Over the past few months, the Chapel Hill community has wrestled with the University’s decision to introduce fuel pellets to the local cogeneration plant as a substitute for coal. These pellets, made up of plastic and paper waste, are promoted as a low-carbon and renewable alternative to traditional fossil fuels. However, this source holds new potential risks for the facility’s emissions and poses health concerns to the community, highlighting the need to move past combustion options toward clean renewables in the University’s sustainability efforts.
The fuel pellets are classified by the Environmental Protection Agency as non-hazardous to the public, however the extent of their health risks is largely unknown. The pellets are up to 40 percent plastic waste, meaning that burning them would emit unregulated and pervasive Per- polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a type of chemical that has a potential for health risks, into our local air. Though the fuel offers a reduction in carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid emissions, they pose new threats to the public health of the Chapel Hill community through other gasses, including carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds. While the alternative fuel offers a chance for the University to reduce its carbon footprint, this singular metric is not a substantial assessment of its impact.
The label of renewable doesn’t guarantee that a fuel source is environmentally friendly or that it is a sustainable option for the future. If UNC wants to build a long term solution for their energy use — the University targets net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 — they need to be looking for options that aren’t based on combustion and have minimal negative impacts on our community.
Solar energy could be the answer UNC needs. North Carolina has significant solar power already, with 9 percent of electricity generation in 2022 coming from commercial and home use. In the last 10 years, there's been a 43 percent reduction in the price of solar energy statewide, making it a much more affordable option for individual ratepayers and a solid potential source for UNC’s demand.
In the past, the University has introduced solar projects through the Renewable Energy Special Projects Committee. Through the allocation of four dollars from each student’s tuition, the student-run committee implements clean energy solutions on campus. Curtis Media Center and Morrison Residence Hall are examples of these projects and precedents for broader implementation. Both buildings have commercial solar panels installed on their roofs, with Morrison’s 172 panels providing the energy to heat the building’s water for its 860 residents and Curtis’s panels providing 40 percent of the building's energy used. These efforts represent the potential solar power has for our campus and its ability to account for a large portion of the University’s energy demands.
The percentage of the University’s electricity which comes from the cogeneration facility’s coal or fuel pellet combustion is about 13 percent.Other major universities across the United States have shifted a significant portion of their energy use from fossil fuels to clean renewables like wind and solar. Johns Hopkins University in Maryland contracts solar energy from a nearby company called Constellation, making up nearly 60 percent of their total electricity use. Given the success of other comparable projects, there is a high potential for UNC to invest in solar energy as a solution to their emission reduction goals.
For the University to achieve net-zero carbon in the coming years, renewables must play a part in their energy plans. However, fuel options like these engineered pellets have complex impacts, and carbon dioxide emissions are not the only metric to be concerned about. In its efforts to build a cleaner energy future, UNC needs to move away from combustion energy sources in favor of reliable, clean and sustainable energy. Solar is just one of the answers to this problem and has the potential to supplement reliance on coal and fuel pellets.
