UNC graduate hired by UNC Energy Services to help with sustainability

UNC Energy Services is continuing to put faith in a future where biomass powers the University.

The department recently hired a research fellow whose work will focus on how to make future biomass purchasing orders as environmentally friendly as possible.

Eric Chen, who graduated from UNC in 2003, was hired with money from UNC’s Developing Energy Leaders Through Action program, which funds energy- focused internships throughout Orange County. Chen will be paid $18 per hour through the DELTA program.

Chen said environmentalism is a central part of his work.

“I think energy and climate change are two of the most crucial topics of my generation,” he said.

He will focus on biomass — especially torrefied wood — and conduct life cycle analyses of biomass production to track the carbon expelled by the equipment and plants that would bring the product to UNC.

His recommendations are non-binding.

Chen said he aims to use his fellowship to help guide the University, which has pledged to stop using coal by 2020, to a more sustainable future.

“My goal would be to figure out whether or not biomass is a truly sustainable option for the plant and to put numbers on it,” he said.

The lack of any large-scale torrefaction facilities and biomass suppliers within the state will be an obstacle in his research, he said.

“I’m going to have to make assumptions based on torrefaction plants in other parts of the country,” he said, adding that the assumptions will still be applicable after the industry begins growing locally.

It is easier to burn biomass in UNC’s relatively new cogeneration plant than other alternative fuels.

Phil Barner, the plant’s manager, will supervise Chen.

He added that the creation of Chen’s internship — which started Sept. 6 and will finish in April — was not a response to last year’s dried wood pellet tests, which failed to turn up companies who were certifiably sustainable. The process of organizing the internship began this summer.

“What we hope to come out of this is something we can put in our specifications,” Barner said.

Chen and Barner said finding certifiably sustainable biomass suppliers was difficult because many companies have trouble obtaining such certifications.

They said they hope Chen’s research will enable the University to create specific language that would define sustainability for potential biomass suppliers that is outside of the certification system.

The DELTA program was established by UNC’s Institute for the Environment in 2010, and aims to focus the efforts of students with energy industry aspirations on green issues.

Kelly Robinson, a researcher at the Institute for the Environment and a member of the selection committee for the DELTA program, said Chen’s passion for the environment and background in life cycle analysis research made him an ideal candidate.

Chen majored in environmental science as an undergraduate years at UNC and spent more than three years studying the subject in graduate school.

Barner said Chen’s work would be helpful in shaping the path toward ending coal usage on campus.

“There are several pieces to this biomass puzzle that we need to figure out before we move forward,” he said. “Sustainability is one of those.”

Stewart Boss, co-chairman of the Sierra Student Coalition, which lobbies the University heavily to reduce its coal usage, said he was pleased to learn about Chen’s hiring.

“Having a fellow who works there full-time shows that they’re committed to figuring this out as soon as possible,” he said.

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