Moving Beyond Coal
One of the biggest roadblocks on the climate neutrality pathway is coal. Nearly 50% of our nation's electricity comes from burning coal. In 2008, 13,000 tons of coal was associated with our purchased electricity. In addition, Cornell burned over 60,000 tons of coal on-site to produce steam to heat it’s Campus.
With Cornell’s Beyond Coal initiative, our on-site coal consumption will be zero tons by 2011 and coal consumption associated with purchased electricity will drop to 2,500 tons, (a reduction of 80%) This initiative is an important step of Cornell's Climate Action Plan.
The university celebrated its move beyond coal with remarks by many people, including President Skorton and
Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign . Click on the pictures or names to watch the video of their remarks.
Project Implementation
The key component to implementing “Moving Beyond Coal” is the new Combined Heat and Power Plant, which came on-line in 2010 and cost $82 million.
Combined heat and power (CHP) is the generation of electricity and the simultaneous utilization of the resulting “waste” energy for heating. This new plant includes two natural gas-fired turbine generators capable of producing a total of 30 megawatts of electricity. Hot exhaust from these turbines will be recycled to produce steam for heating campus.
Project Highlights
Reducing Emissions
- (1) Eliminating coal and employing Combined Heat and Power technology reduces emissions by 80,000 tons.
- (2) Eliminate coal as a fuel source.
- (3) Reduce carbon footprint.
More Efficient
(4) Increase efficiency and reliable of delivered energy to campus for the future.
Eliminate Coal Impacts
(5) Eliminate impacts associated with coal processing and distribution.
