Innovative Landfill Gas Pipeline to Serve UNH Campus Approved by University System of NH Board of Trustees

EcoLine Project Could be Major New Source for UNH Renewable Energy

EcoLine August 15, 2007 – Durham, NH – With the strong support of the USNH Board of Trustees, the University of New Hampshire—in cooperation with Waste Management, Inc.—will launch EcoLine, a landfill gas project that will pipe enriched and purified gas from a landfill in Rochester to the Durham campus. UNH is the first university in the nation to undertake a project of this magnitude.

The renewable, carbon-neutral methane gas, from Waste Management’s Turnkey Recycling and Environmental Enterprise facility in Rochester, will replace commercial natural gas as the primary fuel in UNH’s cogeneration plant, enabling UNH to receive 80-85 percent of its energy from a renewable source.

“By reducing the university’s dependence on fossil fuels and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, EcoLine is an environmentally and fiscally responsible initiative,” said UNH President Mark Huddleston. “UNH is proud to lead the nation and our peer institutions in this landmark step toward sustainability.”

UNH officials worked closely with the Board over the past eighteen months to review this cutting-edge energy project and were granted final approval to move forward in August 2007. Upon approval, construction started on both a landfill gas processing plant in Rochester—which will purify the gas—and the 12.7-mile underground pipeline, which will transport the gas from the plant to the university’s Durham campus. UNH is expected to fuel its cogeneration plant with landfill gas by the fall of 2008. The estimated cost of the project at UNH is $45 million.

Once construction on EcoLine is completed, the pipeline will not be visible, running four feet underground along Rochester roads, the Spaulding Turnpike, and the Pan Am Railway’s right-of-way onto UNH property. At UNH, landfill gas will replace commercial natural gas in UNH’s cogeneration (co-gen) plant, the primary source of heat and electricity for the five million square-foot Durham campus. The co-gen plant, which began operations in 2006, captures waste heat normally lost during the production of electricity and uses this energy to heat campus buildings, making more efficient use of energy resources.

More importantly, the landfill gas will stabilize the university’s fluctuating energy costs, which have doubled in the last five years and grown at an annual rate of 18.9 percent.

EcoLine will also have a major impact on UNH’s carbon dioxide emissions. It will reduce the university’s greenhouse gas emissions an estimated 67 percent below 2005 levels and 57 percent below 1990 levels.

More details on this innovative project can be found at http://www.unh.edu/news/cj_nr/2007/aug/kb14landfill.cfm

Landfill Gas Fact Sheet

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