UD terminates Data Centers project for STAR Campus

UDaily, 9:30 a.m., July 10, 2014 -- The University of Delaware announced today it has terminated its lease agreement with The Data Centers, LLC (TDC), putting a halt to TDC’s plans to develop a data center on the University’s Science, Technology & Advanced Research (STAR) Campus. 

Following analysis of TDC’s plans, the UD Working Group concluded that the proposed facility, which included a 279-megawatt cogeneration power plant, is not consistent with a first class science and technology campus and high quality development to which UD is committed. The findings are detailed in the Group’s report. View the report PDF on UD’s website.

“The University is committed to providing economic development opportunities for the region and state,” says University of Delaware President Patrick T. Harker. “Moreover, it is extremely important that development on the STAR Campus, which is held to the highest standards, is appropriate both for the short and the long term, and that future generations of students will have a top-quality education. We have carefully examined The Data Centers’ plans, and have determined that they are not a good fit for the STAR Campus.” [Full article ...]

Now, let's get on with developing the STAR Campus in a green, sustainable manner.

Related: Coverage in the Wilmington News Journal.

Jonathan Harker: Failure to tackle air pollution kills over 25,000 per year

Too bad our Harker can't get the facts straight when it comes to air quality

By Jonathan Harker | Bike BIZ (UK) -- With the evidence stacking up, will a new official public health report prompt the government to put serious cash behind cycling?

Air pollution has been making the headlines recently, but this week's report from the government's own Public Health England (PHE) has linked long-term exposure to pollution to a shocking 25,000 deaths, in 2010.

With the health benefits of cycling in reducing obesity and the burden on the NHS already well covered, this is yet another reason for improving cycling conditions. So expect a few billion to be dedicated to cycle lanes, cycle traffic lights, etc, in the near future. Probably.

Location is one of the deciding factors in the likelihood of air pollution killing you. The report said: "Central estimates of the fraction of mortality attributable to long-term exposure to current levels of anthropogenic (human-made) particulate air pollution range from around 2.5 per cent in some local authorities in rural areas of Scotland and Northern Ireland and between 3 and 5 per cent in Wales, to over 8 per cent in some London boroughs." [Continue reading ...]

Blue Hens For Clean Air: Is this what YOU want at UD?

Learn all about the power plant slated for the University of Delaware STAR campus in this short video put together by a group of UD students and alumni. Residents, students and alumni are all questioning why the University administration is pushing this power plant.

 

On Earth Day 2009 the University of Delaware announced detailed plans to cut campus‐wide emissions by 20% by 2020. This action plan is among the most aggressive commitments by any University or College in the world. In announcing the University's Climate Action Plan, President Harker also set interim targets for carbon emissions, including reductions of 5 percent by 2012 and 10 percent by 2015, compared with the 2008 levels that were measured in a comprehensive carbon inventory of the campus. ~ UD's Climate Action Plan (not)

Poster's note: A promise broken in the name of lucrative profits and short term economic gain. It appears making money trumps all sense of environmental responsibility and stewardship. UD President Patrick Harker, Governor Jack Markell, and the City of Newark should all be ashamed of themselves. Sign the petition now, demanding an end to this backwards proposal.

Study: Evaluating of the health impact of the power plant
Video: Threat from global warming heightened in latest U.N. report (1:16)

Petition: Reject the Newark Natural Gas Power Plant

The Data Centers LLC wants to build a plant right next to one of the highest-density residential areas in Delaware. The manager and staff of the City of Newark have been working behind-the-scenes to bring the power plant to Newark for nearly a year before the public learned about the project. With more than adequate surplus on the grid, this is a terrible idea for the environment, our health, and quality of life for generations to come.

Greenhouse Gases:

• Carbon Dioxide (CO2): 899,692 tons/year (4th highest in New Castle County)
• Methane: 54 tons/year (11th highest in New Castle County)

Health Concerns:

• Nitrogen Oxides (NOx):  74 tons/year (7th highest in New Castle County)

Quantities not yet disclosed:

• Carbon Monoxide
• Sulfur Dioxides
• Particle Pollution
• Volatile Organic Compounds
• Sulfuric Acid Mist
• Hazardous Air Pollutants
• Ammonia

Sign this on-line petition today, demanding that University of Delaware President Patrick Harker withdraw this proposal.

Related: Gas Fired Power Plant Proposed For UD's STAR Campus

What kind of legacy will the University of Delaware leave?

This, according to the University of Delaware's official Climate Action webpage:

On Earth Day 2009, the University of Delaware announced detailed plans to cut campus‐wide emissions by 20% by 2020. This action plan is among the most aggressive commitments by any University or College in the world. In announcing the University's Climate Action Plan, President Harker also set interim targets for carbon emissions, including reductions of 5 percent by 2012 and 10 percent by 2015, compared with the 2008 levels that were measured in a comprehensive carbon inventory of the campus.

Not what we expect from a "green" university.

With such an "aggressive" commitment on the part of UD, the last thing one would expect for the new STAR Campus is a CO2 belching gas fired power plant, which will find itself among the State's Top 10 worst polluters. We would expect the announcement of plans for a sustainable energy source, like that of Freshkills Park, a former landfill on Staten Island. Freshkills will be home to New York’s largest solar power facility, doubling the city’s current renewable energy capacity. It will sit on 45 acres of green space, with the potential to generate up to 10MW of power, enough for approx  2,000 homes.

Freshkills Park, with its vast solar arrays, could power almost half the homes in Newark.

Solar arrays can even be built over parking lots, generating
megawatts of power while keeping the interiors cool.

A large enough solar farm, feeding the grid and supplemented by DelMarva Power, would put the University of Delaware in good standing with its neighbors, and its host, the City of Newark. Time will tell whether UD is more committed to short term profits, or the quality of our environment, health, and quality of life.

