Sensing Power: A Walk to Wesleyan University’s Power Plant

I have passed through the empty lot on the corner of Williams Street and High Street many times this year, but not until now have I come to understand the significance of this place as an active site of energy production. The lot appears distinctly unremarkable compared to other places on campus. The ground is flat and the grass is dry. A single path cuts diagonally across, providing students with a slight shortcut to other surrounding buildings. This is what this space is to the vast majority of the student body: a shortcut. But upon further inspection, elements of this space allude to the fact that it is not merely a shortcut. Huge metal boxes surrounded by fencing are scattered around, and on the far edge, I see three tall smokestacks reaching far up into the sky. The smokestacks are turned off for now, but I have seen them on when I’ve taken this path in the past. On the right-hand corner of this lot is an unassuming square building. It looks like it would be a garden shed, but in reality, I know that this building grants access to a stairwell which leads to a bustling world under my feet: the hidden underground world of the Wesleyan power plant. 

At first glance, there are flurries of activity all around, except for in this lot. I hear empty bottles clinking and people chatting as the members of the neighboring frat house clean up after last night’s party, but not much else. But as I stand still in this space that everybody else speeds through, as I resist the urge to flow through this space and instead embrace the stillness around me, I listen to the vents and I can hear them humming. This whole lot is humming when one really listens, because under it lies one of the largest and most important spaces on our campus. The power plant underneath this lot I am exploring is hidden from our sight but provides us every day with utilities that we take for granted, such as electricity and heat. I continue to look and see two trucks parked near the entrance to the stairwell down to the power plant, and I come to understand that all-too-human processes are actively happening beneath my feet which are being seemingly translated into the collective hum of the lot. 

The lot on the corner of Washington and High exemplifies how this component of the production of our resources is hidden from our sight, both literally and figuratively. Even the mere scale of this stadium-sized underground space makes it shocking to think that it is not known by the vast majority of the students. Additionally, I’ve heard from friends that large scale developments to the power plant are mandated to only happen during the summer when students are not on campus to be disturbed. This further complicates things, as President Roth is under social pressures to reduce carbon emissions and become carbon neutral, but at the same time is restricting the timeframe for these changes to take place. Thus, the hidden nature of this “dirty” aspect of our lives is acting against our progress.  

In response to social pressures rising against the administration to reduce emissions, the power plant has implemented an eight-year plan to become carbon neutral. This sparked my interest because it speaks to the social aspects that influence scientific production. Specifically, for school administration, this eight-year plan exists as a socially based decision acting to soothe tensions, mediating student concern, and economic interests. For the power plant staff though, the eight-year plan is extremely if not exclusively scientific in nature, as they technically have to figure out how to implement these changes, while still providing us with our needed resources and only working during summer months. 

It is within these frames of understanding that there is an active site of production happening beneath my feet, that I reimagine this lot. I see the same dry barren grass within the contexts of understanding there are regulatory laws regarding what vegetation can be planted above a power plant. Thus, the previously mentioned distinctly unremarkable aesthetic of this place is and has always been, a visual hint alluding to the purposefully hidden development lurking underneath. The actions underground can become known by listening to the humming of the vent systems and feeling the slight vibrations that you can only feel if you touch your hand to the earth. 

I continue to stand in the middle of this space for a while, watching people cut across not aware of what is under their feet. I find myself wondering: how would we change our perception of this place if we were granted access to it? I notice on one of the vents, the only one that isn’t surrounded by a fence, there is a middle-finger tag of graffiti. Graffiti, of course, can be artistic and inspiring, but this quick tag seems to me more like a sign of disrespect. Disrespect to the power plant? To the world? I’m not able to tell. But I think about this tag, and wonder if the person who did it knows about the workers underground who supply them with heat and electricity. Knowing can inspire empathy and interest, an ethic of care, and hiding can inspire the opposite. 

By taking additional time to stop and ponder, I was able to fill out this space of absence and instead understand it as a rich site of activity merely hidden from sight. Upon further exploration of this site, one has the ability to map the activity from its underground production to its above-ground expression. They have the ability to feel how the energy from these all-too-human processes manifest within the earth as vibrations, and finally see it’s release from the smokestacks into the sky.  

Written by Ivy Lagerberg