Coal news and updates

The University of Georgia’s coal-fired steam boiler is running full tilt to help keep the campus warm right now, but by the middle of March, it will be shut down for the final time and workers will begin installing a new electric-powered electrode boiler.

Once the plant burns the 4,000 tons of coal stockpiled near the plant in the middle of the UGA campus, it will be shut down. “We’re going to burn it all,” David Spradley, UGA’s director of energy services, said of the stockpiled coal.

The change will mean more than just a new power source to back up the natural gas that supplies UGA’s other three steam boilers. It’s also going to mean cleaner air for Athens.

As in most places, cars and trucks account for the vast majority of air pollution in Athens. But the coal plant is one of the largest single sources for ozone-forming and other kinds of pollution here, even though it’s a small source compared to facilities like Georgia Power’s giant coal-burning power plants.

As of 2010, UGA was producing about 54 tons of carbon monoxide, hundreds of tons of carbon dioxide, 229 tons of sulfur dioxide — which helps produce acid rain — and 71 tons of particulate matter, according to records filed with the state Environmental Protection Division. In 2013, UGA reported 258 tons of sulfur dioxide and about 35 tons of particulate matter.

Burning natural gas also produces pollution, as burning anything does.

But almost all the particle pollution will be eliminated.

“That’s nearly all coal,” Spradley said.

The sulfur dioxide will also be gone.

“The vast majority of SO2 is produced by the coal boiler,” Spradley said.

According to a 2010 report to the state Environmental Protection Division, UGA machines also produced nearly two tons a year of so-called “hazardous air pollutants.” About half of that total came from the coal boiler.

Actually, the plant is already producing a lot less pollution than five years ago. At one time, the plant ran throughout the year; on the UGA campus, steam was used to cool as well as heat buildings. But a few years ago, UGA officials began operating the plant just six months out of the year, and then just four, thanks to repairs and renovations to the UGA steam distribution system that made the system about 20 percent more efficient.

The changeover will also mean a lot less waste. The coal burned now is reduced to ash, which has to be landfilled — about 10 tons of ash for every two days the steam boiler is running. Giant air scrubbers, which use lime to remove some of the coal pollution, will also no longer be needed, so about 22 tons of lime per month won’t have to be purchased, nor disposed of once it’s absorbed pollution from the burning coal.

Eliminating those costs, plus the anticipated savings on fuel, will save UGA an estimated $500,000 a year, Spradley said.

It’s not clear yet just what will become of the coal boiler itself, or the pollution-removal equipment attached to it, or the tall brick smokestack.

The equipment could potentially be sold, and campus officials will determine whether the smokestack, half a century old, has historic significance. The building housing the coal boiler will stay, and will house the new electrode boiler, which will be about 20 feet high and eight feet in diameter, Spradley said.

 

 

Source: http://onlineathens.com/