The university has to stop using coal power due to President Roderick McDavis’s climate plan and an EPA mandate.
Ohio University must stop using coal power to comply with OU President Roderick McDavis’ climate plan and a mandate from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The university is on track and on budget to accomplish this goal, said Joseph Lalley, OU’s senior associate vice president for IT & Administrative Services. OU will stop burning coal by December 2015, a month before the mandate comes into effect, Lalley said.
But even though OU is moving away from coal, it is shifting to generating power from another fossil fuel — natural gas — for the foreseeable future.
“There are two factors at play here,” Lalley said. “The first is the president’s climate commitment to stop burning coal by 2015. As we were evaluating options with the Lausche Heating Plant, that has been in our minds.”
Lausche is currently being converted to burn natural gas as part of a $79 million initiative to improve OU’s energy infrastructure, including a shift away from coal.
In 2007, McDavis signed the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, and said that it was his intention for OU to be a carbon neutral campus by 2075.
To date, OU has produced nothing to show how they will reach that goal.
The commitment mandates the university move away from coal power completely by 2015.
“There is also an EPA deadline of Jan. 31, 2016, known as the M.A.C.T. deadline,” Lalley said. M.A.C.T. stands for Maximum Achievable Control Technology.
“This (mandate) will make it very expensive to use coal to produce energy,” Lalley said.
M.A.C.T. standards are standards to regulate emissions of hazardous air pollutants, or air toxins, said Catherine Milbourn, a U.S. EPA spokeswoman. Those standards begin to crack down harshly on coal power plant emissions in 2016.
There is currently a general national movement away from using coal power, said Scott Miller, Director of the Consortium for Energy, Economics, and Environment at OU’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs.
“The current move away from coal is part of a general divestiture from fossil fuels nationwide,” Miller said.
The M.A.C.T. standards force boilers, which create steam to generate power, to be more efficient while polluting less.
For years, the U.S. EPA has said electricity should be generated from cleaner sources to mitigate pollution creation, Miller said. The smart move to use natural gas for the time being, because it is abundant domestically and relatively cheap, he added.
“The future of electric generation will be much more diverse and robust,” Miller said.
Using natural gas provides a short window of time where opportunities to use wind, solar, water and other power sources can be pursued.
OU’s regional campuses do not use coal power, Lalley said.
While OU is transitioning away from coal next year, the university will have to rent boilers that can be powered by natural gas, before purchasing and installing permanent boilers, he said.
The Energy Infrastructure Projects Initiative — the $79 million project approved by the OU Board of Trustees at its June meeting — includes other campus improvements in four major areas, including a utility master plan and improvements to the chilled water system, electrical distribution and steam production infrastructure.
