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University Daily Kansan, August 21, 1980
Priority rating makes energy shortages unlikely
By JANE NEUFELD Staff Reporter
With mid-August heat and tropical jungle humidity, most KU students have their minds on air conditioning classrooms, where they heated classrooms and study rooms.
The arrival of winter and freezing classrooms could change students' feelings about the merits of hot days, but Richard Perkins, KU associate professor at the University should have no trouble heating its buildings this winter.
"We use all gas for heating," Perkins said. Fuel oil, which is about twice as
expenditure as natural gas, is used as a backup source in case gas supplies are required.
Perkins said fuel supplies would run low only if a prolonged cold period with temperatures below 20 degrees every day occurred.
The winter before the last was unusually cold, Perkins said, and KU had to rely on fuel oil during parts of December and February and all of January when Kansas Public Service Co. cut off gas supplies.
But Perkins said it was unlikely gas would be cut off again.
"We were in a different situation
then," he said. "We were priority six and then now we're priority two."
A priority rating indicates how quickly natural gas supplies will be cut off if a shortage occurs. Priority 1 is the most critical, and priority 2, which would be the last to be cut off.
A new storage facility for fuel oil is being built on the south part of the campus near 18th Street, but Perkins storage was not a significant problem.
"Our primary problem is just getting the oil," he said.
Perkins said the facility would be
finished "hopefully before cold weather gets here, but I don't know."
He also said that construction had been delayed by the hot weather this summer, and materials for building had not always arrived on time.
Perkins said KU used 555 million cubic feet of natural gas in fiscal 1980 and 423 million cubic feet of gas and 967,000 gallons of oil in fiscal 1979.
The price of natural gas went up from $1.42 to $1.88 per thousand cubic feet. The total cost of heating the University last year was about $1.1 million.
Perkins said fuel price increases might be responsible for up to 50 percent of the cost increases at KU, but he did not expect any alternative sources of energy to be used at the University in the near future.
"There's been some engineering investigation on a trash-burning plant, which burns trash and refuse." Perkins said it isn't really cost effective at this time.
Perkins said the price of natural gas would have to increase much more before an alternative source would be adopted.