Green Mountain’s Green Energy A student-led study and proposal
to replace the oil heating plant with a biomass plant help the
college make big gains in curbing greenhouse gas emissions. By
Karla Hignite Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont, has
been a leader in energy conservation since the 1990s.
Significant efficiency measures continue today with window
replacements in student dorms, lighting retrofits, and a thermal
audit to identify additional weatherization needs of the
college's 25 buildings, some of which are more than 100 years
old. But Green Mountain scored its biggest gain in curbing
greenhouse gas emissions with the induction of its biomass plant
on Earth Day 2010. The idea originated from a student-led study
and the students' proposal in 2006 to replace the college's
60-year-old fuel oil heating plant with a combined heat and
power plant that would burn locally sourced woodchips. Of
primary concern: Emissions resulting from the use of "industrial
strength" No. 6 fuel oil that alone accounte