EWEB's use of gas turbine at UO sparks controversy over climate commitments

EUGENE, Ore. — A pilot project and partnership between the University of Oregon and Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB) is drawing backlash from climate activists.

A natural gas turbine that’s been on campus for nearly 15 years — being used minimally — could now operate more frequently, increasing the school’s fossil fuel usage.

EWEB says the goal is to strengthen the power grid’s reliability, which is facing a serious shortfall during peak demand in the winter.

KMTR -{ }EWEB’s gas turbine at University of Oregon sparks controversy over climate commitments

EWEB says rising demand and the shutdown of coal and other fossil fuels is straining the region’s power grid.

Initial findings from a 2025 regional energy study project a potential electricity shortfall across the Pacific Northwest roughly equivalent to Oregon’s entire energy consumption.

“Reliability is foundational to the clean energy movement,” says EWEB Chief Energy Resources Officer Brian Booth. “If we want people to choose to electrify their homes, to choose electric vehicles, we need to have a product that they can count on. If we let the lights go out in the Pacific Northwest, it could set the clean energy movement back by a decade. Our failure will be hung around our necks. We will be raised up as an example to the rest of the country of what happens when clean energy is relied on.”

The pilot is expected to increase gas consumption on campus by 65% during winter months.

The Sierra Club environmental organization says this directly contradicts years of university commitments laid out in its 2010 Climate Action Plan, which aimed to reduce fossil fuel usage.

Advocates also criticized the university and EWEB for a lack of public notice and engagement on the project.

“It’s really difficult to know if it’s necessary or not, because we’ve heard very little to anything about this project,” says Sierra Club’s acting deputy director, Dylan Plummer. “We need to be making directed, concerted investments in renewable energy now, and it’s so critical, because our community is already experiencing firsthand the effects of the climate crisis, from increasing drought to increasing wildfire severity, like the 2020 Holiday Farm fires.”

The pilot project gives EWEB authority to operate the turbine during January and February while performance data is collected.

In 2024, a university task force formally recommended electrifying the campus boiler system — a proposal the board of trustees has yet to act on.

In a statement, the university said, in part:

The University of Oregon’s combined heat and power turbine is one of the cleanest around.

We are responding to EWEB’s interest in increasing short-term local power generation because we can do so with fewer resulting emissions than other power generators they may turn to.