Students, Sierra Club protest coal use on MU campus
The protest is one of 60 taking place around the country.
Published Sept. 18, 2009
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Sophomore Sky Robinson speaks on behalf of the Sierra Club during a rally against coal Wednesday at Speakers Circle. The club is launching an effort to eliminate coal use at MU's power plant and clear the way for clean energy as part of a nationwide campaign.
About 25 students, organized by the Sierra Club, gathered Wednesday at Speakers Circle to voice their plea to the university to abandon coal energy and enact cleaner alternatives.
The rally is one of 60 being held at college campuses nationwide.
Students formed a curved line behind student speakers in the circle. They carried large signs reading "Coal=Past, Clean=Future" and "Get Mizzou Clean Energy." Some even had dark lines under their face to represent soot produced by power plant smokestacks.
"No more coal," the students shouted.
In 2007, MU used more than 48,900 tons of coal, according to a recently released Sierra Club report. The report elaborates on 11 universities that receive their electrical energy from coal power plants.
Students laid a brown tarp and dumped 25 pounds of coal on it. This is the amount burned every five seconds at MU, according to Sierra Club's 2007 statistics.
Green Corps Organizer Ryan Doyle works with the Sierra Club's Coal-Free Campus Campaign and travels to universities to help students voice their cause.
The campaign's ultimate goal is to help colleges and universities in the transition from coal to clean energy.
"University campuses should be leaders in technological innovation and sustainability," Doyle said. "They should be places of learning, development and growth where students can thrive, not homes to polluting 19th-century technology."
Campus Facilities spokeswoman Karlen Seville said the MU power plant is working with organizations, such as the Sierra Club, to convert from coal to cleaner fuel. The plan for the future is to move entirely from coal to biomass. The Sierra Club members want the power plant to burn biomass-only fuels by 2030, and Seville said this process has begun.
"Within the next five years, we will be using 25 percent biomass," Seville said.
For senior Mallory Shillinger the revelation to fight for the clean energy cause happened when she visited Kayford Mountain in West Virginia over the summer. She said she witnessed a destructive mining operation where companies blow off the tops of mountains to extract small amounts of coal. This technique is known as mountaintop removal mining.
"After they're done extracting, all the rubble rolls down to the stream," Shillinger said. "This is their main source of water. Basically, they're drinking coal residue."
She said the coal rubble contains chemicals including arsenic, lead and mercury, all of which create public health hazards. But she said the companies get away with their extraction practices because the majority demographic of the region has no power against the coal companies.
"The thing is, these people are in a low socioeconomic standing, which is sad because every person is worthy of having clean drinking water," Shillinger said.
Nursing sophomore Addie Schnurbusch said she grew up in a house with parents devoted to environmental preservation and said the time to act is now.
"We're literally like, 'It's not going to affect us for a hundred thousand years. It's their problem,'" Schnurbusch said. "It should be our problem."
Seville said even if the power plant could go entirely to biomass, a term that includes fuels such as woodchips, switch grass and corncobs, there would not be enough raw material to power the plant.
"Part of the issue at the moment is that biomass is just getting up and running in the Midwest so there isn't a lot of access to that," Seville said. "Even if we said we're going to change to 100 percent biomass next month, there wouldn't be enough biomass to use."
