Work begins on energy facility

Author: H. Kay Merriman

The preliminary groundwork on the new $11 million biomass facility on Old Chapel Road behind the Service Building has begun, according to project manager Tom McGinn. The biomass facility's construction has redirected both pedestrian and vehicular traffic patterns, yet many students seem to be unaware as to what is being constructed.

"I thought they were just redoing the roads," said Emily Jones '10.

Campus Sustainability Coordinator Jack Byrne acknowledged that publicity concerning the facility has waned significantly since the project's inception.

"There was a flurry of news coverage, both local and national, for a few weeks after the decision was announced," said Byrne. "[The declining coverage] is probably due to the project shifting from a planning and design phase to construction start-up. Now that groundbreaking has occurred, it is much more visible."

Despite the large presence of the construction work, many students seem generally uninformed about the facility.

"I had no idea what they were doing," said Will James '10.5.

"I feel like they didn't really inform the student body," said Molly Brister '10.5.

According to Assistant Treasurer Thomas Corbin, the faculty-, staff- and student-comprised Carbon Reduction Working Group developed the idea for the biomass facility after examining the student-researched inventory of the College's carbon footprint and discovering that the College's biggest source of carbon emissions was generated by space heating.

Construction began on the facility in July and much progress has been made since then, but the original completion goal of fall 2008 has been pushed back until December 2008.

"We have started the underground utility work for the project and will be starting foundation work soon," said McGinn. "We are constructing an addition to the central heating and cooling plant to house the biomass boiler and related equipment."

The goal of the biomass facility is to use an alternative process to produce energy.

"The biomass plant will convert wood chips to a gas and burn the gas to make steam to produce electricity and heat the campus," Corbin said.

Environmental groups on campus applauded the initiative.

"The general opinion in Sunday Night Group (SNG) is supportive and excited, so long as the sourcing of wood chips is done in a responsible way," said SNG member Dan Kane '09.

The College has hired a woodchip provider, but is still determining the best method for obtaining the wood.

"We have contracted with Cousineau Forest Products to provide us with our 20,000 tons of woodchips per year," said Byrne. "They will find suppliers for us within a 75-mile radius from a variety of suppliers in the region. We have discussed with them our preference for suppliers that incorporate sustainability practices in their management of the forests from which they are getting the wood."

"We are also experimenting with growing our own fuel with short rotation crops of willows," said Corbin.

This pilot project has obtained a 10-acre test plot of unused agricultural land and plans to plant willow shrubs there in the spring. If all goes well, the use of wood chips will generate employment and other economic opportunities in Addison County, as well as throughout Vermont in the renewable energy and agroforestry sectors.

Currently, the College uses two million gallons of oil a year to heat buildings. The creation of the biomass facility in order to use an alternative energy source is projected to cut oil consumption in half.

The Carbon Reduction Working Group sees many benefits to the reduction of oil use. Firstly, the global oil market as of late has been unreliable and oil prices have been unstable. The less dependent the College is on oil, the less subject it is to the changes and troubles in the oil market, according to the Group. Also, in order to use oil, the College must pay to transport the oil to Vermont, which is not only expensive, but also releases additional carbon emissions. Lastly, the College recognizes that oil is a nonrenewable resource that cannot be depended upon forever.

The biomass facility project is intended to shift the dependence on foreign oil to a dependence on domestic, renewable wood. By using local wood, the College hopes to cut both shipping costs and carbon emissions. It is estimated that the use of the facility will reduce the College's carbon emissions by 12,500 metric tons a year. The College suspects that additional carbon dioxide levels will be reduced because of its initiative to expand wood chip use by planting more trees.

The idea of burning wood chips to reduce carbon emissions may sound counterintuitive, but the gasification process, supplied by Chiptech, Inc. of Bristol and Williston, Vt., actually produces less pollution than the use of number six oil.

"The biomass facility will be cleaner than the current oil-based system," wrote SNG member Emily May '10 in an e-mail, "collecting the particulate matter from the burning of the fuel internally, and it will not release any SOx or NOx emissions."

In addition to the apparent student support from SNG and other sources, the College administration has supported this initiative since its inception.

"The trustees are very supportive of the sustainability effort here on campus and saw the need to be more diverse with our fuel supply," Corbin said. "Once the cost of wood chips and the cost of oil were comparable the plant was not hard to sell."

The students that do know of the project and its goals also seem to be in favor of the additional steps in the overall trustee-approved plan which aims to make Middlebury carbon neutral by 2016.

"It's an expensive initial investment that can eventually pay for itself," said Pier LaFarge '10.5. "A lot of big cities are going to biomass power."

"All of the feedback I have received has been positive," Corbin said.