U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to Stop Burning Coal in 10 Years

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will spend the next decade weaning its cogeneration plant off coal, the university’s chancellor, Holden Thorp, said Tuesday morning. He spoke at a campus event attended by Bruce Nilles, head of a Sierra Club campaign that has challenged colleges and universities to abandon coal.

Universities “must lead the transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy,” which in Chapel Hill’s case could be a mix of biomass and other fuels, Mr. Thorp said. This spring the university will try firing its boilers with a mix of coal and dried wood pellets, and later it will test a mix of coal and a charcoal-like product called torrefied wood. The university will also try to buy only coal from deep mines, rather than from surface-mining operations, which remove layers of ground cover and rock to get at the coal.

The university says 20 percent of the coal it currently burns will be replaced with biomass by 2015, if not sooner. Chapel Hill plans to give up coal altogether by 2020. Mr. Nilles, of the Sierra Club, said colleges “cannot responsibly teach the science of climate change and sustainability in classrooms powered by coal.”

“Although we’d love to see coal use end today,” he said, “we applaud UNC for agreeing to a firm deadline.”

Last year Mr. Thorp appointed a 10-member committee to recommend ways of reducing the university’s carbon footprint. The chairman—Tim Toben, who was appointed by Gov. Bev Purdue to head the North Carolina Energy Policy Council—said the university’s cogeneration plant is one of the cleanest-burning, most efficient coal plants in the country.

“But it still burns coal,” he said, “and that must end to avoid contributing to the worst effects of global climate change. And unless you set a deadline for ending coal usage, you’re not going to get to it.”