concern,” said Desire Christensen, a UI graduate student in the College of Public Health and a leader of the ECO Hawks. “My surprise or disappointment is that there isn’t currently a committee at the university meeting about energy plans.”
The UI’s Power Plant still has two coal-powered boilers — one of which now produces only half its heat from coal — which use approximately 100,000 tons of coal each year.
In April 2008, UI President Sally Mason recommended changing the target date from 2013 to this year for two crucial UI energy goals: a 10 percent reduction in energy use and a 15 percent increase in renewable energy use.
UI Senior Associate to the President Jonathan Carlson said he thought the meeting with representatives from UI ECO Hawks, UI Physicians for Social Responsibility, the UI Environmental Coalition, and the Sierra Club Student Coalition went well.
“It’s no different from what you see in the sports section every day,” he said. “You have people who feel passionately about Hawkeye sports. These students care passionately about the environment.”
Ferman Milster, the Power Plant’s head of strategic planning, said within three to five years, the university could realistically cut coal use by more than half.
And the notion of complete elimination isn’t impossible. At the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, officials have created an extensive plan to move completely off coal as early as 2015.
“This is a passionate subject,” Milster said, noting the campus has already begun using more biomass — a cleaner coal replacement. “Things are in motion with no firm date. It’s a very complicated process.”
Carlson said he reminded the students at the meeting they aren’t the ones deciding the budget for energy-efficiency plans.
But Christensen defended their right to address the issue with administrators.
“We’re not children here,” she said. “We pay to come here. That’s part of our voice. The university wouldn’t exist if not for students paying.”
Graham Jordison, a recent graduate of Iowa State University and a representative from the Sierra Club, said the students didn’t go into the meeting expecting officials to promise an immediate shut-down of the university’s coal-burning Power Plant.
“What we understood from the meeting is that they don’t have a plan,” Jordison said. “If there is one, they don’t really know where it is.”
Carlson and Milster said UI officials plan to continue the possibility of replacing coal with biomass but weren’t sure how much such efforts would cost.
Carlson also wasn’t sure about the price tags for a proposed natural gas-fired co-generation plant on the West Side or a power plant on the Oakdale campus that will use methane gas from the landfill.
comments powered by Disqus
