UNC’s Reliance on Coal Limits Local Rail Conversion
The State University Railroad currently supplies coal to the UNC Cogeneration Facility. Source: 227volts via Wikipedia
Last month, the Chapel Hill Town Council agreed to participate in planning the Co-Gen Rail Transformation Project alongside Orange County and Carrboro. This project aims to convert a 10-mile rail line into a multimodal greenway. Currently, the rail line supplies coal to UNC’s Cogeneration Facility on Cameron Avenue, which utilizes coal and gas to provide heating and electricity throughout campus. The potential benefits the project would bring to the county and UNC are significant. But as long as the facility relies on the rail line, it can’t be converted.
Rail-to-trail conversions are growing in popularity. According to the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, there are “25,000+ miles of rail-trails on the ground nationwide and more than 9,000 miles of rail-trails ready to be built.” This growing popularity coincides with increased awareness of greenways' benefits. The 2017 National Household Travel Survey found that more than half of all trips in the United States are within a 20-minute bike ride and more than a quarter are within a 20-minute walk, but the majority of these trips are taken by automobiles. Increasing the amount of greenways would decrease the harmful environmental impact of automobiles and promote physical activity. At a time when transportation is the largest source of U.S. emissions and over 25% of Americans are inactive, the advantages rail-to-trail conversions provide are clear.
At the local level, the Co-Gen project brings multiple direct advantages to UNC. Converting the rail line would provide students and staff with a new route to campus, increasing ease of access, potentially lowering automobile usage, and accomplishing one of the university’s goals for Carolina North. Carolina North is a planned 250-acre research campus two miles north of UNC’s main campus, and one of the requirements for its development is to identify a greenway and bike path connection between Carolina North and the main campus. The rail line currently runs through Carolina North, and a trail conversion would likely satisfy this requirement while preventing coal from being transported through the property. Converting the rail line would also unlock university-owned land near the tracks, which would likely be the largest piece of property contiguous to the main campus that UNC will have access to.
The conversion also presents multiple benefits to the county. The rail line prevents unused commercial property in downtown Carrboro and Chapel Hill from having specific uses, which, if converted, could be utilized for economic growth. There is also another greenway project currently planned by the Town of Carrboro called the Bolin Creek Greenway. The current rail line runs through parts of this plan, and if converted, the new trail could possibly connect to the Bolin Creek Greenway. This would connect neighborhoods to the 10-mile corridor and eliminate the rail line as an obstacle to the current greenway. The line also divides suburban areas that would provide the largest plots for economic and housing development and extends into rural land further north, where the new corridor would primarily serve a recreational purpose.
Another factor to consider is the health risk that comes with transporting coal. Coal transportation can result in highly localized concentrations of PM 2.5 particles, which in large enough quantities have been shown to increase the rate of adult and infant deaths in communities. One coal rail line won’t have this severe of an effect, but converting it into a greenway would shift the line from a potential risk for community health to a major promoter of it.
However, the conversion of the rail line will only happen once UNC stops relying on it to supply coal for its cogeneration facility. Based on the last UNC Climate Action Plan in 2021, stationary combustion (burning fuel) has been the university’s largest source of carbon emissions since 2007. With the numerous sustainability initiatives around campus, it’s surprising that fossil fuels play such a significant role in UNC’s operations. However, the university has made numerous attempts to lower the facility’s environmental impact. They have tested wood pellets as a replacement for coal (which failed), replaced a percentage of coal usage with natural gas in the short term, and are currently applying for permission to test a new, non-waste alternative fuel. All of these options are cheaper than completely phasing out burnable fuels, but they are all attempts at mitigating emissions rather than eliminating them. Whether removing the cogeneration facility is feasible is unclear, as UNC’s sustainability efforts haven’t addressed this. Vanderbilt University, which reached carbon neutrality in 2021, still relies on its own cogeneration plant.
UNC plans to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, and one of the most significant factors in reaching this goal is how the cogeneration facility is fueled. Balancing cost with climate action is a dilemma facing facilities worldwide. However, the substantial benefits the Co-Gen Rail Transformation Project would bring to the university and the county help tilt the scales towards sustainability.