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Sustainability News

Summer reading must: our latest newsletter is here! Sustainability at UNH cover story of June UNH Magazine

COGENERATION PLANT & LANDFILL GAS PIPELINE Arrow

UNH is the first university in the US to be fueled primarily by landfill methane gas

 

“By reducing the university’s dependence on fossil fuels and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, EcoLine is an environmentally and fiscally responsible initiative. UNH is proud to lead the nation and our peer institutions in this landmark step toward sustainability.”

-- UNH President Mark W. Huddleston

Cogeneration plant

In 2006, UNH's combined heat and power facility - or cogeneration (COGEN) plant - went online. The primary source of heat and electricity for the five-million square foot Durham campus, COGEN retains waste heat normally lost during the production of electricity and instead uses this energy to heat buildings, in turn reducing sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions.

 

Landfill gas

EcoLineIn 2008, UNH will become the first university in the U.S. to use landfill gas as its primary energy source. In partnership with Waste Management of New Hampshire, Inc., UNH launched EcoLine, a landfill gas project that will pipe enriched and purified gas from Waste Management’s landfill in Rochester to the Durham campus. Coming from Waste Management’s Turnkey Recycling and Environmental Enterprise (TREE) facility in Rochester, NH, the landfill gas will replace commercial natural gas as the primary fuel in UNH’s cogeneration plant in early 2009. Construction began in 2007 on the landfill gas processing plant in Rochester that will purify the gas and on the 12.7 mile underground pipeline that will transport the gas from the plant to the UNH Durham campus.

Will using gas from a landfill to power UNH encourage people to waste and further promote a "consumer society" lifestyle?

No. Climate change is a dramatic challenge that demands a systemic and proportional response. We must reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible to avert the worst impacts of climate change that will occur in the next 50 to 100 years if we do not cut our emissions drastically in the next decade. In light of this challenge, it's important to keep the following points in mind about using landfill methane gas for power:

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