UNH May Use Renewable Energy Source To Power Campus

Looking from the top of one of three landfills at Turnkey in Rochester, it could easily pass for the grassy green hills of Ireland.
It’s hard to believe that more than a million tons of garbage is sent here every year.
(the pipes sticking out are the landfill gas wells…fade on waste)
Waste Management owns this site.
District Manager Alan Davis points from the top of the landfill down to where captured methane gas is burning.
1621 3:38 you can see the flares burning…there’s two utility candle flares on the right those are the one’s that look like a big Bic lighter…

Methane is a byproduct of decomposing garbage – it’s also a greenhouse gas, which is why Waste Management burns it before it hits the atmosphere.
1627 (nat sound of flares)
But this gas is also a powerful energy source.
Waste Management already processes enough methane to generate electric power for about 75-hundred homes – the rest of the gas is burned.
4:20 the plan is those flares won’t be burning at all once the university comes in and instead the gas that’s just being wasted in those flares will be going to better use.

University of New Hampshire trustees have given conceptual approval to building a 12 and a half mile pipeline to route the gas from this landfill to the campus.
Paul Chamberlin is Interim Assistant Vice President for Facilities.
1645 1:02 we’ve run some numbers and it looks like this project will provide 85 percent of the campus total energy requirements, which is huge, we don’t know of anybody anywhere close to that in terms of institutions of higher learning.

If the project works out, UNH’s reduced dependence on fossil fuels would make the campus the greenest in the nation.
UNH’s Office of Sustainability Director Tom Kelly says the project could also lower greenhouse gases significantly.
1649 :11 we’re looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 75-percent of 1990 levels, it could be that high, that’s not a firm number at this point, but it’s dramatic.

But it’s not an easy or cheap process.
Allan Braun, with Braun Consulting, is lead consultant for the project.
1631 :45 that’s a great opportunity to be able to use an alternative fuel but the challenges are pretty significant, one, landfill gas is full of contaminants that you would have to remove, two, it has a low heat content, or BTU’s, it’s about half what natural gas out of a pipeline would be.

And then there’s the huge task of building a pipeline to route the gas, and a processing plant to clean and raise its BTU content.
In total, the project could cost UNH around 33 million dollars.
Alan Davis with Waste Management says it took some persuading to get UNH to consider it.
“once you convince them that it can be done its already being done its not brand new technology, and that also there’s going to be enough gas for a long time, a lot of people look at the capital investment which is very high for something like this, and worry that it isn’t going to last long enough that once the landfill is closed the gas is going to dry up and go away but it doesn’t”

Davis says landfills can continue to produce methane up to 20 or 30 years after they’re closed and capped.
Waste Management is already using methane from other landfills across the country to provide energy for Fortune 500 companies such as Nestle, B-M-W, and G-M.
He says in the long run, companies save money on energy costs by using methane.
Tom Kelly says it’s a win-win situation for UNH.
1652 :34 We cannot financially afford to undertake any kind of project that isn’t sound financially and in fact part of the importance of our whole approach is that its really exploding the myth that you have to choose between the economy and the environment.

UNH spends about 12.5 million dollars a year for heat and electricity on campus.
It uses mainly oil and natural gas produced at its newly built cogeneration plant.
Alan Braun says price fluctuations in the oil and gas industries can cause budget problems.
1632 :29 in many cases we have to project out energy costs two years in advance of what the actual expenditures are and they’ve been rising over the last five years about 18-percent a year, and it’s very difficult to change our budgets at the department level once they’re set.”

Braun and other university officials say using methane gas from the landfill will provide more stable and predictable energy costs.
And the cogeneration plant already on campus can be altered to use methane.
Despite the project’s benefits to the university and the atmosphere, the project has some hurdles.
UNH officials have been working for two years to secure proper permitting and easements for the pipeline.
Fortunately, the university mainly had to petition the state to run the pipeline under land along the Spaulding Turnpike.
Paul Chamberlin says UNH has already received approval to run it under parts of Rochester, Dover, Madbury, and Durham.
1635 :56 We’re dealing with a very small number of entities in terms of getting easements or rights to put our pipeline on their property, that makes it much more feasible, if we had to deal with 200 individual property owners, we probably wouldn’t have pursued the concept.

Chamberlin says they needed approval from only two private landowners.
But environmental concerns arose when it was determined the pipeline had to run through three acres of wetlands and the Cocheco River.
Consultant Alan Braun says UNH’s solution is to use a more expensive but environmentally friendly process called directional drilling.
The type of drilling has been used for decades in the oil industry and allows pipeline to be laid underneath wetlands and rivers.
1639 :57 on the end of the pipe is a GPS, so they know exactly where it is, exactly how far it’s going down, so if the wetland is three feet deep, they’ll go to four or five feet, and with two crossings of the Cocheco River, we’ll drill right under the riverbed so we will not disturb the Cocheco.

Other universities – such as UCLA - have used methane gas from landfills to help fuel their campuses.
But if approved, this would be the biggest landfill gas project on any campus in the nation.
Paul Chamberlin says UNH could be seen as a leader among universities in using renewable energy.

1645 1:34 I’m sure that others will take a hard look at this, they’re challenge is having that coincidence of a large landfill, a reasonable route to get the gas to the campus, and a campus cogeneration plant that needs that volume of gas as a fuel source

If all the permitting is approved, university trustees will vote on the project in February.
Construction would then begin in the spring, and the landfill gas could be used as early as next December.
For NHPR news, I’m Amy Quinton.