UNC is the biggest producer of greenhouse gases in Orange County. According to CARMA, a group that tracks this information internationally, the coal-fired power plant on campus produced 312,000 tons of CO2 last year.

While it is great that the plant is a cogeneration plant producing both heat and electricity, which makes the fuel use far more efficient than buying electricity from Duke Energy, it is still coal, and there are better alternatives.

A U.S. Department of Energy study shows that natural gas-fired plants produce 50 percent less CO2 than coal.This is not a perfect solution since it still produces significant CO2, but cutting the production in half is significant: 150,000 tons. It is a good interim step on the way to weaning itself from fossil fuels altogether.

In UNC's greenhouse gas mitigation proposal they suggest a future supplied by Duke Energy and moving to nuclear power to avoid CO2 production. Why is this better than coal? There is not yet a viable means of disposing of the far more toxic nuclear waste. Whose backyard are we going to build these nuclear power plants in? Surely not ours.

We can't even locate a rubbish transfer station here without years of contentious argument. Some poverty-stricken county will doubtless be the proposed home.

Duke Energy is a for-profit corporation beholden to shareholder profit. It has no mission of social responsibility and has proven time and time again that public health and social justice is not their responsibility unless it is regulated ... and they lobby hard to resist that.

UNC is a public institution supported by taxpayer dollars and should take a leadership role in moving to clean, healthy energy production immediately. Clean energy will be the largest international public health and social justice issue this nation has ever faced.

Wind is not a good alternative here, but solar electric cells work. I have lived with solar electricity and without an electric utility connection for the past 13 years, and in that time my power has been off no longer than yours.

It is commendable what UNC has been doing in reducing energy consumption in existing buildings, but there is only so far that can go. UNC should start today requiring every new building built be a net energy producing building.

The synergies and progress that would be derived from that are enormous. It would move North Carolina into the forefront of tomorrow's carbon-free economy. It would kick start producing thousands of quality North Carolina green jobs that could not be outsourced. It would also produce the most efficient buildings possible because you would be balancing the cost of energy production against the cost of energy conservation.

Remember, whatever they do, these buildings will be around for at least a hundred years. UNC could provide the research test bed for tomorrow's clean energy world. If UNC can be a national winner in basketball, why not clean energy?