UNC-Chapel Hill announced today that it will not seek to burn paper and plastic pellets at its Cameron Avenue power plant after all.
“Since submitting the original application, the University has determined that the engineered pelletized fuel cannot meet fuel requirements (transportation, availability, consistency) set by UNC-Chapel Hill for its cogeneration power plant,” the university wrote in a press release after withdrawing a permit modification request needed to burn the pellets. “This decision also allows the University time to further assess all options with a new comprehensive energy analysis.”
The permit modification would have allowed the university to burn pellets manufactured by Convergen Energy, a Green Bay-based company that turns industrial waste into “cost effective” fuel options. The university had previously framed it as a possible shift away from the coal and natural gas that is currently used at the cogeneration facility. While switching to pellets would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it would increase the levels of pollutants—including sulfuric acid and fine particulate matter—that are harmful to humans.
The university did not respond to questions from the INDY about what has changed since the original permit application was submitted.
In its statement, the university also did not mention any of the sharply negative public response to the pellet-burning proposal.
There was literally a line out the door of the Chapel Hill council chambers at a January public hearing on the proposal as about 50 speakers—including students, professionals, and retirees—showed up to rail against the plan. No one spoke in favor of it.
Chapel Hill town council member (and former EPA official) Melissa McCullough tells INDY that she is pleased with the university’s decision.
“I have no insights about why they did it, I hope it was in consideration to the health concerns of the town and the residents of the town,” McCullough says.
At the January hearing, speaking on her own behalf, she called the coal plant “an old problem.”
“The surrounding neighborhoods have had to breathe the pollution from this plant since decades before there were even air pollution laws,” she said. “This is an environmental justice issue for the historically Black neighborhoods where the people who built and served our university have lived for generations.”
The university’s plant has been a favorite target of students and environmentalists for decades. In 2010, then-Chancellor Holden Thorp announced that the university would stop burning coal by 2020. That never happened.
Still, some officials are already looking towards a future without the power plant. At the January hearing, State Senator Graig Meyer previewed the CoGen Transformation Project, which would make use of the plant’s train line that runs through Chapel Hill and Carrboro.
“How do we transform that rail line into an opportunity for non-automotive transportation, for connection to new housing opportunities, for economic development opportunities?” Meyer said.
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Reach Reporter Chase Pellegrini de Paur at chase@indyweek.com. Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.