One of my favorite campus traditions is the Race to the Secret Spots. For those who aren’t familiar, teams of twelve students run around campus in search of a specific location that they must decipher from a riddle. Teams that perform well receive a spot in K-Ville, and thus an entry in the Duke-UNC men’s basketball game. This year, students were stumped by esoteric places like the Sands Building, which I didn’t even know existed beforehand.
However, one spot that is secret to most Duke students wasn’t featured in this year’s race — the West Campus Steam Plant. It’s an unassuming name for a facility that burns natural gas at over 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The West Campus Steam Plant (and the smaller East Campus Steam Plant too) account for 80,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent (MTCO2e) out of the 198,000 MTCO2e of Duke’s on-campus emissions — roughly 40%. But unlike other aspects of campus operations, Duke doesn’t have a concrete plan on how it will replace natural gas with a more sustainable alternative. If the university wants to achieve zero on-campus emissions, this will have to change.
“Natural gas” is really just a fancy term for a fuel that is up to 90% methane (CH4), a greenhouse gas that has a global warming potential (GWP) 28 times higher than CO2. However, burning methane has been encouraged as a sustainable solution, largely because of its clean burning properties, meaning that it releases fewer air pollutants at the point of combustion than other fossil fuels. Even environmental groups such as the Sierra Club once heralded natural gas a “bridge fuel” in their campaign to close coal-fired power plants.
Other factors have contributed to the popularity of methane gas. Coal has been on the decline, falling from 52% to 16.2% of U.S. electricity production between 2000 and 2023. What happened?
The short answer is fracking. Fracking, which is short for hydraulic fracturing, involves injecting large amounts of fluids into the ground to create pores in the rocks, allowing for previously inaccessible oil and gas to be extracted. The advent of new fracking made the U.S. the top oil and gas producing country in the world. This fracking boom, led by businessman such as Duke alum Aubrey McClendon, pushed natural gas prices down, thus making it cheaper than coal.
Duke was part of this trend of transitioning from coal to natural gas. In 2011, the West Campus Steam Plant transitioned from burning coal to natural gas, which was seen as a significant sustainability breakthrough for the campus. But today, we know a lot more about the dangers of natural gas than we did then. Burning natural gas still emits criteria pollutants, including nitrous oxides (NOX) and particulate matter (PM). Natural gas pipelines can explode, leak or catch fire, as they do around 300 times a year in the U.S.
The West Campus Steam Plant operates differently than a traditional natural gas power plant, which generates electricity for the grid. Instead, the facility is used to heat the buildings on West Campus and the hospital, as well as to sterilize medical equipment. The steam generated via methane gas combustion is piped through tubes that run across campus. Once inside a building, the steam is used for space and hot water heating, as well as for humidification and sterilization.
Known as district heating, centralized heating systems like Duke’s can be more efficient than having individual heating systems in each building. But district heating comes with its own challenges. First, steam must be piped across campus at over 300 degrees Fahrenheit, which results in high energy losses and intensive maintenance. Second, if configured correctly, methane gas boilers have enough heat to provide both heating and electricity. Using the plant only for heat is declining akin to declining a buy-one-get-one-free deal at the supermarket.
Duke’s current strategy to reduce its reliance on methane revolves around realizing other efficiencies to the steam distribution system. The utilities team is working to replace steam with hot water, which can be transported across campus at much lower temperatures, increasing efficiency by 30% and lowering the maintenance costs by 75%. The law school and the Fuqua School of Business switched from steam to hot water just last year. The university is also planning to install heat recovery chillers (HRCs), which will take warm water returning from the chilled water loop and boost the water’s temperature up to 150 degrees Celsius. This matches the temperature needed for the hot water system, lowering the energy needed to heat Duke’s campus.
Though these changes will help, they don’t address the root of the problem — Duke still relies on natural gas for 49% of its energy needs. The university needs to find another way to heat the campus. Heat pumps, which use electricity to both heat and cool buildings, would eliminate the need for on-site fossil fuel combustion. But heat pumps have their own challenges, including the significant upfront costs associated with installation and difficulties adjusting to the extreme fluctuations in temperature (especially considering humidity) that Durham experiences. Additionally, heat pumps would require a shift away from district heating, which would force the university to abandon millions of dollars of infrastructure — an untenable proposition.
Instead, Duke should keep district heating but replace its fuel source. Hydrogen contains many of the same properties as methane, except that it is not a greenhouse gas. Waste heat from the process of electrolysis, which transfers energy from electricity to hydrogen, can be piped through a district heating system like Duke’s — at Stanford, waste heat processed by HRCs covers 88% of the university’s heating needs. This could be combined with waste heat from other sources, such as data centers. If heat demand exceeds the supply of waste heat, then steam generated from hydrogen combustion could bolster heat supply. The continued addition of HRCs could achieve further efficiency gains
Sustainability aligns with efficiency. Eliminating Duke’s reliance on natural gas can both save money and the environment. Though the West Campus Steam Plant is out of sight for most students, it should not be out of mind.
Aaron Seigle is a Trinity junior. His pieces typically run on alternate Fridays.
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