Students may pay a little more in future University energy fees to power the EMU with wind energy and to fund other sustainability projects if a ballot measure in this week’s ASUO primary election demonstrates to administrators that students favor those changes.
The maximum increase of $2 would raise about $40,000 to be used by a committee to fund energy conservation efforts, University Sustainability Coordinator Steve Mital said. He said about $10,000 of the increases would be needed to power the EMU with wind
energy provided by the Eugene Water and Electric Board.
Although a majority of votes for Ballot Measure 21 won’t directly authorize any increases, the ballot is intended to show administrators that “students support energy conservation and renewable energy on campus,” according to the ASUO’s 2005 Voter’s Guide. ASUO Student Senator Stephanie Erickson said the University would receive a “pretty good deal” from EWEB because it wouldn’t pay the regular wind energy premium.
EMU Board of Directors member Yoko Silk said the low cost for providing wind energy is a good tradeoff for cleaner energy.
“Two dollars, we figure, is a pretty fair price to pay,” she said. “It’s less than a latte.”
Silk added that wind energy will become cheaper as it becomes more prevalent.
Mital said powering campus buildings with wind energy would provide multiple benefits.
“You have a global climate change debate; you have an energy crisis debate; you have a war in Iraq and other political instability in the Middle East, all of which are issues that are connected, even though we don’t always connect the dots,” he said. “Students understand that, and there’s an opportunity to diversify our energy portfolio so we are less reliant on dirty sources such as coal, gas and oil.”
Turbines used to generate wind power can have an “adverse impact” on birds, according to the EWEB Web site.
Mital said many other colleges have already begun using wind energy.
“The U of O is seen as an environmental leader by students across the nation, and we need to live up to that challenge,” he said.
EWEB spokesman John Mitchell said most EWEB customers
who buy wind power do so for
ideological reasons.
“I think the customers sign up for EWEB wind power because they want to make a statement about how they use their energy and what impact that has on the environment,” he said.
Mitchell said customers pay a little more for wind power because some of the price is used to pay off EWEB’s $13 million investment in the Foote Creek Rim I power facility in southeastern Wyoming over the next 20 years.
“They’re contributing to something real,” he said.
Mital said University members investigated three energy providers, including EWEB. Although some of the packages offered by the other companies included geo-thermal and other renewable sources of energy, he said they were primarily interested in
wind energy.
“In the end, we went with EWEB because we have a long-standing relationship with them and what we really wanted was wind energy,” he said.
Mitchell emphasized that the price of wind power has declined in comparison to standard owner rates, which he said have risen four times since 1999 while wind prices have
remained constant.
“If you use enough power, … wind power might be cheaper over certain amounts of usage because of rate stability,” he said. “It’s more competitively priced these days.”
He said EWEB is investigating other “green tag” sources of energy; the board’s priority is to sell out its wind power capabilities.
Mitchell said most power generated in the Northwest comes from hydro-electric power, which has some “environmental issues” involving fish
habitat and populations.
“A large portion of the energy already used throughout the northwest is already renewable,” he said.
He said EWEB buys a small portion of its supply from the power market, which includes natural gas sources.
“The more wind power we use, the less of that natural gas power market generation we have to buy,” he said.
The measure is the latest incarnation of a study and outreach program conducted last year by the Environmental Studies Program. The project included studying the types of energy used by the University, how energy is used and how it can be conserved and diversified, Mital said.
“One of the recommendations that came out of the project was to power the EMU with 100 percent wind, so this is the follow-up,” he said.
Erickson said EMU Board members met with University Provost John Moseley last term, who said he would support raising the fee if students demonstrated interest.
Moseley could not be reached
for comment.
A telephone survey of 195 students conducted in April and May 2004 as part of the project showed that 94 percent of students interviewed supported wind energy, while 77 percent supported it even if it costs more. About 61 percent said they supported raising student fees to pay for it.
Mital acknowledged that voter turnout in primary elections is
historically low.
“In and of itself, it’s not an adequate measure of students’ support to just take it to the ballots, but it’s the best we have,” he said.

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