This August,\u00a0Bellevue College’s President David Rule\u00a0along other higher education institutions voiced their concerns about consuming electricity produced from Puget Sound Energy\u2019s (PSE) Colstrip Generating Facility in Eastern Montana. Coal-power creates a substantial carbon footprint for Bellevue College. While the college has\u00a0invested in efficiency upgrades with the help of PSE conservation grants and our own small solar array, the continued burning of coal for PSE electricity increases BC’s carbon footprint to a great degree.<\/p>\n
PSE supports renewable energy sources, and has been a partner with community institutions working to reduce energy consumption.\u00a0 However their 20 year plan continues to include coal as a fuel source.\u00a0\u00a0Coal\u00a0is a costly fuel, threatening climate and\u00a0community health.\u00a0 As a State institution we face\u00a0regulatory requirements to lower carbon emissions and President Obama recently announced there will be new rules on burning coal for power.<\/p>\n
Bellevue College\u2019s president, Dr. David Rule, was encouraged to speak out against coal when students voiced their concerns over the fuel-source in spring of 2013. Over 500 Bellevue College students, faculty,\u00a0and staff\u00a0signed a petition stating that they do not want coal-fired power on campus. This action on behalf of students was brought before the Associated Student Government (ASG) at Bellevue College, who also wrote to President Rule. They encouraged the College to voice concerns over PSE’s 20 year plan to continue burning coal. In doing so they may green not only\u00a0our fuel supply but the larger community as well.<\/p>\n
The opportunity to state concerns over coal arose through making formal comments on Puget Sound Energy\u2019s Draft Integrated Resource Plan (IRP). The IRP is a planning document that Puget Sound Energy uses to explain how the utility estimates demand, pricing, and generation of its power. PSE must submit its Draft IRP to the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission \u2013 the regulating body for utilities. As a public organization, this the Commission must hold utilities accountable to public interests. The public has an opportunity to comment on such documents and plans. Accordingly, Bellevue College\u2019s comments on the Draft IRP were submitted to the UTC.<\/p>\n
President Rule did not stand alone in his leadership against coal-fired power. His commitment inspired two other community and technical college presidents to voice their concerns. Presidents at Cascadia Community College and Lake Washington Institute of Technology signed a letter that comments on PSE\u2019s Draft IRP. This coalition of college leadership demonstrates that coal power is not in the best interest of community and technical colleges in Washington.<\/p>\n
President Rule\u2019s comments on PSE\u2019s Draft IRP can be viewed on the Utilities and Transportation Commission\u2019s website. Click on Puget Sound Energy. Then on Documents. You will be directed to a list of comments, and Dr. Rule\u2019s joint letter with Cascadia and Lake Washington Presidents can be found there, as well as the comments of many other customers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This August,\u00a0Bellevue College's President David Rule\u00a0along other higher education institutions voiced their concerns about consuming electricity produced from Puget Sound Energy\u2019s (PSE) Colstrip Generating Facility in Eastern Montana. Coal-power creates a substantial carbon footprint for Bellevue College. While the college has\u00a0invested in efficiency upgrades with the help of PSE conservation grants and our own small ...more about College Presidents Voice Concern on PSE Plan’s GHG Impacts<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9,313],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6310"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10395,"href":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6310\/revisions\/10395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bellevuecollege.edu\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}