The hum never stops.
It reverberates off a maze of piping, grated stairways and cold industrial machinery. It seeps through the tightest earplugs.
The noise comes from giant energy-producing equipment inside the MSU Power Plant. The smallest is about the size of a full-size pickup truck.
These machines — four coal boilers, five steam-turbine electric generators, waste-heat boiler and natural gas combustion turbine — are what keep the university warm and well lit.
It may not be on the forefront of people's minds at its secluded Service Road location, but the power plant is arguably the most important building at MSU.
More than 670 other campus buildings would be helpless if it didn't do its job — a job which is getting more formidable each year.
Between the 2000-01 school year to the 2004-05 school year, the amount of fuel consumed increased by 5 percent, from 6.058 billion British thermal units to 6.355 billion BTUs. One BTU is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one pound of water by 1 degree.
A natural gas-fired, combustion turbine was added, along with a fifth steam turbine, to help ease the burden.
The pieces were assembled during the past year and both went into operation this month.
"The name of the game is to stay ahead and keep the lights on," said Robert Ellerhorst, director of the Power and Water Department.
Although a 5 percent increase might not seem like a large figure, physical plant experts say the rate is steady enough to require another expansion by 2023.
"The 2023 projection is based upon growth that we've seen," Ellerhorst said. "We drew a straight line, and said if the growth doesn't change, then we're going to be at a point in 2023 where we have to do something again."
Energy production
Increasing energy demands and building upgrades are not new for MSU. The power plant itself has moved twice since its first location in the late 1890s on what is now the Administration Building lawn.
In 1948, it was relocated to Shaw Lane and Red Cedar Road, near Spartan Stadium. The red brick building, with its single, massive chimney still stands with the letters MSC, from MSU's former days as Michigan State College.
In 1965, the Service Road building was opened.
The current operation makes use of two different fuels — coal and natural gas. Two-thirds of the fuel used is coal, but the new combustion turbine is only fueled by natural gas.
Ellerhorst said natural gas turbine uses around 6,500 BTUs to produce 1 kilowatt of electricity, compared to the 10,000 BTUs, that the coal-fired units require.
"More expensive fuel, but more efficient process," he said.
Both coal and natural gas are used to boil water into steam. The steam then drives a turbine to turn an electric generator, providing the campus with electricity.
This isn't the end of the line, however. The steam is also used to heat campus — passing through 25 miles of piping. This process — simultaneously generating both heat and electricity at one power plant — is called cogeneration. It is more efficient than conventional generation, Ellerhorst said.
"Cogeneration, in a perfect sense, means that your processes are going to make two end-use sources of energy," he said. "You can utilize more of the available energy that comes from the original fuel."
MSU is one of dozens of U.S. college campuses that use cogeneration. Others include Central Michigan University, Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan.
Although the cogeneration process itself might be efficient, the fuel being burned creates an economic versus environmental dilemma.
"Over the last two to three years (the cost of) natural gas has almost quadrupled or more," said Lori Myott, a senior engineer in the Air Quality Division of the Michigan Department of Environment Quality.
In comparison with the jump in oil and natural gas prices, coal prices have stayed relatively low for U.S. consumers, as the United States has the world's largest supply of coal — about 27 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Myott said there are also environmental differences between coal and natural gas.
"From an emissions standpoint, a natural gas-fired turbine is pretty efficient and relatively speaking, emissions would be quite a bit lower than with burning coal," she said.
Coal is used for 50 percent of electricity generation in the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. However, about 80 percent of carbon dioxide emissions come from coal.
"Because of cost and availability, more facilities are looking to coal and trying to find cleaner ways to use that coal," Myott said.
MSU has been using state-of-the-art controls on its coal boilers to keep emissions within state and federal regulations, she said.
"The last couple years have gone through several changes to reduce sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury emissions — especially through coal-fired standards," Myott said. "So they are well on their way to improving more and more."
Conservation
The physical growth of MSU's campus is a major reason for the rise in energy usage, Ellerhorst said. New buildings mean more rooms to light and more space to heat.
"The university historically has added 1 million square feet every 10 years — and that hasn't changed," he said.
Ongoing and planned construction suggest the university will continue to expand. Projects underway or in planning include the new parking ramp next to Morrill Hall and a major renovation to the Kresge Art Museum.
"Let's say we're going to continue to build, then can we change the behavior of the population?" Ellerhorst said. "We still continue to bring more devices to campus that use electricity."
He added that a lot of the computers are plugged in and never turned off, especially with the advent of instant messaging.
"Can't they check their messages in the morning?" Ellerhorst asked.
Terry Link, the director of the Office of Campus Sustainability, believes changing daily habits and being more mindful about turning off lights and other devices can help.
"There's a lot of waste in the system, just on what we've been able to observe," Link said.
Last semester, his office completed a case study on how much energy could potentially be saved by turning classrooms lights off when not using them. The study examined two campus buildings, Berkey and Bessey halls. The study found if lights were left on needlessly for four hours a day in 75 percent of the classrooms, 22,000 watts would be wasted per week per classroom.
After applying this number for the rest of campus classrooms, the study estimated 75 million watts could be saved each semester.
"We have so many people," Link said. "If one person is saving 100 watts that doesn't seem like much, but we have 45,000 people. You're really talking about a lot of juice."
Link said his concerns are environmentally based. And although the power plant added a cleaner, more efficient natural gas turbine, Link finds something fundamentally wrong with dealing with an increasing demand only on a supply end.
"If we can't control the demand, we'll keep shooting ourselves in the foot," he said. "As a university, we haven't really dealt with the demand issue yet. Not in any way other than asking people to please be a little more thoughtful.
"We should be tackling that at least as much as we're tackling the technical fixes of the supply."
Link believes that because no one pays for electricity on campus, they are less likely to think about conservation.
"We can do a better job in reporting back energy use by doing it on a regular basis, so people can see exactly how much energy they consume," Link said.
At this point there is no direct correlation between how much energy the campus community burns and how much MSU students pay to attend school, said Angela Brown, the director of University Housing. She said costs for room and board are based on broader changes.
"The increase in utility cost or energy cost, that would be tied to inflation, not because more energy is being used (on campus)," Brown said.
Of course, energy concern at MSU is only a microcosm of a much broader global problem, Link said.
"It's a climate change issue," he said. "It's the fact that the fossil fuel we're burning to do this stuff is going to cause much greater havoc. We don't know exactly what and where and when, but it's coming."
Nicholas Richer can be reached at richerni@msu.edu.
