Members of UK Green Thumb lay down a 40-foot banner on the bowl of William T. Young Library at the Rose Street side entrance on Thursday morning. Photo by Brandon Goodwin | Staff
Thursday morning was both cold and windy, but that didn’t stop one coalition of students from getting their message to the public.
Students from UK Beyond Coal and UK Green Thumb unfurled their banner advocating alternative energy Thursday morning at the William T. Young Library.
Sprawled down the hill of the library’s entrance, passing students could easily read the banner: “Coal: a tradition of oppression. Students, let’s change our legacy.”
Jared Flanery, Green Thumb member, and Patrick Johnson, a senior and co-coordinator of Green Thumb, were two of the students waving the banner.
“We want to create a dialogue over the topic on campus,” Johnson said.
Flanery, a history junior, agreed. “The goal of today is to increase visibility,” he said.
Elaine Alvey, a senior and co-coordinator of Green Thumb, related the banner drop to the hosting of last week’s basketball game by the Sierra Club.
“We wanted to use that momentum to keep the conversation about energy going,” she said. “We want to start the semester strong.”
Johnson also explained the group’s hopes of raising awareness of UK’s relationship with coal. “People need to know there are two coal-fired plants on campus. The university needs to consider renewable energy alternatives,” he said.
Johnson listed solar and geothermal as two possible renewable energy resources. “It can happen here.”
It is not all about climate change, Flanery said in regards to the coal-fired plants on campus. “It’s about public health, too,” he said.
Last October, UK Beyond Coal met with the Board of Trustees and called for a change in the university’s reliance on coal-powered energy.
In a Nov. 8 Kernel article, Bob Wiseman, vice president for facilities management, said the coal power plants are completely legal.
“Coal plants, like we have on our campus, are governed by the state Division of Air Quality, and then they give us a permit to operate them,” he said. “That operating permit stands on its own.”
In the article, Wiseman said he lives about two blocks from one of the coal power plants and said in the article he wouldn’t have built his house there if he felt he was in any danger.
Alvey targeted UK’s connection with coal, citing the Wildcat Coal Lodge as a primary example.
“We want to see the financial relationship between UK and the coal industries change,” she said.
Alvey also tackled misconceptions about the renewable energy movement.
“There’s a misconception that we’re all hippies,” she said. “It’s really a very diverse movement.”
She also said that often people think they hate the coal industry.
The group’s focus is to look for answers to the energy crisis, not conflict, Alvey.
“I feel like we’re the silent majority,” she said.
Well at least they put their stupidity and hypocrisy out there for all to see
Oh no they got a 40 ft banner? We should probably stop using coal now.
Well considered positions presented in a respectful way. Sounds like the type of students the University of Kentucky should be proud to have at their institution. Cheers to those who take a stand for the benefit of everyone, not just themselves. Agree or disagree, you have to admire their raw courage and thoughtful approach.
“Coal: a tradition of oppression. Students, let’s change our legacy.”
That is so true. I stand with this movement 100%. Coal is last century’s technology, and we are all being oppressed by king coal.
I love coal miners like I love WWI veterans and wish they could all be transitioned to safer, healthier lines of work. Comparing today with 50-100 years ago, we extract more coal…with fewer people. Sad, through and through. One thing about it holds true though – coal mining “communities” are left holding the bag as the profits go to those with clean hands.
‘Coal keeps the lights on’ is analogous to ‘slavery keeps food on the table.’
John and Steve- Go back to your beer kegs and video games and leave the intellectuals at UK alone please. UK’s Beyond Coal is comprised of students who use their minds creatively and are unsatisfied with following the typical UK herd mentality.
And John, you are so predictable. Any commentary that presents a different point of view other than “coal is good…coal is great…cool coal bumper stickers…rah rah coal!” gets degraded and slammed by you. (See John’s snarky comments to my recent letter-to-the-editor on UK’s two coal-fired heating plants.)
I commend UK’s Beyond Coal movement, although I feel their proposed solution to UK’s coal-fired heating plants is somewhat naive. UK’s heating plants are already capable of burning natural gas and currently do so. UK could immediately transition fully to natural gas which, as all research indicates, is a much cleaner and healthier burn. My interest, as somebody who lives, works, and breathes the air in this town, is to get UK to move away from burning coal immediately. Let’s put an immediate end to the carbon dioxide, mercury, lead, arsenic, cadmium, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, etc.- all byproducts of burning coal- being released into Lexington’s air by UK’s coal-fired heating plants. After that, I think Beyond Coal should definitely dialogue aggressively with UK about transitioning to more environmentally-friendly alternatives to natural gas (fracking is wreaking havoc on our water supply) such as solar and geothermal.
And how funny that Bob Wiseman’s poor judgement about where he decided to build his home continuously enters into this debate. Why do I or anyone care where he built his home?
Keep up the good work Beyond Coal! You’re definitely being heard by more than the John’s and Steve’s out there, and you have much support.
