Twenty tons of wood pellets arriving next week will signify the beginning of the end for on-campus coal.
At the University’s Energy Task Force’s meeting Thursday, members said those shipments will mark the first tangible step in fulfilling Chancellor Holden Thorp’s promise to make UNC coal-free by 2020.
“Generally, we are pleased as a task force with the speed the University has test-fired alternatives to coal,” said task force chairman Tim Toben.
Thorp’s promise came after students led a coal-free campaign last year. They argued that coal was destructive to the environment and that the University could find alternatives.
The current alternative is biomass, which is treated wood. On Aug. 9, UNC awarded a contract to Carolina Wood Pellets, a company from Franklin, to send 520 tons of wood pellets to the University for testing in the cogeneration plant.
The first shipment, which will arrive between Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, will be used to ensure the plant can safely burn the fuel.
The remaining 500 tons will arrive in early November for a two-week test burn, in which both wood and coal will be burned.
Doug Mullen, the University’s chilled water systems manager, told the task force that the tonnage amounts to roughly seven train cars’ worth of pellets.
That same amount — if used as the sole energy source at the plant — would last about a week in the middle of winter, Mullen said.