This Friday, Ohio University's Board of Trustees is likely to move the university away from natural gas, for the time being.
While a large-scale, non-renewable overhaul of OU's current heating, cooling and electric generation plant looks unlikely, officials are cautioning the university is not necessarily moving toward renewables. Instead, they're re-evaluating their options.
Although environmental groups around Athens are rejoicing that plans for the previously proposed $75 to $100 million natural gas plant will be scrapped, OU spokeswoman Katherine Quaranta said the Lausche plant will still see changes.
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“These plans have certainly changed from what was previously announced,” Quaranta said in an e-mail, “but it is not accurate to say they have been canceled.”
In other words, natural gas or other non-renewable resources could play a role in future plans.
The university has been looking at renovating the plant for several years, as the campus demands more electrical, heating and cooling capacity. The current plant runs on coal. For the time being, that plant will stay in use.
According to Friday’s Board of Trustees agenda, the changes to the project are due to changing energy markets, a better understanding of construction costs and infrastructure challenges.
The agenda says the Lausche project could be replaced with a series of alternative projects the university is calling the Energy Infrastructure Projects Initiative, for which the estimated cost is $79 million. The money would pay for $34.4 million in chilled water upgrades, the system that cools the Athens campus. Another $18.5 million would improve OU's electrical capacity and $25 million would go to upgrading the university's steam tunnel infrastructure. Steam heats the campus.
Primary production of steam for the campus is staying at Lausche because of current steam infrastructure, which officials have long said needs substantial work, according to the agenda.
Officials are requesting the board pay to develop a Utility Master Plan, at a cost of $1.1 million, in an effort to plan for repair, modification and capacity additions to university energy systems. Officials, namely Stephen Golding, Vice President for Finance and Administration, claim the university is at a point where the systems need renewed, are undersized relative to the university’s growth, are not laid out to meet the reliability demands of a large university and may not comply with state and federal environmental mandates.
Many environmental groups in Athens are happy with the changes being made to this project. Caitlyn McDaniel, President of Ohio University Sierra Student Coalition and newly-elected Vice President of Student Senate, is among those pleased with the university’s decision to select an alternative plan.
“While the Ohio University Sierra Student Coalition and its affiliate organizations within the Athens community are proud of the decision that our university has made in regards to this divestment, we must continue to maintain our position on methane gas,” McDaniel said in a prepared statement. “As we face the dire results of climate change, we cannot approve any combustive energy source, especially one that is only slightly less pollutive than coal.”
The Board of Trustees will meet this Friday at Ohio University Eastern Campus in St. Clairsville on Thursday and Friday. This pivot in the university's plan, conceived and proposed by top university administrators, requires the board's approval.
The change in plan and those proposals "are presented to the Board (on Friday) for approval," the agenda reads.
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