MORRIS, Minn. (AP) — The University of Minnesota-Morris has opened a biomass plant with plans for it to eventually heat the entire campus.

The $9 million biomass gasification plant burns wood chips, corn stalks and grain straw in order to produce fuel. This fall the facility is beginning to burn biomass to provide up to 80 percent of the campus’s heating needs.
By next spring the campus plans to have designed and installed a so-called “absorption chiller” intended to power the campus air conditioners.

Additional modifications are aimed at enabling the facility to generate electricity from the steam of both heating and cooling systems for use both on campus or for external sale.

Biomass sources do not produce greenhouse gases and emit fewer pollutants than traditional fuel sources such as coal, oil and wood.

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