{"id":110736,"date":"2017-10-27T10:07:47","date_gmt":"2017-10-27T14:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=110736"},"modified":"2019-05-15T15:42:06","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T19:42:06","slug":"boilers-fire-up-but-with-much-less-fossil-fuel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2017\/10\/27\/boilers-fire-up-but-with-much-less-fossil-fuel\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bates boilers just fired up \u2014 but with much less fossil fuel"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a summer hiatus, Bates recently fired up its two commercial boilers, one of which burns Renewable Fuel Oil \u2014 an energy source used by no other college in the nation.<\/p>\n

Because it\u2019s both sustainably sourced and competitively priced with fossil fuels, RFO is a \u201cdream come true,\u201d says Tom Twist, the college\u2019s sustainability manager.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A proprietary product from Ensyn, RFO is made by vaporizing wood feedstock (e.g., sawdust) at a very high temperature. The vapor, which retains the energy of the wood\u2019s organic compounds, is then re-condensed into a fuel oil that’s burned in one Bates boiler to heat the campus in winter. (The other boiler uses natural gas, and there’s a third, backup boiler, too.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"

Darrel Scribner of Preferred Utilities Manufacturing Corp. starts the RFO burner on Tuesday by inserting what\u2019s known as an ignition oil gun. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

The switch to RFO<\/a> last January, plus significant efficiency projects, puts Bates \u201cwithin striking distance of our long-term goal of carbon neutrality,\u201d says Twist.<\/p>\n

In fact, Bates has reduced its carbon emissions by 81 percent since the early 2000s. \u201cIt\u2019s an astounding drop at a time when many institutions are just trying not to go up.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the impressive way that Bates has threaded sustainability throughout the college \u2014 from academics and student activism to dining and facilities operations \u2014 the college earned a Gold rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.<\/p>\n

AASHE is the \u201cpremier benchmarking agency for sustainability for any institution,\u201d says Jay Phillips, director of Facility Services operations. Gold \u201cis a huge achievement for Bates.\u201d<\/p>\n

In turns of emission reductions alone, Bates is eighth out of 362 college and universities on the AASHE scorecard. \u201cBates is emerging as a powerhouse in sustainability,\u201d Twist says. \u201cWe are doing really well.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Made by vaporizing materials like sawdust, RFO has helped Bates slash its carbon emissions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":110738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[232,11009],"tags":[11401,1964,11284],"class_list":["post-110736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment-sustainability","category-the-college","tag-aashe","tag-carbon-emissions","tag-renewable-fuel-oil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110736"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110781,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110736\/revisions\/110781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}