Although Virginia Tech’s coal-powered power plant satisfies only 7 percent of the university’s energy needs, it continues to be a point of contention as groups attempt to pressure the university to use cleaner energy sources.
A recent campaign titled “2 Dirty 4 College” was initiated by The Sierra Club in order to motivate college campuses reliant on coal as a power source to find renewable energy means to move “beyond coal”.
Allison Still, a freshman majoring in fisheries, is a member of Campuses Beyond Coal Campaign and rejects the idea of clean coal outright. “All coal is dirty,” she said.
“Everybody should care because we’re losing the world for the future generations our children, our grandchildren,” Still said. “We’re going to leave the world in a terrible state if we’re blowing up mountains and destroying ecosystems and polluting water and air.”
The ads depict classic “dirty” college scenarios including mud wrestling, eating a cheeseburger after it has fallen onto the floor, and waking up handcuffed to bed. All videos convey the sense that coal is even too “dirty” for college behavior.
Tech is one of 17 campuses in 11 states targeted by the campaign. Other colleges in Beyond Coal’s crosshairs include the University of Georgia, Penn State University, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and the University of Southern California.
“We are working to move the school beyond coal to alternate energy sources just because coal is an old technology,” Still said. “We used it 200 years ago, and it’s time that we get off it.”
However, the coal power plant produces only a very small portion of Tech’s energy needs, said Dennis Cochrane, sustainability program manager at Tech.
Nearly all of the university’s electricity — 93 percent — is purchased through American Electric Power. The remaining seven percent is produced by the on-campus power plant, which does not actually always use coal.
Weather, the season and other aspects decide which fuel source the plant use most frequently.
“When it’s cold, that’s when your capacity is in the greatest need,” Cochrane said, “so it depends upon a variety of factors that will dictate what fuel you use, as a matter of time.”
“We can generate (the remainder) here ourselves, either by burning coal in our two coal boilers,” Cochrane said, “or in burning natural gas, or number two fuel oil in the remaining three burner units.
“In essence, we produce a very small amount of electricity (from the plant),” Cochrane said.
Haiz Oppenheimer of Green Corps, a field school for environmental organizing, was hired by the Sierra Club to help spearhead and mentor the student organization behind the campaign.
Oppenheimer said that although the university has done a good job of studying possible energy solutions, it has not done a good job of implementing its goals.
“Virginia Tech is one of the best technical research institutions in the world; we can do this,” Oppenheimer said. “There’s already been several other institutions to go completely away from coal.”
He suggested exclusively burning of natural gas as a short-term solution because it produces a considerably less amount of carbon dioxide than coal does.
The primary use of the campus plant is to produce steam and hot water used by campus facilities.
“One of the major benefits of it is that it’s heating the campus and producing some electricity as a cogeneration (simultaneously),” said Stephen Schafrick, a research engineer for Blacksburg-based Virginia Energy Patterns and Trends.
Activists also point to climate change as a cause to fight coal power on campus.
Nationwide, 30 percent of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions come directly from coal power plants.
Coal does not produce a majority of Tech’s energy. However, Oppenheimer maintains that coal is the single highest carbon-releasing fuel, and more directly relevant, may be damaging to student and faculty health on campus. Carbon monoxide and dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury, arsenic and other toxic and heavy metals including trace amounts of uranium are all typical coal plants byproducts.
Oppenheimer said that the pollutants released from the coal plant contribute to global warming and can cause an increased number of respiratory infections in the surrounding areas, particularly to those suffering from asthma.
“Direct emissions in terms of direct pollutants would affect the whole campus without a doubt,” Oppenheimer said.
Kelly Rogers is a sophomore human development major and was a resident of Thomas Hall last year.
She was not aware of the side effects associated with the power plant located across from her dorm room when she began her freshman year, but noticed some of the effects of living close to the plant.
“In the side facing the power plant, when you would have your windows open and your fan on, the air from the plant would be drifting into your room faster than normal,” Rogers said. “There would be soot gathered on the screen of the window in the shape of the fan because it would be sucking it in so fast.”
Soot would occasionally make its way in smaller quantities onto desks or other pieces of furniture nearby.
Compared to the $3,300 cost of primarily freshman and sophomore on-campus housing facilities in the lower quad, residents of dorms located in the upper quad such as Brodie, Monteith, Rasche and Thomas are only charged $3,094 a year.
However, the lower cost of living in Thomas is “not at all” related to the proximity to the power plant, said Kenneth Belcher, associate director for occupancy management. Belcher attributed the lower cost to the relatively old age of upper quad residence halls.
“Thomas was built in 1949 … Most of our cleaning comes from cleaning up after students. It’s not something that has to do with its proximity to anything,” Belcher said.
Oppenheimer said that the system of producing on-campus energy would have to evolve from one centralized power to a distributed power in order to make the change away from nonrenewable resources.
“Virginia Tech can do it. We’ve got the people, we’ve got the expertise, all we need is the commitment,” Oppenheimer said.