West Chester University officially retires coal plant

Greg Cuprak was able to salvage a few chunks of coal.

The facilities manager at West Chester University put them in a small box - for posterity - and took them to a celebratory event on campus Wednesday.

The university was formally decommissioning its coal-fired boiler plant, which for more than 50 years provided steam heat for the campus. It was replaced by a more-efficient geothermal system.

The old anthracite plant hasn't been used since May, Cuprak said. But officials wanted to make sure the new system was working perfectly before they made the formal switch.

"We're declaring victory and moving on," he said.

Calling the plant obsolete, university president Greg R. Weisenstein said it "served us well," but its time was over. "I'm just delighted we're able to move to more efficient and more sustainable energy sources," he said.

Half of the buildings are now heated and cooled by the $30 million geothermal system, which includes 440 wells, each 500 feet deep, drilled underneath parking lots and tennis courts. More wells will come, Cuprak said.

The other half of the campus is heated and cooled by high-efficiency natural gas boilers.

As the nation moves away from coal, much attention has been focused on the utility-scale coal power plants that are the workhorses electrifying the power grid. In Pennsylvania, where in 2013 coal provided 40 percent of the state's energy, these plants have been hit hard by environmental rules.

Of 33 plants, seven have been retired, three will retire soon, and two others are repowering to gas, according to data compiled by the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign.

But numerous smaller power plants and coal-fired boilers, such as the one at West Chester University, also are a problem, environmental groups say.

As part of a campaign, the Sierra Club tallied 60 colleges nationwide that had coal plants, although some are more efficient because they are cogeneration plants that produce electricity and create steam with the waste heat.

"We've been pushing, and students have been pushing, to get them off coal," said Kim Teplitzky, a spokeswoman with the club's Campuses Beyond Coal Campaign. At least 22 have done so.

In Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University has committed to moving away from coal. Other plants the Sierra Club is tracking are at Bloomsburg, Susquehanna, Shippensburg, and Slippery Rock Universities.

The Sierra Club's executive director, Michael Brune, sent a letter of congratulations to West Chester - his alma mater.

"Students graduating from West Chester will see that it's unnecessary to remain beholden to dirty energy of the past when we have an opportunity to invest in increasingly affordable, available clean energy," he said.

The retirement of West Chester's plant - the major source of emissions on campus - is the biggest of the university's sustainability initiatives.

West Chester, which signed onto the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment in 2010, has changed its lightbulbs, put in low-flow shower heads, installed green roofs, and planted trees - all aimed at becoming carbon-neutral by 2025.

The coal boiler was only about 65 percent efficient, and that was before the steam left the plant, Cuprak said. Traveling through more than 10,000 feet of pipe to campus buildings, more heat was lost along the way.

The newer systems have efficiencies of more than 90 percent.

The old boiler put out as much as 86 tons of sulfur dioxides, 54 tons of nitrogen oxides, and 43 tons of particulate matter annually. The geothermal system puts out zero locally, although the electricity to run the pumps, which is generated elsewhere, may have emissions.

Cuprak said he expected the greatest emissions to be about five tons of nitrogen oxides from the natural gas units.

He said the new system also is expected to save the university a hefty chunk of money. Although final calculations have not been made, fuel savings alone could amount to $1 million a year.

Numerous community leaders praised the move at Wednesday's decommissioning event, part of Campus Sustainability Day.

Clean Air Council community outreach director Matt Walker said closing the plant was "a win for our green economy and would have benefits for human health."

But he said he hoped the university would not reduce dependence on one fossil fuel only to replace it with another. He said he hoped that as the geothermal system expanded, natural gas units would be retired.

West Chester Mayor Carolyn Comitta called the old stack "a well-known icon on the West Chester skyline."

Although the plant will be dismantled, the stack will remain, because it serves another purpose. It's studded with cellphone equipment.

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