By Ashima Agnihotri and Alex Muzychko
Humber College on Wednesday unveiled a 20-year plan to dramatically reduce the school’s carbon footprint by switching the current steam heating system to a hot water one.
“The impact on future generations depends on the action and the choices that we make,” said Ann Marie Vaughan, the president of Humber College, who was part of the event at the school’s North campus.
The college’s switch will ultimately reduce its carbon emissions by 40 per cent, said Spencer Wood, the Director Of Facilities Management.
At Wednesday’s announcement, Humber committed to a NetZero goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and officials said switching heating systems will benefit efforts to fight climate change but the college itself.
“Ten years ago it became obvious that to reach our very aggressive goals of a 50 per cent reduction in energy we had to do something with the heating system,” said Wood.
The current system at the North campus heats steam to 150 C but the new system will heat water to only about 50-70 C.
During construction, 4.5 km long pipes will be installed that will connect all the buildings at the . The new system will heat the campus through one source rather than multiple boilers being used currently.
“We’re performing open-heart surgery on the campus,” said Wood. “We’re replacing the heart and the major arteries while we’re still operating.”
“That’s the backbone of the pipe network that allows us to really decarbonize. This allows us to get into heat recovery at lower temperatures,” he added.
By November of this year, main buildings like the Learning Resource Commons, Barrett Centre and Guelph Humber will be running on the new hot water loop and the rest of the college will be next.
The construction is estimated to be complete by winter 2024.
“We are going to have a 70 per cent reduction of natural gas, and reduce carbon emissions by 40 per cent.”
During the project launch event, Aman Hehar, the Energy and Climate Change Associate Director, wanted to touch on the importance of student involvement in this 20-year project.
“We are uniquely positioned to address this challenge in the way that we know best. It’s the impact that these students can make on the world that has real potential to make a dent on global emissions,” Hehar said.
“That’s why it’s so critical that we take advantage of the learning opportunity that’s available on this project.”
This project will have work integrated programs that students will be able to participate in. “We’ll have Co Op students hired by our design partner ecosystem,” said Hehar.
To close off the event, Vaughan stressed the importance of this project.
“Three weeks ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its sixth report, summarizing the risk of inaction and the rewards of action,” said Vaughan.
“The consequences of climate change have resulted in significant loss across various spheres of life and the planet.”