| << Front page | News | September 28, 2007 |
Oberlin Debates Power Source
The town and college of Oberlin
have reached a crossroads. The Richard
H. Gorsuch Generating Station coal-fired
plant in south-central Ohio that provides
the city with almost half of its electricity is
scheduled to be retired. The Oberlin City
Council is currently deliberating buying
into the nearby American Municipal Power
Generating Station, another coal-burning
generator, potentially purchasing 12 megawatts
of coal power a year until 2057.
Oberlin professors, city council members, homeowners and students are immersed in a debate: Should Oberlin remain dependent on coal to heat and light its buildings or should the city and College try shifting to more ecologically-friendly, renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar or biogas power?
At the last city council meeting all but two members voted to acquire partial ownership of the plant. This coming Monday, the City Council will cast its final vote on whether to buy into the coal plant, or table the issue. The City’s consideration of the plant is based on two reports from the consulting firm R.W. Beck that assess the economic implications and power supply of AMPGS.
Should Oberlin choose to acquire partial ownership of the plant, the city has the option to back out of the deal by March 1, 2008.
College sustainability coordinator Nathan Engstrom and many others hope to utilize the time between then and now investigating available and feasible alternatives to coal, so that they can present a convincing proposal to the City Council come March.
But Engstrom — one of the few College officials speaking out against the coal plant buy-in — cited a lack of unity on his side of the debate: “Efforts to move the city away from participating in this plant are largely grassroots and not centrally organized for the most part,” he said.
The higher economic costs of alternatives to coal are a common and deep concern among those who prefer the buy-in option.
If the city does not contract out to the coal plant, said the City of Oberlin’s utility services manager Douglass McMillan, it will have to buy its power on the market, a significantly more expensive option.
Oberlin City Council member David Ashenhurst cited a widespread lack of understanding about the delicate cost-benefit balances of the issue: “People are signing a petition saying they’re willing to pay ten percent more on their electric bills for green power, but green power doesn’t just cost ten percent more, it costs more like 60 percent more.”
Ashenhurst critiqued the College for its single-minded rejection of the coal plant buy-in option: “The College says, ‘Don’t do it.’ The Committee on Environmental Sustainability says, ‘Don’t do it.’ And I know [environmental studies professor] David Orr says, ‘Don’t do it.’ But nobody has told us where we’re going to get base-load, reliable power — not just when the wind’s blowing or the sun is shining — 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Where that reliable power comes from, in this country, is coal or nuclear.”
“In terms of low-cost, reliable power for the town, we really need this,” said McMillan. “We need to make sure that when you flip the switch, the lights come on. If we don’t get in on [the coal plant], we’ll be at the mercy of the energy market, which is predominantly coal anyway.”
Ashenhurst challenged the College to put its money behind its ideals: “The College should say more than, ‘Don’t do this.’ It should say, ‘We’ll help you.’ We haven’t heard [College Vice President of Finance] Ron Watts say, ‘By all means, go buy a natural gas fired plant and raise our electric rates 70 percent.’”
“It’s the city’s responsibility to investigate alternatives to coal and exercise due diligence when spending 36 million of the taxpayers’dollars, not the College,” countered Engstrom. “That’s their obligation as public servants and as those who have the power and authority to make this kind of longer term decision for the community.”
“We’re hopeful that there might be some alternatives to the coal plant, but we have to be realistic,” said College President Marvin Krislov.
“There is an issue about cost.” Environmental Studies Professor and Chair of the College’s Committee on Environmental Sustainability John Petersen described what he saw as the pressing dangers of giving in to the possibly more cost-effective coal-generated power: “The effects of human-released greenhouse gases are already affecting weather patterns, economic opportunities and human lives in northeast Ohio and these effects will increase in the coming years. The drought earlier this summer and the recent flooding in our region are precisely the kind of extreme events that result from reliance on coal-fired power plants.”
“The economic, ecological and human implications of the decision at hand are significant and deserve more careful consideration than I fear they may receive,” said Petersen.
“City Council has an obligation to engage in a far more comprehensive analysis that considers the full ramifications of coal power and its alternatives before they approve investment in AMPGS,” he said, worried that City Council will skim over the debate in favor of an easy fix.
McMillan asserts that Oberlin can pursue energy-efficient practices even with a contract with AMPGS, as the plant will only provide Oberlin’s base-load power of 64 percent. Since the City already acquires 17.5 percent of its energy from renewable sources, the purchase will still leave a large percentage to be decided, leaving the door open to green sources like wind or hydroelectric power.
“We’re already the greenest town in Ohio,” commented Ashenhurst. “We’re running as fast as we can.” Supporters of the buy-in argue that the AMPGS plant runs off of “clean coal technology,” meaning that the smokestacks emit fewer particles of sulfur and nitrogen oxides than a conventional coal plant might and that a system to contain carbon dioxide emissions could theoretically be installed.
Coal critics reject this claim. “There is currently no commercially available technology in existence or likely to be developed in the nearterm future that can directly capture and sequester carbon dioxide emissions in the geological substrate of northeast Ohio,” said Petersen.
This coming Monday’s city council meeting looks to be a historic one, as the city will decide either to buy into the plant or table the issue. “We’ve had a bunch of slideshows and presentations, and we’re going to get more this Monday night,” said Ashenhurst. “There’s going to be a lot of agitation.”
