After attempting to terminate the Physical Plants’ coal operation, the Beyond Coal Campaign has changed its mission to retiring the two stoker boilers instead.

Adam Reaves, field organizer for the SIU Beyond Coal Campaign, said the campaign will focus on educating students and the campus community about health dangers associated with the stoker boilers and urge the administration to retire them.

Scott Cralley, a stationary engineer at the Physical Plant, displays the stoker grate in one of the university’s two stoker fired boilers, both of which were built in the early 1960s. The boilers’ burning, which cannot be cleaned to stop sulfur from being emitted into the atmosphere, are only used a fraction of the year to help supplement the other boilers, which use more recent technology. Genna Ord | Daily Egyptian

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“We are pressuring the SIU Carbondale administration to set a retirement date for the two stoker boilers in the campus physical plant,” he said in an email. “These two boilers are hardly used and responsible for the majority of dangerous emissions from the plant.”

Reaves said Beyond Coal has gained American Lung Association’s support, and nearly 2,000 students and faculty have signed a petition in support of the campaign. He said there are 16 universities nationwide that have committed to retiring their campus plants, including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Eastern Illinois University and Western Illinois University.

Neil Saffelder, chief operating engineer of the Physical Plant, said the plant’s stoker boilers operate seasonally to supplement the load on the circulation fluidized bed, an energy-efficient boiler that combusts gas and solids to cause less harm to the environment. He said the university cannot produce the amount of steam needed to power the campus with just the CFB boiler. The stoker boilers are older boilers generated by burning coal to stop sulfur from emitting into the atmosphere, he said.

Reaves, a full-time campus organizer for the Illinois branch of the Sierra Club — an environmental group stationed throughout the country that helps coordinate the campaign and raise awareness — said after exchanges with the staff of the physical plant and the administration, Beyond Coal wants to present other alternatives and show the university that retiring the boilers is a feasible option.

Saffelder said the stoker boilers produce less than 10,000 tons of energy, and there is no technology that allows sulfur to be properly removed from the coal.

He said the Physical Plant’s staff understands the need for up-to-date technology. They are looking for alternatives to the stoker boilers because the Environmental Protection Agency may change regulations by 2014, and the stoker boilers may not comply with future regulations, Saffelder said.

“New technology would be considerably more expensive,” he said. “We are always concerned about operating under compliance and right now, in order to make the transition from stoker boilers, we will need to look at the cost, the different options and make an informed decision.”

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Jarid Perrin, a junior from Lindenwood studying forestry, said students have been a vital part of the campaign.

He said Beyond Coal has been able to gather student support through petitions, phone calls and campaign tables. As they move forward with the campaign, Perrin said the focus is to further educate supporters. Beyond Coal will hold a press conference at 1 p.m. Tuesday  to gather more support and present the information it has gathered to the administration.

Reaves said both the plant’s  operators and university administrators have been willing to meet with group members, and he hopes they can come to a resolution in the coming months.

“By setting a date to retire these boilers, it shows the university’s commitment to student health … they can’t ignore our commitment, effort and diligence,” he said.