LARAMIE - Wyoming leads the nation in coal production and the net export of energy.

At the same time, the University of Wyoming is struggling to pay utility bills that have grown by half in five years.

UW President Tom Buchanan this week unveiled his administration's proposed biennial budget request for the period beginning July 1, 2008. The request seeks $2.45 million more for utilities than what UW expects to spend for the current two-year period.

Some of the expected increases are due to new buildings coming on line on the UW campus. But most of the problem is attributable to the high prices of energy.

Forrest Selmer, UW's deputy director of utilities management, said the budget request anticipates a significant rate increase for electricity, which is by far the biggest component of UW's utilities budget. UW's largest supplier, Rocky Mountain Power, currently has a rate increase petition pending before the state Public Service Commission. If approved in full, it will raise UW's electric bill about $300,000 per year, he said.

Selmer said UW spent about $4.7 million on utilities in 2003 and about the same amount for several years before that. In the fiscal year that just ended, which included a cold winter, UW spent $6.5 million. The tab for the current fiscal year is expected to be just over $7 million, Selmer said.

UW had to ask the Legislature for additional utility funds for each of the past two years, partly because of rising costs of buying and transporting coal to the central heating plant located at the east end of campus. The plant, which burns coal to heat 80-some buildings on the campus, requires "stoker-grade coal" that is crushed to a maximum of 2 inches in diameter.

When the plant went on line in 1982, UW was able to truck in stoker coal from several coal suppliers in the Hanna area, only 77 miles away. When those mines stopped production, UW obtained coal from the Black Butte mine east of Rock Springs. But four years ago, that mine decided not to bid on the UW contract.

The coal from the big Powder River Basin coal mines, Selmer said, will not work for UW's plant because it is uncrushed "mine-mouth" coal that goes directly from the mine to rail cars. Any crushing happens at the destination power plants.

A lack of competition for stoker coal in the region has forced UW to pay a premium price for coal from a mine located near Decker, Mont., just north of Sheridan and 320 miles from Laramie. In January, for example, UW received 95 truckloads, each carrying 40 tons of Montana coal. Thus, UW has been susceptible to the price increases for diesel fuel used to transport that coal.

Selmer said UW may be able to work out some relief on the coal front going forward. The school received bids from two other coal companies during the current bidding cycle, one of them a new mine located near Elk Mountain.

Selmer said the Wyoming coal may reduce the heating costs because it has more heating capacity per unit and burns better in UW's three boilers. "The Montana coal is more of a lignite-type, and its ash will melt at a lower temperature, causing clinkering inside the boilers," he said. "We've had some severe maintenance issues with it."

Also in UW's budget proposal this week is a request for $4.7 million over the biennium to begin utility system improvements, including adding a coal crusher "so we can buy mine-mouth coal" and replacing the boiler feeder system "to facilitate burning that coal," Selmer said.

UW is always looking at the payback periods of various ideas for reducing utility costs, Selmer said. Higher electricity rates may make feasible the co-generation of electricity along with the hot water at the UW plant. UW has also looked at hooking directly up to the Western Area Power Association's main electrical grid, or developing its own natural gas pipeline.

Selmer said the indoor space needing heating and cooling on campus is expected to grow by 400,000 square feet, or 8 percent, within four years, placing increasing demands on the utility system. But he said most of the daytime heating for the newest building on campus, the huge indoor football and soccer practice facility, will be supplied by special solar wall panels located on the south side.

"The dark panels on the south wall will act as solar collectors during sunny days, heating air that enters at the ground level and is heated as it moves up the wall, and then is moved into the building," Selmer said. "And we will employ some loose temperature extremes in there, not using supplemental heat until it goes below 45 degrees."

There will be no cooling in that building. In the summer, the heated air will flow up and out through the clerestory on top, which also allows light to enter the building to reduce lighting costs, he said.

To build the football practice facility, UW removed the photovoltaic panels located on the site which produce 35 kilowatts of electricity that is wired into the campus electrical grid. Those will be replaced along the south side of the building, Selmer said.