Wind Turbine Limbo 

A makeshift wind turbine erected on a wooden platform rises more than ten feet high and sways back and forth as the wooden propellers turn gently, reacting to a constant breeze blowing over the Quad at the University of Illinois. It is April 22 – Earth Day – and the wind turbine sits among a host of display tables occupied by student organizations to raise awareness about environmental concerns.

Students parade past the turbine and pause long enough to take in a sign mounted to its base that reads: “R.I.P. Wind Turbines 2003-2009.” Abby Toms, senior in psychology, and a member of Students for Environmental Change, a group whose mission includes informing students and community members about environments issues, said the wind turbine was there to serve as a reminder to students that the campus wind energy project was dead.

“(Chancellor Richard Herman) just pulled the plug on the project and decided that we weren’t going to do it anymore despite the fact that we spent $500,000 in legal fees, getting the contract from GE. We were going to sign it and then, all of sudden, we killed the project,” she said.

When Herman announced in December that he had postponed the wind turbine project, he abruptly halted an effort that began in 2003 to bring renewable energy, in the form of three wind turbines, to be located on South Farms; a 350-acre tract of land south of campus devoted to renewable energy research. 

As the spring semester winds down, members of student environmental groups as well as members of the Student Sustainability Committee, appear to be less than optimistic that the project is actually postponed and not dead. One of the biggest issues affecting the project is the escalating cost of wind turbines. In 2003, a University news release reported that the cost of the three proposed turbines was about $ 2 million each. According to information provided by the UI Office of Facilities and Services, the cost for one wind turbine currently is $4.5 million. The cost raises questions of whether or not there are other renewable energy alternatives to consider that would be more economically feasible for the University to invest in.

This escalation in price is related to increased demand as a result of growing concerns about global climate change that have inspired the federal government as well as the private sector to embrace the idea of renewable energy. In 2008, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a commitment to boost wind-generated electricity by 20 percent by the year 2030. Reaching this goal would add between 180,000 to 500,000 renewable energy sector-related jobs to the economy and reduce CO2 emissions by 825 million metric tons, among other benefits, according to a report released by the department.

Though the administration cited increased cost as the cause for scaling back the original plan to buy three wind turbines from General Electric to one, before the deal was halted, student supporters remain skeptical of this explanation.

“Why did they put it off? You know we’re not quite sure. It may have come down to the agenda of the administration; it may have come down to that fact that gas prices were falling. Therefore, it made more sense to continue to use dirty energy because it was cheaper upfront as opposed to making an investment into renewables,” Toms said.

The timing of the Chancellor’s announcement to postpone the wind turbine project the week before finals caused the students to question the administration’s motives, said Anthony Larson, a junior majoring in economics.

“I don’t think the (move) was entirely intentional, but it sure looked like it. We had one day (to react) so we took time out of our studying and got about 75 people out yelling at the Chancellor (outside) Swanlund (Hall).” Despite having to scramble to deliver a response, the students were pleased to get media coverage of their protest, Larson said.

Now on Earth Day – four months after the Chancellor’s announcement – Toms and members of Student for Environmental Concerns are encouraging students to stop by their table on the Quad and sign a letter of support for the wind turbine project.

“This is the third letter that we have written to the Chancellor,” she said, “just to tell him that the students still demand what he said he was going to give us.”

While the student groups are intent on keeping pressure on Herman and the administration, he is focused on the larger picture, said Associate Chancellor Bill Adams. He also made a point to emphasis that the Chancellor stressed that the project is “postponed” and not cancelled, Adams said.

“What happened is as we went through the project approval process, turbines became a red hot commodity nationally,” Adams said. “Then the money we thought we could purchase three for would only purchase one.”

Not only did the administration have to contend with the rising costs of wind turbines, it is also facing a “utility deficit of more than $100 million that has to be dealt with,” Adams said.
Aside from the massive utility deficit, the University has not received consistent funding from the state legislature for several years, Adams said.

“The bulk of the budget growth since about 2002 has been on the backs of students in the form of tuition and fees. We just worry about how much can be put on the backs of students because at the end of the day that’s who is going to pay for some of this stuff.”

However, the enthusiasm newly elected Gov. Pat Quinn has shown for renewable energy initiatives as well as his stated commitment to higher education, gives the UI administration a cause for optimism concerning the state budget for the upcoming fiscal year, Adams said. Speaking of his desire for the Legislature to pass a favorable budget, he stated, “I hope that it’s good because we’ve been raising tuition about nine and a half percent per year for the last five or six years (and) we can’t continue to do that.”

