UNH uses garbage to go green
Colleges are going green all over New England by installing solar arrays to illuminate campus paths to starting grassroot groups to pressure politicians to pass carbon limiting laws. There is even an effort to make students take shorter showers to save on heating hot water.
But few are doing as much as the University of New Hampshire. The five million square foot campus is now getting up to 85 percent of its electricity and heat from a nearby landfill’s methane gas. It is the first university in the country to use landfill gas as its main fuel source.
Called Ecoline, the project gets its methane from a landfill at Waste Management’s Turnkey Recycling and Environmental Enterprise in Rochester. Methane is a natural by-product of decaying waste and is collected via 300 extraction wells and miles of collection pipes.
 The University of New Hampshire’s EcoLine™ is a landfill gas-to-energy project that will use purified methane gas from a Waste Management landfill as the campus’s main energy source. (Mike Ross/UNH) |
After the gas is purified and compressed, it travels through a 12.7 mile pipeline to UNH’s power plant where it is replacing commercial natural gas.
The project cost $49 million but some of that will be returned by selling excess power back into the region’s electricity grid and selling renewable energy certificates to other companies.
UNH has pledged to lower its greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2080.
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As long as the university is not fined or sued if it cannot meet its intended emissions targets on schedule. Pledges and laws are easier written than accomplished.
Every landfill in the country should be doing this!
Yeah! UNH Baby! Suck on that UMaine!
As an old grad at UNH'52, I'm delighted to see the initiative. However, I have to wonder when the USG & NH/ME will get serious and harness the wind power on the White Mtns that run N&S with the prevailing winds from the West... and ditto to the islands NH & ME share off the Portsmouth-Kittery area. The fastest wind ever recorded in the world was recorded on Mt. Washington. It's time to harness it!!
The same holds for the higher Green Mts of Vermont which also run N&S.
Glad someone is noticing what's going on on campus! I'm a proud Wildcat going green! :)
Sounds really cool that UNH is doing this. It would be great if UNH could show the economics of this project.
- A proud UNH alum
although its a good idea the wind from the white mts. will never be harnessed for energy due to the desiere to preserve the areas natural beauty. Even if the govt. and environmentalists agreed to this the infrastructure necessary to build on top of these mts. will be devastating to the ecosystem of the area if it is at all possible.
although its a good idea the wind from the white mts. will never be harnessed for energy due to the desiere to preserve the areas natural beauty. Even if the govt. and environmentalists agreed to this the infrastructure necessary to build on top of these mts. will be devastating to the ecosystem of the area if it is at all possible.
I am an alumnus and I work on the UNH campus, so I have watched with pride, and intrigue, how the methane-to-energy project has proceeded. It has come about due to a lot of hard work from segments all across campus, from the president on down to the expert workers in the energy plant...
It would be terrific to harness wind power in the Whites, but, as others have mentioned, it would be harder to gain acceptability in places where mountaintop environments are undeveloped. However, there is considerable infrastructure already in place on top of Mt. Washington (including the infamous "mother ship"), so front-line technology wind turbines would seem most feasible there.
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