Lorenzo Nivellini, Staff Writer–
Denisonian columnist and editor Tom Vodrey wrote a detailed piece about Ever-Green Energy and the plans for reducing Denison’s emissions. The university’s goal is to reach net-zero emissions by 2045 and carbon neutrality by 2030, as laid out by former president Dale Knobel in 2010. Ever-Green Energy, the company hired to facilitate our decarbonization, has offered us three distinct plans that would accomplish this.
As mentioned in last week’s article, the first plan will cost about $91.5 million upfront, most of which will be taken from Inflation Reduction Act grants. Firstly, this plan would implement hot water heating. This would be developed early on, alleviating the strain on the aging steam system. Steam and hot water are fairly similar, but the former vaporizes it beforehand. Hot water energy is modestly more efficient, especially in buildings. However, full solar capacity wouldn’t be reached until 2035, nor would the prospective geothermal energy infrastructure. Finally, remaining things like vehicle electrification would not happen until 2045.
The second plan focuses on incremental steps toward the same end-goal of net zero emissions. Firstly, the Mitchell center would be converted to hot water heating and geothermal electricity by 2030. At the same time, half of the solar panels still needed to be put in place would be. The rest of campus would be converted to hot water by 2035 and everything from geo-exchange to electric boilers would be left until 2045.
The third plan involves immediately improving the energy efficiency of the natural gas used to pump steam into the heating for our buildings, something not included in the first plan. Further, carbon offsets would be purchased sooner, something that has an indirect positive impact. However, everything else would be left until 2045, making it the slowest plan in terms of rate of decarbonization.
When deciding which plan to use, one major factor to consider is the cost. The first option, as was mentioned in last week’s article, is heavily dependent on funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides a tax credit equal to 30% of the cost of any project whose construction begins before 2025, and 15% when construction begins between 2025 and 2035. This funding is subject to political change, and while the inflation reduction act provides useful facilitation, making use of it is risky and unnecessary.
While either of the latter two plans would put Denison in a budget deficit, this would only come from the upfront cost and would take, at most, two years to pay back in full. Moreover, they would likely make Dension back money. The new infrastructure will require far less maintenance, and the price of these renewable energy sources is certain to drop in the future due to both demand and subsidies.
The question remains whether plan B or plan C would serve Denison better. Based on my concern over costs, you may assume I would favor the third plan, which costs less upfront while reaching the same endpoint. Moreover, some of the major goals, including steam to hot water conversion and the renewable gas agreement, coincide.
Despite these benefits, however, plan B still reigns supreme. While the most important thing, of course, is to reach net zero by 2045, it’s better to reduce our emissions by smaller amounts as soon as possible. The ecology of the earth is changing by the minute; any alleviation of pollution, however small, can improve air quality and preserve the quality of ecosystems. Doing things like converting the energy in the Mitchell Center sooner could improve environmental conditions in Granville, and, if all organizations sought to reduce their emissions sooner rather than later, it could have implications for ecosystems the world over.
Whatever they end up deciding, let’s trust Denison’s Board of Trustees to bring us in the right direction.