MSU: Power plant will be coal free next year

EAST LANSING – Michigan State University’s power plant will stop using coal by the end of next year, according to President Lou Anna K. Simon.

“We don’t simply have a set of aspirations, we have a strategy for getting there,” Simon said, at the start of a campus energy panel discussion held Wednesday morning at the Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center. “We already are at 65, 68 percent (reduction in coal use) so we’ve been gradually working it down in the classic MSU way.”

Simon said the decision follows a university-wide energy transition plan adopted in 2012 that sets a goal of using more renewable energy while removing unhealthy emissions from its T.B. Simon Power Plant.

The plant was one of the largest coal-burning campus power plants in the country, but now it burns a majority of natural gas along with some biomass for fuel. The plant has been dramatically scaling back its coal use for over five years and most of it will stop this year, Simon said.

A combination of lower natural gas costs and pricey future emission standards from the Environmental Protection Agency helped find the “sweet spot” to go coal free, according to Jennifer Battle, MSU director of Campus Sustainability.

“This was always part of the plan,” she said. “But it made sense at this point to make the change as we continue along our path to sustainability.”

MSU’s power plant was facing a one-time $4.5 million price tag along with a yearly $100,000 cost to invest in new tech to meet new EPA emissions rules. Instead, it would be cheaper to retrofit the plant’s fourth boiler to burn natural gas, like the others.

“We are excited to see MSU making the transition to a coal-free power source on campus,” said Clean Water Action Michigan Director Nic Clark.

Clark said Clean Water Action has been a critic of coal-burning power plants like T.B. Simon and has testified to the state legislature against the health risks of burning coal on campus.

“This is welcome news,” Clark said. “As an alum I can truly say I’m glad MSU is working towards its Spartan green roots.”

“I applaud the steps that MSU has taken to reduce its reliance on coal and welcome their decision to be coal free by the end of 2016,” said Michigan House Democratic Leader Sam Singh (D-East Lansing). “I also applaud the students and community activists that advocated for these changes and helped to move the dialogue forward.”

A campus group called MSU Beyond Coal, organized by the national Sierra Club, protested in 2010 about the plant’s reliability on coal with sit-ins and mass emails to Simon.

At the time, replacing coal with natural gas would have cost the university an extra $20 million, MSU officials said. But a large drop in natural gas prices since then has helped.

MSU Junior and current Sierra Club member Courtney Bourgoin said she is excited about the announcement.

“This is amazing news,” she said. “We would like to think that all of that work from students years ago helped to make a difference.”

Bourgoin said she will be forming another version of the group in the fall that will be focused on encouraging the university to push towards getting at least 40 percent of its energy from renewable sources.

MSU currently gets around 8 percent of its power from renewable sources.

Battle said MSU will continue to explore renewable energy possibilities, such as solar and wind power, in a partnership with private companies like Consumers Energy. The long-term goal described in the 2012 plan is for MSU to operate on 100 percent renewable resources, but no date has been specified.