Visit No Newark Power Plant's Facebook page for all the latest events and details.

UD and our Governor need to do the right thing . . . for them.

View past blog posts on the proposed Power Plant HERE. Read the latest article in the WNJ.

Delaware's Bike (and Carcinogen) Friendly Governor

Gov. Jack pedals past Delaware's refineries during

the 2007 Tour of Delaware.

Cross-posted from The Delaware Way

Delaware Governor Jack Markell fielded a question about the power plant proposed for Newark on NPR's Radio Times on Friday. Says because they lived with Chrysler for 50 years, Newarkers deserve more pollution?

A friend writes: Someone has to challenge the Governor on his rhetoric that under his watch Delaware has dropped emissions more than any other state and point out that it was a market function and not any action on his administration's part (coal plants being shut down because of the poor economics of coal to NRG not because DNREC shut these facilities down)

No Newark Power Plant writes ~

Gov. Jack Markell was on Radio Times Friday, 2/7/14 and this is our response to him. Start listening at minute 28:11 to hear him tell Newarkers that because they lived with Chrysler for 50 years, they deserve more pollution.

With a comment ~

I am hugely disappointed in Jack. So far, he has been great for helping facilitate active and green transportation modes. But where gains are made here, TDC's power plant is a big step backwards.  ~ Frank Warnock

Read the complete story from our friends at Delaware Way.

On tour in 2004, just one of dozens of streams I encountered in West Virginia that is over run with toxic chemicals from fossil fuel extraction processes, in this case, mining of coal. We had hoped Governor Markell's legacy would be one of healthy living, including active and sustainable transportation, but now we're not so sure.

Newark Power Plant Demonstration Draws Record Numbers

From Delaware On-Line -- The group Newark Residents Against the Power Plant held a candlelight vigil outside the municipal building here at dusk Wednesday, urging the city to find the proposed data-center project fails to meet the terms of Newark’s zoning code.

Leaders of the group called on city officials to “make the right decision” and deny a request for zoning verification from The Data Centers LLC. The company wants to build a data-processing facility and 248-megawatt power plant on 43 acres of the former Chrysler assembly plant.

More than 200 lined up along South Main Street Wednesday. Most carried candles, while others held red signs showing their opposition against the proposed plant.

“We’re here to reach out to the city, the City Council and the staff to ask them to make the right decision,” said Jen Wallace, one of the organizers. While the group’s members have different issues with the power plant, Wallace said they were all united by their opposition to it. “There’s actually lots of varied concerns about this project.”  [Full article ...]

Poster's note: A hearty round of applause for these Newark Residents - many on bicycles - who answered this 11th hour call to action. Backwards thinking, profits, and greed should never trump environment and quality of life. Yet this is exactly what the University of Delaware is threatening to do by turning the STAR Campus into one of the State's top 10 worst polluters. Shame on Gov. Jack Markell, Senator Chris Coons, and other legislators who have come out supporting this project at a time when Delaware's air quality is already unsafe. Climate change is another factor that goes unmentioned. Visit the No Newark Power Plant website for further details, and consider becoming involved!

Gas Fired Power Plant Proposed For UD's STAR Campus

A proposed 279 MW gas fired power plant at the University of Delaware's STAR Campus in Newark would impact our health and the air we breath as bicyclists, and active Delawareans in general. Jamie Magee, a lifelong Newark resident and founding member of the Newark Bike Project, had this to say about the findings:

As someone who played outside daily in the 70s and 80s close enough to smell the Chrysler plant on some days, I feel a little insulted when supporters say the TDC project will be "better than Chrysler." Chrysler's problematic past is not one of the options right now. But to the extent that this comparison is made every week in editorials, I'm glad to finally see the following very factual rebuttal of that claim. Sadly, TDC's own projections of one of the worst pollutants, NOx, will in fact be HIGHER than that of Chrysler...

It has been found recently that vocal supporters of this project - most of whom it appears live outside of Newark - have been lying about source emissions as compared to the former Chrysler plant. Citizens and advocates are also dismayed given what we know about climate change, and the role fossil fueled power plants have in it. The University of Delaware tells us that STAR will be a center of innovation, including alternative energy and environmental sustainability "setting the stage for the campus as a vibrant healthy community by design". How a gas fired power plant with multiple smokestacks and visible fumes fits into this equation is not clear.

It's worth noting that Delaware City, adjacent to a refinery, is a noted cancer hot spot in the State. NOx, a pollutant with known negative human health effects, will be among the emissions from the power plant. The news has been kept very tightly under wraps by the City of Newark, the company proposing the power plant and the University of Delaware. City officials kept details of this proposed project private and have been in secret communications with Data Centers LLC, the West Chester, PA company behind the project, for over a year. View the timeline HERE.

Also gleaned from UD's STAR website:

An improved rail system will provide convenient, "green" transportation to the site for our clinical, academic, government, and business partners up and down the Eastern Seaboard in years to come.

As an earlier investigation showed, there appears to be no interest in bicycling as a form of "green transportation" on the campus. Plug-in cars are still largely dependent on fossil fuels as their ultimate source of power, and does nothing to address numerous socio-economic problems related to car dependency. Sadly, if you choose to ride your bike to work at Bloom Energy, or take it on the train to the Campus, there isn't even a bike rack to safely lock your bike. Maybe this will change in the future through the work of advocates, but it shouldn't have to be this way. Bicycle facilities, including bike lanes and pathways, should be on the drawing board well before actual construction.

Let's put a stop to STAR becoming industrial park instead of the Science, Technology, & Advanced Research center it was supposed to be. Let's help UD live up to its own mission of sustainability. Please Sign the petition today, and forward this link on to others!