Oberlin is apparently charging towards the “green economy.” Would you expect anything less from them?
The Chronicle-Telegram reports:
Oberlin College issues $80 million in climate bondsInvestors bought $80 million in bonds last week to finance Oberlin College’s four-year geothermal energy conversion project.Following Stanford University, the Lorain County-based college is now the second higher education institution in the United States and third in the world to make use of Certified Climate Bonds for campus construction projects.The green financing avenue can only be used for projects that align with the Paris Climate Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to lass than 2 degrees Celsius compared to temperatures before the age of industrialization.When put up for sale, the climate bonds attracted bids totaling nearly three times the amount of the offering, according to Oberlin College.The $80 million sale of bonds will allow the college to fully fund the first phases of its $140 million infrastructure overhaul, which entails digging about 1,100 geothermal wells and laying more than 9 miles of pipe.The wells will draw water from deep underground, where it rests at a constant temperature, and pump it to Oberlin’s 80 buildings to be used for heating and cooling.The project replaces the college’s current heat source, which is natural gas. It supplants the old steam system used on campus, which in recent years has experienced increasing leaks, and moves Oberlin College closer to its goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2025.Certification by the Climate Bonds Initiative will allow the college to realize “significant savings in borrowing costs, compared to both traditional financing and other green bonds on the market,” it said in a statement.
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