Students urge UND to stop burning coal

With the drone of the coal-fired power plant on the south side of campus, several students dressed in bright yellow shirts with the words "Beyond Coal" held a rally Wednesday calling on UND to end its use of the "dirtiest fossil fuel."

The students, part of the Sierra Club's Coal-Free Campus initiative, gathered to launch a national campaign vying for change on the nation's university campuses.

UND is one of the 11 colleges named in the "Beyond Coal" report and is part of the Sierra Club's national effort on more than 60 campuses.

"We're launching our campaign to end coal dependence and transitioning to 100 percent clean energy by retiring old campus-based coal plants and investing in clean, renewable alternatives," said event organizer Sriram Madhusoodanan.

The three speakers at the event cited the dirtiness of coal and it's negative impact on the environment. In fact, in 2007, UND emitted 85,600 metric tons of CO2 in the atmosphere according to their 1993-2007 Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report-the coal plant accounted for more than 60 percent of that.

According to speaker and psychology junior Austin Winger, "By switching to renewable, clean energy at UND, the emissions reduction would be equivalent to taking 16,500 cars off the road every year."

It's dramatic changes like those that Madhusoodanan is hoping will come about as UND and other universities "realize that there are clean energy alternatives out there that need to be considered."

For many students at the event, the issue was very personal. Lorenzo Serna, a graduate student in English said that last year, he and a group of other students drove to Washington D.C. for the national Powershift conference. There, they met other students and community members from other cities in North Dakota, including people from Newtown, ND who had suffered from asthma, lung and heart disease and other ailments directly linked to the coal burning that occurs in that part of the state.

"At that point we really connected ourselves to the problem," he said. "You always hear of the statistics and stuff, but we actually saw it; we actually heard testimony of what was going on. We have a coal plant here on campus so we're part of the problem and it needs to stop."

While getting rid of the coal plant on campus would not be an easy task, people like Isham Christie, a senior studying philosophy say that's not an excuse to keep burning the black mineral.

"I think getting rid of this plant is a concrete goal that will affect people's lives directly," he said. "It'll affect the UND community and it will affect ND in general and it will be a step in the right direction for the nation. And I think we can actually get this done; I think this is something we as a university and community can do."

Members of the Coal-Free Campus campaign say they will begin to work with university officials and others in the community to see what is feasible for UND with the hope of "moving beyond coal and into clean energy."

If UND did decide to get rid of the coal-fired power plant, which, according Randall Bohlman, technology advancement coordinator for Facilities Management, is something that is seriously being considered, it would be one of the first campuses in the country to do so.

"We have so many renewable solutions that we can move forward with right here in North Dakota," said Winger. "We have so much wind that we can actually gain 136,000 plus megawatts-the highest potentially of any state in the country. But we have to invest in that and the place to begin is on a university campus just like UND."

The UND coal plant is and aging facility. At about 50 years old, Christie said a change needs to happen. Universities like Ball State in Indiana and University of Wisconsin Madison have been two noted success stories in the fight against coal power.

Ball State has begun its transition to geothermal energy, which takes heat from deep inside the earth's crust to completely eliminate its use of coal. The project will take approximately five to seven years to complete the project on the 660-acre campus, but officials said it would mean $2 million in annual savings. UW Madison said early this year that it would convert its five coal powered boilers to burn biomass and natural gas instead of coal-a move that is part of a statewide movement away from coal.

"It's time to invest in renewable resources," Winger concluded. "We know it's there, we know how to use it, we just need to move forward and start doing it."