There was considerable misinformation about the University of Cincinnati Beyond Coal (UCBC) campaign in Brook Dietz’s letter to the editor entitled, “UC Beyond Coal moving forward”, which appeared in the Nov. 10 issue of The News Record.

I would like to clarify many of Ms. Dietz’s — who is not, to my knowledge, a member of UCBC — misunderstandings about this issue.
First of all, the group is advocating for retiring the two coal-fired boilers, not “shutting down the plant”. Should the two coal-fired boilers be retired, this would not mean closure of the facility, since there are other types of boilers (as well as chillers) in that facility which don’t use coal.

One of the boilers is outdated and already expected to retire. Retiring both of them will have absolutely no impact on staff; the facility requires that two employees on duty at all times, regardless.

On a national and statewide scale, the fact that renewable energy kills jobs is a myth.

In fact, the wind sector already has more employees than the entire coal sector in the United States, as well as in Ohio.
Mountaintop removal mining has efficiently reduced the number of coal mining jobs by replacing underground miners with huge machines, meanwhile creating a much more devastating impact on public health and the environment.

Even Gov. John Kasich sees the opportunity for job creation in the renewable energy sector.

Plans for new Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), a program implemented by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), are moving forward, as it is widely agreed that renewable energy installations will create hundreds of thousands of jobs and help spark a weakened economy.

UC Beyond Coal members have specific ideas about how to actually get our campus away from coal. Our message isn’t simply that we should build a multimillion dollar solar array tomorrow — as Dietz suggested. Clearly, she misunderstands the issue with that statement; solar arrays wouldn’t produce steam for heating our campus buildings and six hospitals.

A review of their mission statement, basic research on their campaign as well as a look at UC facilities would have made this clear to Dietz.

To be clear, they are exploring solutions to retiring the coal boilers, which means a 15 percent increase in building heat efficiency.

Our university has been continually investing in efficiency and acknowledging the strong returns on investment.

Joseph Harrell, utilities director, as well as Mary Beth McGrew, the university architect, have shown incredible expertise, skill and ingenuity in building efficiency measures that are saving operating costs and reducing our environmental and social impacts.
Beyond using coal on our medical campus, UCBC is also looking at renewable energy sources that could reduce our electrical input from Duke Energy, which generates most of its energy by burning coal.

As everyone knows, renewable energy forms which produce electricity do in fact have high up-front costs, and the return on investment time frames are longer than most institutions are comfortable with.
There are several federal and state guaranteed loan programs, grants, green revolving loan programs and other funding mechanisms which can spread the up front cost of renewable energy in a way that will not increase yearly operating costs as well as reduce operating costs after they are repaid.

This would keep tuition from increasing and eventually save the university millions of dollars. UC already spends millions of dollars on energy — UCBC believes there are cleaner ways to use that money without increasing our operating budget that will ultimately decrease energy costs, while creating jobs.

Clearly, this is a complicated issue for a lot of people. I simply ask that before anyone makes assumptions about the campaign or create an opinion on UCBC they simply either ask what we are actually saying or research the issue a little more.

Brian Kunkemoeller is the co-director of sustainability, student government administrative outreach and planning coordinator for UC Beyond Coal.