Group urges OU to take natural gas offline

With plans in the works to replace the old Lausche coal plant with a natural gas plant, the university received another push to move away from gas toward renewable energy sources.Bobcats Beyond Gas, a student environmental group that campaigns against implementing the natural gas plant, hosted a six-person panel discussion Wednesday evening. About 50 people, including Vice President of Finance and Administration Steve Golding, were present to hear the panelists discuss alternative energies to gas.“We still have an opportunity to reconsider our options and think about where we go,” said Bernhard Debatin, a journalism professor who has written on energy policy. “Do we want to invest a lot of money into a gas heating plant that is dependent on a resource that burns clean but has an incredibly dirty extraction process … or do we want to move away from that and look for an alternative that is more sustainable?”Though Debatin did applaud the university for deciding to switch off of coal a few years ago, he said that the university should “take a leadership role” and invest in cleaner energies like solar.The panelists pointed to leaders like Ball State University in neighboring Indiana, which is planning to move entirely from coal to geothermal energy. The university will use a heating and cooling system where heat stored naturally within the earth is pumped to the surface. During the summer, the heat is sent into the ground.Debatin and Geoff Greenfield, owner of Third Sun Solar and Wind Power, also pointed to Germany, where 25 percent of energy is generated by renewable sources.“Everything that happened ... to make solar affordable today came from Germany and other markets subsidizing it when it was too expensive to be done without a subsidy,” said Greenfield.Though Greenfield said that switching to 100 percent renewable energy is possible, he said it will be a transition with fossil fuels needed to make up for shortfalls.Another panelist warned that relying on fossil fuels like natural gas might lead to problems common in post-extractive areas, such as lack of job opportunities and increased poverty.“What jobs there are, they will come and they will go,” said Jeff Wilson, an Athens resident, former sustainability commentator on HGTV and author of The Greened House Effect. “I guarantee you it will look exactly like history in West Virginia.Caitlyn McDaniel, president of Bobcats Beyond Gas, said they plan to protest the heating plant at the next Board of Trustees meeting on March 14. After the board’s last meeting in January, McDaniel and two other students met with the board chair and vice-chair to discuss alternatives to the gas plant, among other issues.