Power Plant Aims to Reduce Emissions
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Cornell continues to honor its dedication to the Kyoto Protocol Commitment of 2001 by striving to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the combined heat and power plant on campus by 30 percent.
Carlos Rymer ’08, president of the Sustainability Hub, explained that “the University will reduce the emissions 30 percent below the levels in 1990.”
Edward Wilson, the head of utilities and energy management on campus, explained that currently Cornell is generating all of the steam needed for the heating on campus, but only 15 percent of the electrical needs.
“The renewal project will enable Cornell to continue to meet all of the University’s heating needs and generate 85 percent of its electrical needs,” he said.
Wilson explained that the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions result from the high efficiency that comes from increasing the percentage of electricity generated by 70 percent.
“Natural gas is fired in stationary engines which drive electrical generators and the exhausted heat is used to generate steam. The steam is [then] used to generate additional electricity and the low-grade steam is then used to heat buildings on our campus. Utilization of all the energy possible, down to heating buildings with low-grade steam results in very high efficiencies. Energy efficiencies as high as 75 percent are realized,” Wilson said.
This project is another part of President David Skorton’s pledge for sustainability at Cornell.
Wilson also mentioned that the amount of coal combustion will decrease, lessening the University’s dependence on coal.
Cornell is not the first academic institution to implement this kind of system. Wilson explained that other similar designs for reducing greenhouse gas emissions have been in place for years. An academic institution works best for reducing emissions because of the accessibility of the technology required.
Although the project will not save the University any money because of consumption of more high cost gas, and less low-cost coal, it does have benefits.
“Overall this project will reduce close to one-third [of] the energy consumed to produce Cornell’s electrical and heating needs,” Wilson said.
The new plan is still waiting for full confirmation. Wilson said that the University’s senior administration has approved the project, but further approval is necessary from other agencies at different stages of development; confirmation will need to come from the Town and City of Ithaca and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
Wilson explained the other environmental effects of the combined heat and power plant.
“Cornell's energy footprint will be reduced. Predicted Emission reductions include: an annual reduction of 50,000 tons [or a] percentage reduction of 20 percent [of carbon dioxide] and a reduction of 250 tons or a percentage reduction [of] 55 percent [of nitrous oxide],” Wilson said.
Currently the heating plant on campus is providing the steam that heats 250 University buildings and is used for on-campus research. This steam is the product of six main boilers on campus. Wilson explains that dependency on these boilers is dangerous because if the largest boiler was to break, the remaining five could just barely meet the campus’ heating needs.
Rymer described Cornell’s efforts as “going above and beyond” the Kyoto Protocol Commitment, which he said required a 10 percent reduction.
Rymer also explained another goal of the University on greenhouse gas emissions.
“The task force on carbon neutrality is going to have greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050,” Rymer said. But he expressed optimism that this zero goal may be achieved even earlier.
The University is also working to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from transportation.
“I think this will be good for Cornell,” said Regina Meyers ’08. “The plant will increase energy efficiency and similar plants have already been proven to be successful at other universities.”
Our energy management experiences
I'm actually a member of staff at a UK university, and recently I've been doing some work with the campus energy manager to try to find some ways to make savings. It's good to see mentions of other universities / colleges worldwide doing similar.
We have a fairly successful on-site CHP installation that is bringing pretty good cost and emission savings, and we're now focusing our efforts on energy management, an area in which we're getting some decent results. Fortunately the campus has an excellent interval metering system, and we've been using some great software called Energy Lens to analyze the energy data from various buildings around the campus. Basically we're doing simple energy monitoring using charts of our energy consumption at different times and different days of the week etc. Looking at these charts (lots of these charts...) has proved very useful for finding routine waste across the campus, waste which we will be working to tackle.
Incidentally, there's a reason I haven't mentioned which university I'm at: we've been finding obscene amounts of routine energy waste, and, although it's no different to most large organizations, it's certainly nothing to brag about (not until we've cut it anyway)! It's depressing to see just how much equipment gets left on unnecessarily overnight across the campus, but at least it's encouraging that there's potential for us to make huge progress!
Full energy utilization - good show.
It is reassuring to see CU moving towards integrated heat and power systems of this sort. Massive amounts of energy are lost in heat and power generation systems designed as independent systems. Combining them into a single unified system is certainly the way to go, increasing system level efficiency considerably.
On the other hand, while clean burning and easy to implement, firing generators with natural gas is a highly non-sustainable approach for the long term. An increasing number of power plants and systems of the sort CU is proposing are springing up around the world, greatly increasing the demand for natural gas. As a limited resource, what is the expected practical lifespan of this solution before it becomes impractical?
In all CO2 and energy reduction programs, the first goal should be to reduce consumption. It would be interesting to see a campus wide analysis of energy use. Even something as simple as plotting usage over time would be enlightening. For example, has the prevalence of student computers and gaming systems increased demand during the last 20 years? What is the breakdown between other campus buildings and dorms? Can increased student involvement in this analysis (like that done at MIT), lead to findings that can substantially reduce campus-wide energy utilization?
Given the tremendous "brain" resources available at CU, an "open source" approach to consumption reduction could be highly rewarding. Publish all the available information on energy utilization, production, etc. relating to the university properties. Involve the community. Empower the students and faculty to contribute to the solution. Share this knowledge and create incentives to providing solutions.
We are at a time of opportunity unlike any other. With an international agenda to "go green", the rest of the world is catching up to what Ithacans have known for decades - living green is more than changing a light bulb, it involves a fundamental shift in daily lifestyle. Conscious consumption - every choice matters.