New boiler will reduce environmental footprint

The boiler, to be completed in 2012, will burn only sustainable fuels.

By Angela Case

Published April 17, 2009

The MU power plant will become greener as installation of a new boiler is completed in 2012.

The boiler, which will burn 100 percent biomass fuel, will replace one of the plant's six current boilers, Campus Facilities Director Phil Shocklee said.

"It will be able to burn waste wood chips, switch grass, corn stover, pelletized paper and other materials that are much more environmentally friendly than coal," Shocklee said.

The boiler will replace an outdated unit that was installed in 1987 that Shocklee said has reached the end of its useful life.

"The old boiler is a circulating fluidized bed boiler, which mixes limestone with coal for burning as a method of reducing emissions," he said. "It was new technology at the time, and it didn't pan out the way we hoped it would. It had reliability and production issues."

The estimated cost of the new boiler is $62 million, Shocklee said. The department is hoping for stimulus money to help offset the cost. Lacking those funds, revenue bonds will be used to pay for it.

While there are no exact numbers available on the amount energy costs the new boiler will decrease, Shocklee said the university is saving about $50,000 annually by mixing wood chips in with coal fuel, and saving about $300,000 annually by burning chipped tires mixed with coal, as opposed to burning only coal.

Shocklee said all of the boilers do not run equal amounts of time, so the addition of the new boiler will not necessarily mean exactly one-sixth of the university's energy will come from biomass.

"We use different boilers different amounts at different times," Shocklee said. The percentage of power derived from each boiler "depends on what the load is and what equipment we have online," he said.

The University of Idaho has been using a similar biomass boiler to operate its steam plant since the 1980s.

"We don't use it exclusively, but about 80 percent of the heat on campus is provided by steam made by wood," Idaho resource conservation manager Richard Nagy said.

Nagy said using wood to produce steam costs only one-third as much as using coal.

Besides the cost benefits, Nagy said there are also sustainability advantages to using the wood burner.

"Unlike coal, wood is renewable as long as the trees are being planted, and they are," he said.

In addition, the wood burned at the steam plant consists of waste chips from other wood-producing operations. Thus, wood is not produced specifically for use as fuel, Nagy said.

Former Sustain Mizzou President Patrick Margherio said the organization did not specifically advocate for the purchase of the power plant's new boiler.

"The Mizzou power plant thought it up," he said. "They really know what they're doing over there."

Shocklee said the new boiler is being designed, and installation is scheduled to begin sometime in 2010. Completion is slated for 2012. Shocklee said the campus' energy supply will not be affected during the installation.

Sustain Mizzou is confident the power plant has made a responsible decision in purchasing the new boiler.

"The Mizzou power plant does a phenomenal job of knowing what their impact is and how they can become better," Margherio said. "I would say that Sustain Mizzou supports them in everything they do, because they are top-notch and really think long-term about how they can be sustainable as a power plant."