Chipping Away at Our Carbon Footprint

As a small liberal arts college, Middlebury proves that bigger is not necessarily better —at least when it comes to environmental responsibility. In recent years, the College has paved the way for some of the most advanced and environmentally friendly energy systems among colleges and universities in the country.

In 2004, the College set the goal of achieving carbon  neutrality by 2016. In 2009, the biomass plant, located beside McCullough Social Space, became operational in order to aid the efforts in achieving this goal. Although the plant cost the College $12 million, it has cut fuel oil use in half, reducing consumption from two million gallons per year to one million gallons. Additionally, the biomass plant has helped to reduce the College’s carbon footprint by 40 percent. The current footprint is measured at 18,000 metric tons of carbon.

The steam production process requires 20,000 tons of woodchips annually. These woodchips come from mill residue and bole tree chips, and all are sourced within a 75-mile radius of the College.

Since its early years as a research operation, the biomass project has grown to become even more efficient than the manufacturer first believed possible. Presently, other schools, including University of South Carolina and Eastern Illinois University, are looking to the the College’s system as a model for their campus energy systems. Director of Sustainability Integration Jack Byrne believes the success of biomass at the College can be attributed to the community’s dedication to the project over the years.

“[The College is] doing a good job of figuring out how to make it work really well,” said Byrne. “I think as a result, we have had a lot of people who are considering systems come to us to find out how we do it. We’re a valuable resource for advocating this system.”

The biomass plant creates energy for the entire college by converting woodchips into steam and energy. Twenty thousand tons of woodchips are used annually to heat dorms and create 20 percent of electricity on campus. The steam then condenses back into water and is transported back to the plant to be turned into steam again. An underground piping system facilitates the transport of steam throughout campus.

While other schools like Colgate University and Bennington College utilize heat energy from the wood burning process, the College’s system uses a gasification process where chips are converted into gas, leaving only mineral ash, which produces more efficient and cleaner energy.

The biomass plant started as an idea discussed by the Environmental Council in accordance with a 2004 winter term class focusing on carbon reduction. Ultimately, the Council and other supplementary groups set a goal to reduce the 1990-level emissions by 10 percent by 2012. After putting together a report including potential results, costs and savings, they recommended the biomass plant as a way to achieve this goal.

Before the construction of the biomass plant, the College used two million gallons of fuel oil (propane number six) per year to produce the required amount of energy. Known as a “dirty” fuel, number six comes from the bottom of the barrel, and produces and releaes more carbon dioxide emissions than most other fuel sources.

Despite these efforts, the amount of woodchips that the biomass plant requires is larger than one may think. Each student uses 39 pounds of woodchips and one gallon of number six fuel oil per day, much more than one might expect.

To reduce the number down to zero before the 2016 deadline, the College is looks to an unlikely source: manure.

Recently, the College signed a contract with a developer who is planning to build a manure digester on a dairy farm. Manure is considered to be carbon neutral because it originated from grass.

This developer would deliver biomethane for 10 years in order to supplement the gas provided by the biomass plant. If enacted, the use of biomethane would reduce carbon emissions by 13,000 metric tons, leaving just five tons remaining.

The College is also considering other options, including renewable diesel oil and better management of the large amounts of agriculture land.

College-related travel and waste still remain obstacles to achieving carbon neutrality. Administrators remain unsure of how to account for the use of college-owned vehicles and transportation to sponsored conferences, which are not currently factored into the overall carbon footprint. Additionally, while 65 percent of our waste is recycled, the rest goes to a landfill in the northeastern part of Vermont.

To reduce the amount of waste and energy produced, the Environmental Council is developing an energy literacy campaign to educate students on how much each activity affects our environment. Supplemental to the campaign is an energy pledge which will be unveiled at the end of October. Council members hope other planned events like campus sustainability day on Oct. 24 will encourage environmental awareness by providing all local foods in the dining hall, among other initiatives.

“Through our efforts we are teaching and reminding the student body how to effectibely reduce their carbon emissions,” said council member Piper Rosales Underbrink ’15.

Avery McNiff ’12 currently works alongside Director of Sustainability Integration Jack Byrne as the student sustainability, communications and outreach coordinator. Her job entails communicating Middlebury’s sustainability efforts to students. McNiff believes that educating the community to become involved is an integral part in making carbon neutrality a possibility by 2016.

“The best part of this job is working with students who really care about reaching our goal of carbon neutrality and who are passionate about working on issues regarding the environment on and off campus,” said McNiff. “Students have amazing ideas and visions and have been a huge force behind the carbon neutrality goal and sustainability efforts in general.”

Byrne also understands the importance of student involvement and hopes that by increasing student awareness, cutting the carbon footprint will become an easier task.

“We’re putting the emphasis this year on getting more student involvement around energy use,” said Byrne. “What we are hoping is that we will have a majority of students really understanding how to use energy in their dorm rooms, cars and using best practices.”

While carbon neutrality by 2016 is a lofty goal, Byrne believes the goal shows the College’s dedication to environmental responsibility and that our community can set an example to others.

“This all emanates from our concern [which emerged] years and years ago that climate change was a serious issue,” he said. “We have one of the most ambitious plans of any college or university in the country. Carbon neutrality by 2016 is pretty bold. The resolutions [the trustees] passed demonstrate that we want to do it in a real, substantive way on our own.”

Olivia Noble ’13, an environmental studies major with a focus on policy, said that the plant is a positive addition to the campus’ eco-frendly infrastructure, but that more still needs to be done in order to achieve carbon neutrality.

“Since the building of that plant, few major projects have made their way through the woodwork that would notably reduce the carbon footprint of this campus,” said Noble. “Partially this is because a lot of that support from the students faded away, partially because of the recession. Now that the deadline is creeping up on us, the College is piquing its interest again, so maybe we’ll see more action on this front, but I am pessimistic in thinking that we will make the deadline in a meaningful way.”