UGA to replace its coal boiler with an electric option

The University of Georgia plans to replace its controversial
coal-fired steam boiler with a more efficient electric one, UGA
officials announced Wednesday.

“We won’t be taking deliveries of coal in the future,” said Ryan Nesbit, UGA vice president for finance and administration.

Student groups and others have lobbied university administrators for years to get rid of the aging boiler.

Used sparingly as a backup to other steam boilers in recent years,
the 50-year-old unit is part of a network that circulates steam
throughout the UGA campus to heat buildings in winter, keep them cool in
summer and supply sterilization units with steam. The ether boilers are
powered by natural gas, but can also burn fuel oil.

UGA hired consultants to study whether to replace the boiler with a
gas-fired one, like UGA’s other boilers, or one that would burn biomass
such as timbering waste.

A year ago, UGA administrators were leaning toward replacing the coal
boiler with one that would burn natural gas, even if that would leave
UGA with no good backup source of fuel if natural gas supplies were
interrupted.

They had ruled biomass out for a variety of reasons: Biomass burning
pollutes, too, and supplying the boiler would have created an endless
stream of trucks driving through the heart of the UGA campus to the
steam plant.

UGA will still burn coal, in a sense, along with nuclear power, to
power the new electrode boiler. The university’s partner in installing a
new boiler is Georgia Power, which relies heavily on coal for the
electricity it generates and is expanding its Vogtle nuclear power
plant.

But the emissions won’t be coming from the boiler’s smokestack in the middle of the UGA campus

Read More: Coal Fired Boiler, Electric Boilers