Making Fossil Fuel Plants Go Green: How UMass Amherst Can Reach Carbon Neutrality

The Central Heating Plant at the University of Massachusetts Amherst served as a milestone for the campus: the transition from the use of coal to natural gas to heat and power university buildings. However, it has become increasingly evident that more needs to be done to mitigate UMass’s carbon emissions. The goal to become a carbon neutral campus by the year 2030 has been set by the university chancellor as well as the Carbon Mitigation Task Force. There are several proposed methods to achieve this goal, such as expanding UMass’s renewable energy portfolio and redesigning buildings to make them more environmentally friendly. Although these ideas to reach net-zero carbon emissions would help bring UMass closer to net- zero, they are not sufficient alone to realistically attain this goal. Carbon capture and storage, a promising technology that has garnered much attention over the last two decades, would be able to mitigate the majority of campus emissions—and may present the only feasible method to reach our goal by 2030.