You state that “fracking is wreaking havoc on our water supply” but advocate converting the UK steam boilers from coal to natural gas because natural gas is “cleaner and healthier to burn”. To me, that suggests you are willing to sacrifice water quality for air quality. I am not sure I would be willing to make that swap, particularly when the UK boilers are already well within their stringent emission permit regulations.
I think you also need to realize that UK’s heat generation uses both natural gas and coal, but lacks the capacity to use natural gas alone, so they simply cannot “immediately transition fully to natural gas”. If you desire to end the use of coal at UK, are you willing to endure a tuition increase to cover the expenses of converting and operating the existing coal plants to a much more expensive fuel that also produces CO2 when you burn it?
Thank you Jack, for your response. I am no longer a student, but many UK students would, in fact, be willing to see an increase in tuition for greater health benefits. They already face tuition hikes for unspecified reasons. At least this would be something tangible students could see and reap benefits from.
Many students and people in this town also see the irony in UK’s new president bringing in $500,000/year + performance bonuses beginning in the 2012-2013 fiscal year and a basketball coach bringing in $400,000/year + incentive bonuses of up to $3 million + performance bonuses to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars + country club membership and UK simultaneously claiming not to have the funds when it comes to making the city of Lexington a healthier place and making the campus more progressive and modern in terms of its energy sources. I do believe that if the few at the very top accepted less in compensation and bonuses, UK could fully fund not only a transition to natural gas but, even better, a transition to solar or geothermal without a tuition hike. But I also know that when I start calling for people at the top to take less to better the condition of those at the bottom, I am asking for the impossible.
The emissions standards the UK plants are, unfortuantely, not stringent. The standards UK must adhere to are as antiquated as the heating plants themselves. That is the downfall of a nasty legislative loophole called a grandfather clause.
In terms of emissions from burning coal versus emissions from burning natural gas, here are the numbers, in pounds per billion Btu of energy input:
carbon dioxide
natural gas 117,000
coal 208,000
carbon monoxide
natural gas 40
coal 208
nitrogen oxides
natural gas 92
coal 457
sulfur dioxide
natural gas 1
coal 2,591
particulates
natural gas 7
coal 2,744
mercury
natural gas 0.000
coal 0.016
Source: EIA – Natural Gas Issues and Trends 1998
Angela,
concerning the pay of el presidente and coach cal. You get what you pay for, also, what is the financial impact of a winning basketball team and highly rated univeristy when it comes to attracting students, Alumni donations, endowments etc that allow UK to provide all the services, classes, activities to their staff and students? You make an erroneous assumption that those at the top taking less will have any impact on those at “the bottom”. Sounds an awful lot like that 99% hogwash.
Also, please feel free to list one, ONE single study, citation etc that shows fracking having any effect the water supply in this country. :-D I’m afraid you’re going to be poorly disappointed.
as for solar and geothermal, the 2009 numbers of the average national cost of electricity(utility) is $.067 per Kwh. For solar,(utility) it’s $3.00 per Kwh I don’t think that Calapari and El Presidente giving up their salaraies, bonuses etc will cover that….which hasn’t even touched up the need for backup generators (natural gas, coal etc that run on “standby”-meaning they’re burning fuel to spin w/out actually producing useful electricity) in the even of things like, clouds. rain.
As for the emmissions of coal vs natural gas, not disputing that, only disputing the implied criticism that the emmissions are having any proven effect on human health or the environmental health. We’ve gone through this before, with you citing the EPA, me citing the EPA’s own inspector general saying the studies don’t meet the EPA guidelines for peer reviewed… you citing an autism study “linking” coal, me citing 2 or 3 doctors and scientist poking big fat holes in the autism “study” etc.
Just a point to get people thinking, everyone is hyping the dangers of mercury poisoning us (specifically human fetuses). According to EPA’s own analysis, the new mercury regulation serves to protect America’s population of pregnant, subsistence fisherwomen, who eat 300 pounds of self-caught fish reeled in exclusively from the most polluted bodies of water. Notably, EPA failed to identify a single member of this supposed population. Instead, these people are assumed to exist. Is that a plausible assumption?
See page 51 of the EPA’s http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/utility/pro/hg_risk_tsd_3-17-11.pdf
(1) In the proposed rule, EPA stated that 2016 projections for mercury emissions (29 tons) reflect current emissions, so this graph (the “2016 scenario”) represents the current mercury threat; (2) EPA “interpreted IQ loss estimates of 1-2 points as being clearly of public health significance” (p. 17 of the Technical Support Document); and (3), the columns of the graph, “Watershed percentiles,” refer to freshwater, inland bodies of water, and the degree to which they have been polluted by mercury (i.e., the 99th watershed percentile refers to the top one-percent mercury-polluted freshwater, inland body of water).
Do I need to go through and do similar explanations of the other “toxins” (all that occur naturally in the atmosphere and other parts of the worlds environment) or will anyone do it for themselves? You know, get involved, educate yourself, create and informed opinion, that kinda stuff.