Photos by PATIL ARMENIAN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff The
steam plant, located behind the UCPD offices, provides the campus
with its electricity, chilled water and steam.
By Lily Jamali
Daily Bruin Contributor
From the lights on the desks in the College Library to the video
arcade in Ackerman Union, the UCLA community depends on one source
for most of its energy.
Though students benefit from UCLA Energy Systems Facility, the
primary source of energy on campus, every day, many have no idea
where all this energy originates.
The most visible feature of the facility, a collection of tall
smoke stacks emitting a trail of steam, still remains a mystery to
many students.
“I’m not really sure what it is,” said Maureen
Villasenor, a fourth-year biology student. “I know
that’s the police department in front of that building but I
have no clue what’s in the back.”
“It makes the most annoying sound you’ve every heard
and the smoke gets progressively worse,” she added.
Located behind the university police department building on
Westwood Boulevard, the steam plant provides the campus with its
electricity, chilled water and steam.
Completed in January 1994, the plant replaced UCLA’s
previous energy system and transformed how the university creates
its energy.
 Since 1994, when it was completed, the UCLA steam plant
has been producing 80 percent of UCLA’s power needs. It runs on
natural gas. Before the new plant, UCLA derived most of its steam
from an old plant located in the basement of Royce Hall. This
plant, however, failed to meet changing standards for the South
Coast Air Quality Management District.
In addition to falling short of the standards, the old system
was fragmented, requiring separate heating and cooling devices to
operate in the different areas.
“When we built this facility, we replaced something like
32 cooling towers that were spread throughout campus,” said
David N. Johnson, Director of Energy Services and Utilities at
Facilities Management.
At that time, UCLA completely relied on the Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power for its electricity supply. The
current plant generates 80 percent of the university’s
electricity, tapping into the LADWP to provide the rest of its
needs, according to Johnson.
From an environmental standpoint, the plant is seen as an
improvement from the old system. It derives part of the fuel it
uses from natural gas and about 30 percent of its fuel from a
landfill that would otherwise go to waste.
“The plant runs on landfill gas piped from the landfill
area next to the Sepulveda Pass,” said Assistant Vice
Chancellor of facilities management Jack Powazek. “This is
gas that escapes from the landfill that would otherwise be blown
into the atmosphere.”
These natural and landfill gas fuel sources generate steam,
cooling and electricity for the UCLA campus through a process
called cogeneration.
Cogeneration begins when combustion burns fuel, producing heat
which transforms into steam. The end product can then be used to
drive chillers, which results in water cooling.
Once the steam enters a steam turbine generator, electricity can
also be generated.
Finally, the remaining steam goes towards direct consumption on
campus, heating rooms and water, as well as providing energy for
hospital sterilization and food services.
Despite its many improvements in providing the university with
power, the plant’s services come at a cost to the
environment.
“There are significant pollutants coming from those smoke
stacks,” said Alvin Milder, chairman of UCLA Watch, a
coalition of homeowner groups in the area. The group opposed the
1990 proposal to build the plant.
By-products of combustion, specifically carbon dioxide, nitrogen
oxides and water vapor, are compounds that are detrimental to the
environment, Johnson said.
“These are known greenhouse gases,” Johnson said.
“We try to burn as efficiently as possible, but we still emit
those things.”
Greenhouse gas emissions are an inevitable result of the
combustion required to keep providing the campus with its needed
services, according to Johnson.
“We have actually set a standard for the lowest emissions
for this kind of a facility,” he said. “We have brought
the benchmark down for such facilities by about 25
percent.”
Despite setting a new standard for achieving low emission rates
of environmentally hazardous substances, the plant has nonetheless
come under criticism from environmentalists and neighborhood groups
since its inception.
Although this wasn’t their main concern, some Westwood
homeowners worried about its aesthetically displeasing
appearance.
“Everybody was concerned about it when it first
happened,” Milder said. “Putting an ugly factory
building is not what you expect on a college campus.”
Some students, however, said they have no choice but to live
with the plant’s presence at UCLA.
“On one hand, they need to supply us with energy and on
the other hand, it’s polluting our air,” said Noosha
Raouf, a fourth-year political science student. “If there was
a substitute for the plant, then sure. Otherwise, I don’t
really know what I’d suggest.”