Middlebury College

Middlebury, Vermont

Middlebury College

Moving to a more sustainable operation.

Middlebury College

• Established by the town of Middlebury in 1800

• 2,350 traditional students from all 50 states and over 70 countries

• 350 acres, 59 major building

• 44 majors• Residential College

• Bread Loaf School of English

• Summer Langauge programs in 9 langugues

• School Abroad

• Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference

What are doing now?

• B5 in place of Number 2 fuel oil in our smaller buildings 175,000 gallons

• Certified green wood in construction

• Student operated organic garden

What we are doing? (con.)

• High efficiency light bulbs provided to students

• Major recycling program

• Compost program

• Buy local foods, apples, dairy, …

Atwater Residence Hall, Natural Ventilation

Electric car used by Information Technology for delivery and service

One of the 20 lawn mowers and gators powered by Bio Fuel

Farrell House, solar panels 1.02kw

One of three steam turbines - FY 05 co-generation 4,361,850 kilowatt hours

10KW, 100 foot tower

Replacing gas carts with electric carts

What we would like to do.

• Increase the use of B20• Convert base load at central heating plant to

woodchips• Replace current fleet of 7 passenger vans

with hybrids• Encourage and promote car pooling or

employee shuttles in partnership with ACTR

Central heating plant

• Central plant provides heating, domestic hot water, cooling and steam for kitchens and dryers

• Co-generate electric three turbines totaling KW

• Fuel is Number 6 oil, 1.5million gallons

Woodchips

• Run of the mill byproduct

• Chips produced for fuel

• Loggers leaving the business

• Competition for chips, large paper plants, electric plants, K-12 schools, firewood

• Sustainable supply

• Local production reduces transportation

How “green” is our chip

• Non-certified, no standard

• Burlington Electric Standard

• SFI Sustainable Forest Initiative

• FSC - Forest Stewardship council

• VFF - Vermont Family Forest

• A “chip” we can be proud of.

What is stopping the “green” chip

• Lack of markets for certified chips

• Lack of chips to meet winter heating and paper plant demand

• Many loggers are marginal and will not spend the time in training without a return

• Mills are not seeing the value in the process

• Mills are not in the biomass fuel business

Current Dialog• Mills become biomass fuel producers• Loggers paid a premium to attend training• Loggers paid a premium to use better

harvesting and forest practices• K-12 market needs to step up to the

sustainability issue• Mills need to see added value of

certification

Forest Value

Logger – Wages & Benefits

Forestry Practices

Chipping – Economy of Scale

Low Grade Fiber

Subsistence

Poor

Huge Small

Sustainable +

Liveable +

Veneer Logs

Low

est

Dire

ct $

Cos

t

Hig

hest

Dire

ct $

Cos

t

Low grade hardwood log – chip or firewood only

+ Liveable wage to logger

+ 50% SFI forestry practices

+ Chipping scale matched to sustainability

= Final $/ton chip price

= $/ton

÷ 60 ≈ $/gal #6 equivalent price

Price of #6 Fuel Oil

Middlebury College Negotiates Markup Over Regional Rack Price

Chip Price

As Contracted between Middlebury College and Sustainable Chip Supplier

Roundwood Price

Regional Price Controlled by Local Paper Mills and Utility Scale Biomass Power Plants

1 ton of hardwood chips (45%MC) 60 gal of #6 fuel oil

based on LHV analysis

Δ $1/ton ≈ Δ $0.0167/gal

This price differential drives the NPV of Middlebury College’s biomass system

This price differential drives the NPV and sustainability of chipping operation

Chip Price – Monetary, Environmental and Social Value

Questions we have asked ourselves?

• How green does a chip need to be to be better than #6 oil?

• Why not purchase byproduct chips; they are being produced anyway?

• Do we care about the firewood market?

• Do we care about the cost of chips to the K-12 market or the paper plants?

Questions we have asked ourselves?

• Do we need to hire a forester for the chips?

• Can we grow our own fuel?

• What about natural gas?

• Cow power

• Central heating plant or satellite plants

• Is there any fuel in the waste stream?– Paper, cardboard, waste wood

HELP

• How do we move some of our small-scale projects to more mainstream use?

• How do we bridge the gap between our local forest products industry and our desire for a sustainable, environmentally friendly chip?

• Can FSC, SFI, and VFF co-exist?• How can we have a positive impact on the loggers,

landowners, mills and K-12 market?