In eco era, Vanderbilt University keeps its coal plant

Coal has become a battle cry among environmentalists as worries rise over climate change, and TVA's Kingston ash spill last year showed the world the risk that coal waste can pose.

But at least one coal plant that lies in the heart of Nashville pumps out energy in relative obscurity. Vanderbilt University burns about 60,000 tons of the black gold every year at a multibuilding facility wedged between busy West End Avenue, a block away in one direction, and pedestrian-heavy Hillsboro Village less than a mile away in another.

Now the future of that plant - an operation that has long served as a quiet, money saving proposition for the university - is looking a bit fuzzy. Legislation before Congress would crack down on emissions from coal-burning plants, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering labeling coal ash as a hazardous material.

"We could lose a lot of our flexibility to control costs," said Mark Petty, vice chancellor of plant operations, referring to some of the possible regulatory changes.

The Vanderbilt plant, with its 210-foot brick smokestack, burns coal and natural gas to produce steam to generate electricity. Steam is also used to provide 90 percent of the campus's heating and 40 percent of its cooling, including the medical center.

The operation currently uses an extensive system of filters to capture larger soot particles, but greenhouse gases as well as mercury and other potentially toxic substances can escape into the air. One option to make the emissions cleaner would be to install costly scrubber equipment, for which Petty said there is little room at the site, or to change completely to natural gas for less pollution.

Depending on the price of fuel, the university switches back and forth between coal and natural gas. But a complete changeover to natural gas would require new equipment.
Push by Sierra Club

The Sierra Club launched a Coal Free Campus Campaign two weeks ago, identifying at least 60 college campuses nationwide, including Vanderbilt, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, that have coal-fired plants.

"We found that oftentimes the people relying on coal didn't realize they were," said Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, pointing out that school populations were usually the least aware of the coal.

"These plants are in urban areas with people living right next door," Nilles said. "It's sort of the dirty little secret that most people have not realized."

Vanderbilt makes about 25 percent of the electricity it consumes, and Nashville Electric Service, which buys its power from the Tennessee Valley Authority, supplies the rest. Much of that also comes from coal.

And like TVA, Vanderbilt has to find suitable ways to dispose of its coal ash. As of this summer, a local company that had been taking the ash to mix as a filler with wood chips to sell as mulch is no longer taking the material. Vanderbilt, for the first time, began paying to send the waste to a landfill.

Closer scrutiny of coal ash began nationwide after more than 5 million cubic yards of damp coal ash tumbled from a ruptured landfill last year at TVA's Kingston power plant, destroying property and filling inlets of the Emory River.

Federal officials have said a decision on whether to regulate coal ash will be made this year, which could send future costs higher for coal-fired plants nationwide. Environmentalists have pressed for years to designate the residue as hazardous waste, since potentially toxic materials in coal, including arsenic, radium and lead, can be concentrated in the ash.
Still, ash is used in a variety of ways, including in roadbeds, concrete and carpet backing, which industry officials say is beneficial and not harmful.

Not an attention-getter

Vanderbilt campus is an urban oasis with hundreds of species of trees - some centuries old - that give it an official classification as an arboretum.
Tall magnolias and pines help mask the coal- and gas-fired plant, which today mostly releases water vapor rather than smoke.

Gone are the tall coal piles of several decades ago, replaced by a round coal-storage silo that doesn't readily advertise its contents. Eight to 10 truckloads of coal under the cover of tarps rumble onto campus each day. The shipments are made not too early nor too late, so as not to disturb students. The coal itself, from West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, is provided by Alley-Cassetty Companies Inc., whose co-owner Fred Cassetty is a Vanderbilt alumnus. Contrary to rumors, the school pays for the coal it burns.

Two weeks ago, a long line of students - some of whom had been there all night - twisted around the Sarratt Student Center, which lies next to the plant, waiting to buy tickets to see rapper Jay-Z.

A few stared blankly when asked about the coal plant, whose towering stack rose nearby against a blue sky, and whose fiery innards raged in 1,800-degree heat.

Christina Chao, a junior from Chapel Hill, N.C. called the plant, which includes a substation of thick electrical lines, an "eyesore," but didn't view the facility with alarm.

"Changing forms of energy is not going to happen overnight," the anthropology and public health major said.

Ben Kahn, a junior from Atlanta, the environmental affairs committee co-chair for Vanderbilt's student government and a member of Students Promoting Environmental Awareness and Responsibility, said he's "very comfortable" with having the plant on campus.

That opinion comes only since touring the facility and listening to one of the managers talk about its efficiency, air pollution filtering system and use of low-sulfur coal, he said.

Jeremy Doochin, a senior from Nashville who serves on the Sierra Club national board of directors, said he was pleased when he took the tour to see that the plant was not as polluting as some, but added, "coal is never clean." Doochin is part of the Sierra Club student campaign that wants campus coal plants closed tohelp end mountaintop removal for coal mining, to reduce air pollution that triggers asthma attacks and other ailments and to slow climate change that's tied to global warming.
"I expect them to take responsibility for protecting the citizens of Nashville and the world and to do something about this," Doochin said, who also said he thinks it will take time.

As part of a university-wide effort to reduce its overall energy footprint, Vanderbilt has a series of expanding programs, such as one that provides free bus passes for faculty, graduate students and some others, and another that makes energy efficiency a priority when constructing new buildings.

Future with coal favored

Petty said there are no plans to move away from coal, "because it's such a huge part of our infrastructure at this point."

The real issue, he said is whether it is cleaner to take TVA-generated power from a plant in Gallatin, or to continue making it on campus.
"I would argue that the closer you can make electricity to the point of consumption, the lesser the line loss and the greater the efficiency," Petty said, pointing out that the electrical loss when electricity is transferred from the plant is only about 3 percent. The plant itself is about 85 percent efficient.

The EPA says the average efficiency of the country's standard fossil-fueled power plants, which don't capture and use waste heat as Vanderbilt does, is just

33 percent. According to a university estimate, because of its close location and type, Vanderbilt's plant avoids pumping an additional 100,000 tons of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere each year.
Either way, however, few take much notice of Vanderbilt's plant.
"Nobody wants them in their backyard," Petty said. "But we never have any complaints."