TO THE EDITOR:
It is true that UNC has hit a snag in its procurement of a suitable test supply for torrefied wood to replace coal on campus. But there are a few points worth clarifying in response to The Daily Tar Heel’s editorial “Coal goal falls short.”
After the coal-free announcement in May 2010, Chancellor Thorp wrote, “Carolina innovates again.” Carolina’s innovation can’t end with a press conference. There will be challenges, setbacks, and costs; that’s part of the innovation process.
While the Energy Task Force recommended the end of coal by 2020, it established a target “goal” of 2015, which Chancellor Thorp agreed to as well. 2020 is the extension.
And to argue that the development of sustainable biomass over the next nine years is not feasible completely ignores the ongoing explosion of renewable energy in the last decade.
To be clear, the commitment was to move off coal, not just onto biomass. The Sierra Student Coalition is looking to Chancellor Thorp to reiterate UNC’s commitment to that goal. There is a whole range of energy options — solar, geothermal, wind, natural gas, efficiency — that the University could and should still consider.
Thorp made a bold commitment to end our use of a dirty 19th-century fossil fuel to power UNC’s campus. That decision was motivated by a simple acknowledgement that, in his words, burning coal was “not particularly good symbolism for a university that teaches people about climate change and the frontiers of energy research.”
Is that any less true today?
Stewart Boss
Co-chairman, UNC Sierra Student Coalition
