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March 10, 2009, 11:45 AM ET
Biomass and Other Alternative Fuels on the Rise at Colleges
The Christian Science Monitor recently ran a story about various colleges that are turning to alternative fuels. The lead of the piece is the biomass plant at Middlebury College, and the University of New Hampshire’s landfill-gas plant is also mentioned.
(College of the Atlantic image)
But the story focuses on other colleges as well. The University of Minnesota at Morris has a biomass gasification facility that will burn agricultural waste. “We can find enough biomass within 20 miles to easily supply our needs,” Joel Tallaksen, the biomass project coordinator at Minnesota-Morris, told the Monitor. That biomass would come in the form of corn stalks, wheat straw, and soybean residue — about 4,000 to 5,000 acres’ worth of material per year.
Now, here’s a question about that project for sustainability sticklers, particularly those who know something about agriculture: Wouldn’t that material normally be turned into the ground to rot, providing organic material that enriches the soil and provides a better water-retaining structure? Is that especially problematic if natural fertility is replaced by fertilizers derived from fossil fuels, or if drought and soil erosion continue to be major challenges for the future? Perhaps it’s not a big deal to take 5,000 acres worth of material each year from a region that has hundreds of thousands of acres in production.
The College of the Atlantic gets a mention for its wood-pellet boiler, which generates heat for a fifth of the campus. The pellets are derived from sawdust from a local lumber mill. (You can find out more about the boiler, pictured above, on the college’s Web site.)
David Hales, president of the College of the Atlantic, tells the Monitor that he is having an easier time getting donors to support environmental and energy-saving projects, even in the recession. “Projects that will pay back their cost in energy savings in two to seven years have great appeal, he says, when compared with donating stocks that may shrink in value.”
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