Gov. Quinn visited the campus in February to promote the Sustainable University Compact. The Compact is a plan that calls for colleges and universities to voluntarily work toward achieving 12 sustainable goals by Dec. 31, 2010. The goals include purchasing renewable energy, improving water conservation and implementing green building practices, according to the Standing Up for Illinois Web site.

The Daily Illini also reported that during the governor’s visit student activists presented him with 300 letters of support for the wind turbine project.

Across the country many colleges and universities are trying to initiate renewable energy projects in the face of soaring state budget deficits and shrinking state funding. The Association for the Advancement for Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), established in 2006, is an organization whose mission is to assist institutions to implement sustainable practices. AASHE initiatives include disseminating knowledge and best practices and promoting resource sharing; facilitating member’s efforts to integrate sustainability into teaching, research and operations; and influencing local, state and national policy so that sustainability is a focus, according to their Web site.

One institution of higher learning that has brought renewable energy to its campus is the University of Minnesota, Morris, a small liberal arts college located about 3 hours northwest of Minneapolis. In 2005 after a student-driven effort was launched, the campus purchased a 1.6 megawatt wind turbine that provides about 60 percent of the energy used at the nearly 23-acre campus, said Lowell Rasmussen, Vice Chancellor of Facilities and Finance. Because the campus is not located in a large urban setting, the University was able to install the wind turbine on land adjacent to the campus. This allows the transfer energy to flow directly from the turbine to the campus without needing to use the electrical grid to do so, Rasmussen said.

In order to finance the project, the University secured a Clean Renewable Energy Bond (CREB) from the federal government. CREB bonds are 15-year, interest-free loans, Rasmussen said. Reflecting on the process that eventually resulted in the installation of a wind turbine at UM Morris, Rasmussen stressed the need for patience.

“It takes time; these things just don’t happen over night,” he said.
Waiting for change is something that student environmental activists at UI understand all too well.

Night falls on the Quad and all signs of the Earth Day event have disappeared, including display tables and the wind turbine. But there are a handful of student activists milling around, not too far from a clump of sleeping bags they have brought along on this all-night protest. Larson said that he was disappointed that years have passed and the effort to purchase a wind turbine appears to have taken a major setback. Commenting on the administration’s in-action he stated, “Unless there is someone (in the administration) who is really all for the project, they’ll wait until students who care about the project are gone.”

While the wind turbine project is stalled indefinitely, there are other possible renewable energy projects proposed on campus that may be worthwhile for the Student Sustainability Committee and other activist groups to investigate. One such project calls for Noble Hall to be refurbished with a green roof and smaller wind turbines.

The plans to provide Noble Hall with a green roof were produced by landscape architecture students enrolled in LA 336/438, one of the department’s spring studio options. Students in the course, taught by Professor Dave Kovacic, were asked to incorporate a green roof into a redesign of Noble Hall, which is one of the least energy efficient buildings on campus, Kovacic said.

A design put forth by seniors Mike Darrow and Jacob Heck included solar panels, small-scale wind turbines and plants as a part of their green roof design. According to the details listed on their plan, the green roof would reduce the buildings heating costs, reduce storm water run off, extend the life of the roof materials and serve as a research demonstration space where researchers could measure how much rain water had been diverted from the storm drain system. The cost for this project is estimated at approximately $ 500,000, including installation, which is roughly 10 percent of the cost associated with the proposed wind turbine.

The project addresses the question of “how to retrofit an existing building on campus so that it is sustainable,” Kovacic said. Being able to utilize elements of wind, solar, vegetation and water retention to address renewable energy efforts is a growing need on campus, he said.

“We have 75 acres of building roof on campus that are old roofs like this. So, potentially, (that’s) 75 acres of roof that could be made reusable.”

Kovacic intends to eventually submit a proposal to the Office of Sustainability that incorporates the best elements of his students’ designs for Noble Hall. Implementation of such a plan would engage different disciplines in a collaborative effort between different departments, including horticulture, engineering and landscape architecture, Kovacic said.

Suhail Barot, graduate student and chair of the Student Sustainability Community,
responding to the Noble Hall roof redesign idea, he said, “I’d want to see hard numbers on energy generation, payback, budgeting, etc, before I 
could say anything.”

As the college careers of the class of 2009 draw to close, there is still no word on when the Chancellor will finalize a decision on whether the wind turbine project will move ahead or be put to rest permanently.