Sierra Club’s goal is no coal

The coal-burning Central Heating Plant on Fee Lane will cease to exist if a new campaign on campus has something to say about it.

On Sept. 16, IU became one of 30 campuses nationwide to join the Sierra Club’s Campuses Beyond Coal campaign to end burning coal for energy on college campuses.

IU is among 60 college campuses across the nation that still rely on coal for the production of electricity for the majority of campus buildings and residence halls, according to a report distributed by the Sierra Club last week during a demonstration outside the IU Central Heating Plant.

The report notes that the CHP, which produces steam that heats most IU buildings on campus, burned 68,000 tons of coal in 2006.

Monica Embrey, the campaign organizer for the IU campus, said the campaign exists because burning coal for energy is the most destructive industrial process in the U.S.
“Our goal is to completely shut down these plants and switch to cleaner energy sources,” Embrey said.

Each campaign will be entirely student run, Embrey said.

“This is a group of students who are really dedicated to addressing issues of global warming, as well as public health concerns,” she said.

Embrey said the campaign has already received plenty of positive feedback on campus.

“We have a petition going out to President McRobbie, and it has just been overwhelming support,” she said. “We’ve only been collecting signatures for a couple of days, and it’s been really encouraging and exciting.”

Working with the administration
Much of the strategy for the campaign will involve putting pressure on the administration to continue to step forward in implementing sustainable energy technologies on campus, Embrey said.

“These are campaigns that have been specifically launched at these universities,” Embrey said. “IU was chosen in part because of steps it has taken toward sustainability, and we hope to encourage that process.”

Embrey said she has already met with IU-Bloomington Provost Karen Hanson and Director of Sustainability Bill Brown to share the campaign’s goals.

“Our plan is to continue to work with them and put pressure on the administration to step away from coal,” she said.

Although the University’s Physical Plant has seriously considered burning wood chips, biomass and other carbon-neutral materials in the production of electricity, Brown said there is still no timeline as to when a complete switch could happen.

“We did have a plan before the Sierra Club was here, and we would like to get that point, but there are a couple of considerations,” Brown said. “One is money, and the other is time, and those are the two problems that we have to solve.”

Brown said any possibility of becoming completely carbon-neutral on campus will be a long-term process. He said the University still needs to research what specific kinds of biomass in Indiana are readily available for the production of energy.

“The technology is certainly developing, and we’re exploring the alternatives,” he said. “But we certainly haven’t discovered the answer yet.”

Still, he said the University is ready to collaborate with the Sierra Club in realizing those long-term goals.

“We certainly welcome the participation of the Sierra Club,” he said. “We’re glad to have them on campus as another student group.”

Cutting coal starts at colleges
James Gignac, Midwest director for the Sierra Club, said the Campuses Beyond Coal campaign began after a successful Sierra Club campaign stopped the construction of new coal-fired power plants across the nation.

He said the logical next step was to turn the nation’s attention toward phasing out existing coal-fired power plants, especially those on college campuses.

“What the scientists are telling us is that we need to phase out coal’s contribution to global warming by 2030 if we are going to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of
global climate change,” Gignac said.

College campuses are of particular interest to the campaign because universities should be the leaders in the development and innovation of clean-energy technologies, Gignac said.

“Given the large amount of interest about wanting to have a clean-energy future, schools that can make this transition can offer an attractive place for students in the future,” Gignac said.

And while the main goal is the same for every campus, Gignac also said each school will have its own way of ending its use of coal.

“There’s not one solution to phasing out coal. It’s really a package of different types of solutions,” he said.

Some schools might be able to stop their use of coal faster than others, Gignac said. But the initial goal is to seek meaningful reductions and create a path to phase out coal.

Gignac said the amount of enthusiasm from students across the nation is a good indicator of how effective the Campuses Beyond Coal campaign could be.

“This fits into what is happening nationally, which is a growing movement to phase out coal and transition to clean energy,” he said. “It’s pretty exciting, and we’re seeing a lot of enthusiasm from young people all over the country.”