Biomass big step towards neutrality

Author: Lea Calderon-Guthe

"What powers a learning community? Apparently, wood chips," said Bill McKibben, scholar-in-residence in environmental studies, at the official launch of the Biomass Plant at the College on Feb. 19. Trustees, faculty, staff and students toured the new facility as part of the launch event, and President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz sought to describe the plant's significance best in his celebratory opening speech.

"This is no ordinary energy plant," Liebowitz said. "Biomass gasification demonstrates a new technology that cuts the College's consumption of heating oil in half, saving about a million gallons a year while reducing our carbon dioxide emissions by about 40 percent, or 12,500 metric tons per year."

The biomass facility turns wood chips into carbon monoxide and hydrogen in the gasification chamber and then ignites those gases in a boiler. Steam from the boiler is used for heating and cooling in most of the buildings on campus, and on its way out of the plant the steam cogenerates about 20 percent of Middlebury's electricity. The biomass plant is designed to handle the College's base heating load 365 days a year and the wood chips will replace half of the number 6 oil the College uses. The plant also represents the largest step Middlebury has made toward its goal of carbon neutrality by 2016, a goal proposed largely because of student initiative.

"This whole process has been student-driven with tremendous student involvement the whole way," said Executive Vice President and Treasurer of the College Bob Huth. "I think that's one of the reasons that Middlebury has advanced as far as it has - we probably would not have a biomass facility had it not been for our students."

The College first assessed its carbon footprint in 2003 when a Winter Term course taught by Professor of Chemistry Lori Del Negro and Luce Professor of International Environmental Economics Jon Isham produced a report proposing potential objectives and strategies for reducing campus climate impact. A Carbon Reduction Work Group reviewed the proposals and determined that gasifying biomass was an economically feasible way to reduce the College's footprint. Then, the Biomass Energy Research Corporation surveyed the area for biomass and verified that it was also environmentally feasible and locally sustainable. Building a biomass plant became part of not only reducing the College's carbon output but becoming completely carbon neutral by 2016 following the Board of Trustees' approval of student organization MiddShift's proposal in May 2007. The Board's pproval came after a campaign by Sunday Night Group (SNG), Middlebury's largest student environmental organization, achieved significant student response in the form of a petition and a task force chaired by Huth and made up of students and administrative staff outlined a path to carbon neutrality including the Biomass Plant as a key component. Like Huth, Chester Harvey '09, an active member of SNG and Huth's Carbon Neutrality Task Force, credits student support for a large part of the Carbon Neutrality Intitiave's success.

"I think most students are at least interested in why the biomass plant was built," said Harvey. "While the administration may be handling the details and the action of the program, it's still the students who are kind of sitting behind the scenes and prodding them to keep going."

Billie Borden '09, another member of the Carbon Neutrality Task Force, emphasized not only student leadership in the success of the Biomass Project, but also the unique collaboration between students, faculty and staff.

"For me, the most memorable part of the whole thing was actually being able to have an important role on these committees and as a student being taken seriously and being able to contribute to important discussions on the College's carbon footprint," Borden said. "I was increasingly impressed with how well the College and staff work with students and really value that relationship."

Measuring the success of the Biomass Plant from a purely economic standpoint, the College has invested in a $12 million facility that will ultimately pay for itself in approximately 10 years depending on the cost of oil, and then continue to save money. Diversifying the fuel supply with wood chips also decreases the College's dependence on oil while stimulating the local economy.

"The focus hasn't been on if it would be nice to do this - it's been on solving real-world problems that have an economic rationale to them," Huth said. "To me, this is a case-in-point where we've diversified our fuel supply, we've done something that has a payback for us and the local economy, and we have the great benefits of reducing the carbon produced. It's a win-win-win situation, and to me that's what you call a real-world solution to a problem we're all trying to correct."

The Biomass Plant's success is widely acclaimed, but to a leader in the field of institutional sustainability like Middlebury College, there is more to be done. Even though the wood chips for the Biomass Plant are currently collected within 75 miles of the campus, the College seeks to shrink its definition of 'local' even more. Environmental studies students are currently investigating the environmental impact of 1200 acres of willow trees based on a 10-acre test plot west of campus. If the willow trees prove to be environmentally friendly, the College has plans to grow its own fuel and supply 25 percent of its heating needs. The willow project would further benefit the greater Middlebury community as well.

"We have a lot of fields in the area that nobody does anything with, so if we were to have landowners be able to grow a cash-crop - willows - that works, it would really help the economy within Addison County," Huth said.

The College has reduced its need for oil by one million gallons, about half, but there remains the second million-gallon question: how will Middlebury reduce the rest of its carbon emissions? After the rest of the oil, Isham and the Carbon Neutrality Initiative point to transportation as the next major source of carbon emissions for the College, and even as the Biomass Plant continues to receive nationwide attention, students, faculty and staff are already tackling the other 60 percent of the College's carbon emissions.

"I am utterly stunned, in awe and so proud," Isham said. "Everything about [the Biomass Plant] speaks to the best of what we can do, including the sense that we have to do more. One of the things I really admire about environmental studies as an academic department is that while we are quite proud of what we do, we are always trying to do better, and I think that is something that gets at the core of what makes our college and the entire Middlebury community such a strong place. We're proud of what we do, but we don't rest on our laurels too much. Genuine celebration is well-merited, but we also have a sense of, 'Okay, what next?' It's that sense of moving forward that is such a special part of this community."

The students involved with the Biomass Project are looking forward already, as well. Borden, who is graduating, hopes other students will continue to step up.

"I definitely would like to see students maintain an interest in helping to plan [carbon neutrality]," Borden said. "I think there are a lot of really exciting things going on at a national level and even at a state level in terms of increasing the sustainability of our operations. I think if you want to be invested in where you are, then this carbon neutrality commitment is a really great way to take an active role in shaping the environment at Middlebury. I want to see that excitement about the project sustain itself."

Harvey is also graduating, but before he leaves he has set some new goals for SNG and continued expectations for the student body as a whole.

"I think that the College has done a really good job identifyi
ng places where the institution can make really big changes to take a large bite out of our carbon footprint," Harvey said. "What we haven't done such a good job with, and what I think SNG could help with a lot potentially, is figuring out ways to mobilize students to do something about [carbon neutrality] themselves. There are all of these things that form a much smaller piece of the pie but can really be used as an educational tool in everyday energy conservation."

The College is itself an educational tool in that it sets an example for other institutions. It has become one of the leading models in collegiate carbon neutrality, but according to Huth, its success will not be easy to emulate.

"Other institutions have asked questions like, 'How do you do this? How do you get an institutional goal of carbon neutrality by 2016, how do you affect carbon reductions, how do you get the community engaged?'" Huth said. "They'd like to replicate that, and it's very hard to replicate because it's in the Middlebury College DNA and to a great extent it's driven by our students. We have this environmental program and over the course of the years it has become embedded in the culture. It's something that students get excited about because they will have to deal with the environment longer than we will."