natural gas
Wond’ry Commodore Cup Unleashes Student Innovation for Sustainable Campus Transformation
Dec. 4, 2023—This year, the Wond’ry, Vanderbilt’s Center for Innovation, launched their first ever Commodore Cup, a design thinking challenge that was funded through one of Vanderbilt’s Sesquicentennial Grants, which resulted in teams showcasing their ingenuity with proposed sustainability improvements for Vanderbilt’s campus. We were elated to embark on the journey of creating a groundbreaking program centered...
What’s On My Mind: Sustaining and scaling Vanderbilt’s environmental stewardship
Apr. 26, 2019—Earlier this week, Vanderbilt announced a long-term strategy that will shape our course, affect our daily lives and improve our collective future. We have pledged to power our campus entirely through renewable energy, and to be carbon neutral, by 2050. Better yet, we are committed to generating more renewable energy than we consume. Through the collaborative...
Redesigned sustainability report expands focus to include holistic environmental efforts
Mar. 15, 2018—Vanderbilt displays a new emissions baseline in a redesigned version of its annual sustainability report that outlines the university’s environmental impact in 2016. The university’s GHG emissions come from three evenly split sources. Natural gas for the on-campus power plant and individual buildings represents 31 percent; 33 percent is power purchased from Nashville Electric Service;...
Vanderbilt power plant exhaust stack demolition is complete
May. 22, 2015—Read the MyVU story here. The Vanderbilt power plant has a dramatic new look. Demolition of the brick exhaust stack, which once stretched more than 200 feet tall, is now complete. The plant’s conversion from using both coal and natural gas to exclusively natural gas has been underway since fall 2013 and included the...
Vanderbilt celebrates the end of coal
Apr. 13, 2015—Originally published by Vanderbilt News. See a video of the event here. University leaders, students, faculty and staff gathered in the shadow of the university power plant Thursday, April 9, to celebrate Vanderbilt’s conversion from coal to natural gas for its heating, cooling and electricity needs. “Our campus is a place of energy, excitement and...
Natural gas boilers installed at power plant
Jul. 16, 2014—[Originally posted by Vanderbilt News] (Steve Green/Vanderbilt) Two massive natural gas boilers were installed at the Vanderbilt Power Plant July 12 as part of the university’s ongoing effort to convert the co-generation facility completely to natural gas. The new boilers will provide steam to more than 5.8 million square feet of building space at the...
Vanderbilt Power Plant Conversion Highlighted in AASHE 2013 Higher Education Sustainability Review
May. 7, 2014—The Vanderbilt power plant’s natural gas conversion was highlighted as a high-impact energy initiative in the 2013 Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE)’s Higher Education Sustainability Review, released April 15, 2014. Vanderbilt was profiled by AASHE because of the announcement in spring 2013 that the University planned to convert the coal-fueled...
VU Power Plant to Convert to All-Natural Gas
Apr. 22, 2013—As of November 19, 2014, Vanderbilt is coal free! Vanderbilt University currently has an on-campus co-generation, natural gas-fueled power plant which produces 23% of our electricity and 100% of our steam, servicing 12 million square feet of building space. This steam is then used for 90% of campus heating, sterilization, and 40% of campus cooling....
Professor Hannah Wiseman to speak on natural gas fracturing
Mar. 26, 2013—On Wednesday, March 28 at 4pm Hannah Wiseman, assistant professor of law at Florida State University College of Law, will be speaking in the Covington Room at Vanderbilt Law School on “Natural Gas Fracturing, Federalism Debates and the Regulatory Divide” in a lecture sponsored by the Vanderbilt Law School Energy, Environment, and Land Use Program....