In a letter to the Oberlin News- Tribune, Petersen encouraged Oberlin citizens to “turn out in force” for the meeting “with the same enthusiasm and commitment to a clean energy future” demonstrated in the past.
Staff writer Kate Riley contributed to this report. To read more about alternative energy in Oberlin, see Earth to Oberlin.
Oberlin professors, city council members, homeowners and students are immersed in a debate: Should Oberlin remain dependent on coal to heat and light its buildings or should the city and College try shifting to more ecologically-friendly, renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar or biogas power?
At the last city council meeting all but two members voted to acquire partial ownership of the plant. This coming Monday, the City Council will cast its final vote on whether to buy into the coal plant, or table the issue. The City’s consideration of the plant is based on two reports from the consulting firm R.W. Beck that assess the economic implications and power supply of AMPGS.
Should Oberlin choose to acquire partial ownership of the plant, the city has the option to back out of the deal by March 1, 2008.
College sustainability coordinator Nathan Engstrom and many others hope to utilize the time between then and now investigating available and feasible alternatives to coal, so that they can present a convincing proposal to the City Council come March.
But Engstrom — one of the few College officials speaking out against the coal plant buy-in — cited a lack of unity on his side of the debate: “Efforts to move the city away from participating in this plant are largely grassroots and not centrally organized for the most part,” he said.
The higher economic costs of alternatives to coal are a common and deep concern among those who prefer the buy-in option.
If the city does not contract out to the coal plant, said the City of Oberlin’s utility services manager Douglass McMillan, it will have to buy its power on the market, a significantly more expensive option.
Oberlin City Council member David Ashenhurst cited a widespread lack of understanding about the delicate cost-benefit balances of the issue: “People are signing a petition saying they’re willing to pay ten percent more on their electric bills for green power, but green power doesn’t just cost ten percent more, it costs more like 60 percent more.”
Ashenhurst critiqued the College for its single-minded rejection of the coal plant buy-in option: “The College says, ‘Don’t do it.’ The Committee on Environmental Sustainability says, ‘Don’t do it.’ And I know [environmental studies professor] David Orr says, ‘Don’t do it.’ But nobody has told us where we’re going to get base-load, reliable power — not just when the wind’s blowing or the sun is shining — 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Where that reliable power comes from, in this country, is coal or nuclear.”
“In terms of low-cost, reliable power for the town, we really need this,” said McMillan. “We need to make sure that when you flip the switch, the lights come on. If we don’t get in on [the coal plant], we’ll be at the mercy of the energy market, which is predominantly coal anyway.”
Ashenhurst challenged the College to put its money behind its ideals: “The College should say more than, ‘Don’t do this.’ It should say, ‘We’ll help you.’ We haven’t heard [College Vice President of Finance] Ron Watts say, ‘By all means, go buy a natural gas fired plant and raise our electric rates 70 percent.’”
“It’s the city’s responsibility to investigate alternatives to coal and exercise due diligence when spending 36 million of the taxpayers’dollars, not the College,” countered Engstrom. “That’s their obligation as public servants and as those who have the power and authority to make this kind of longer term decision for the community.”
“We’re hopeful that there might be some alternatives to the coal plant, but we have to be realistic,” said College President Marvin Krislov.
“There is an issue about cost.” Environmental Studies Professor and Chair of the College’s Committee on Environmental Sustainability John Petersen described what he saw as the pressing dangers of giving in to the possibly more cost-effective coal-generated power: “The effects of human-released greenhouse gases are already affecting weather patterns, economic opportunities and human lives in northeast Ohio and these effects will increase in the coming years. The drought earlier this summer and the recent flooding in our region are precisely the kind of extreme events that result from reliance on coal-fired power plants.”
“The economic, ecological and human implications of the decision at hand are significant and deserve more careful consideration than I fear they may receive,” said Petersen.
“City Council has an obligation to engage in a far more comprehensive analysis that considers the full ramifications of coal power and its alternatives before they approve investment in AMPGS,” he said, worried that City Council will skim over the debate in favor of an easy fix.
McMillan asserts that Oberlin can pursue energy-efficient practices even with a contract with AMPGS, as the plant will only provide Oberlin’s base-load power of 64 percent. Since the City already acquires 17.5 percent of its energy from renewable sources, the purchase will still leave a large percentage to be decided, leaving the door open to green sources like wind or hydroelectric power.
“We’re already the greenest town in Ohio,” commented Ashenhurst. “We’re running as fast as we can.” Supporters of the buy-in argue that the AMPGS plant runs off of “clean coal technology,” meaning that the smokestacks emit fewer particles of sulfur and nitrogen oxides than a conventional coal plant might and that a system to contain carbon dioxide emissions could theoretically be installed.
Coal critics reject this claim. “There is currently no commercially available technology in existence or likely to be developed in the nearterm future that can directly capture and sequester carbon dioxide emissions in the geological substrate of northeast Ohio,” said Petersen.
This coming Monday’s city council meeting looks to be a historic one, as the city will decide either to buy into the plant or table the issue. “We’ve had a bunch of slideshows and presentations, and we’re going to get more this Monday night,” said Ashenhurst. “There’s going to be a lot of agitation.”
In a letter to the Oberlin News- Tribune, Petersen encouraged Oberlin citizens to “turn out in force” for the meeting “with the same enthusiasm and commitment to a clean energy future” demonstrated in the past.
Staff writer Kate Riley contributed to this report. To read more about alternative energy in Oberlin, see Earth to Oberlin.
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