Comparatively inexpensive, abundant and easily stored, coal is the fuel source of choice for Ball State University's heat plant. However, as the plant prepares to install a new boiler, capable of operating from a variety of fuels, some faculty members wonder if the environmental consequences of coal should lead to its reduced use on campus.
The heat plant is located on the southern edge of campus, attached to West Quad.
Jim Lowe, director of engineering and operations, said the two-story plant contains seven boilers that heat water to form high-pressure steam, which circulates around campus to heat all buildings and Ball Memorial Hospital. Four boilers use coal; three others can use either natural gas or fuel oil.
Lowe said the natural gas boilers are normally not used for cost reasons: In order for the university to affordably burn natural gas, it can pay no more than $2 per decatherm.
According to the Web site of Proliance Energy, Ball State's natural gas supplier, the market price stands at $8.93 per Dth, excluding delivery charges.
Lowe said the heat plant last used natural gas as a fuel source around 1990; similarly, there has only been one day in the last ten years during which Ball State burned fuel oil.
He said the large supply of diesel fuel stored underground near the plant is would be used as a back-up source because of its cost and the amount of pollution it creates when burned.
Diesel costs about $20 per Dth, according to data provided by U.S. Department of Energy Web sites; Lowe said the university cannot afford to pay more than $14 per Dth.
Thaddeus Godish, professor of natural resources and environmental management, said natural gas was the cleanest-burning fuel of the plant's three available sources. Per unit, natural gas produces 80 percent less carbon, including carbon dioxide, than coal.
A variety of sources, from British Petroleum to Popular Science magazine, cite carbon dioxide as the gas most responsible for global warming.
"Carbon is the demon at the present time," Godish said. "The science has all come together. If you're operating on 2003 assumptions, the rule book has changed. The emphasis is on the restriction of carbon."
Godish said the new boiler would reduce pollutants such as sulfur and nitrogen oxide, but it would not significantly reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere if the plant continues to use coal as its principal fuel source.
Scheduled for completion in Fall 2010, the university will install a 100-foot-tall, circulating fluidized bed boiler on the south side of the heat plant, according to a previous interview.
Lowe said a CFB system produced fewer pollutants such as sulfur and nitrogen oxide, while a dust filter would reduce the amount of particulate matter entering the atmosphere.
In addition, coal burns more effectively in a CFB system, he said, reducing the amount of coal required to generate heat.
Lowe said the new boiler would be 88 percent efficient, compared to the current coal boilers, which are 75 percent efficient.
This 13 percent increase in efficiency would result in a 16 percent reduction in the amount of carbon dioxide produced by the plant, he said.
John Vann, associate professor in the Department of Marketing and Management, said improved efficiency and conservation were important components of managing the environmental effects of Ball State's heat plant.
"That's an area where the plant [operators] have done really extraordinary things. That's a really good thing, but that's not enough. We need to get off the fossil fuel diet.
"A cleaner heat plant doesn't get us away from the greatest danger: climate change and climate disruption."
Vann said most students are uneducated on the effects of fossil fuels on the environment.
"They don't know what fuel sources we use, or if it's a problem, or that burning coal generates more carbon than any other fossil fuel," he said. "Climate change is the most important issue."
Lowe said the management of fuel sources and decisions on which fuels to use constituted an enormous equation.
"[Reducing carbon emissions is] not as simple as saying 'don't do that'," he said, referring to Ball State's use of coal.
CFB boiler
- In a circulating fluidized bed boiler, crushed coal and limestone float on a bed of air jets. As the mixture tumbles inside the boiler, the limestone absorbs sulfur from the coal.
- Nitrogen oxide forms when a fuel burns hot enough to break apart nitrogen molecules in the air and cause those atoms to join with oxygen. CFB boilers burn fuel at a cooler temperature than the heat plant's four coal boilers, about half as hot.
- As a result, a CFB boiler can burn coal and remove 90 percent or more of the sulfur and nitrogen pollutants.
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