SUPERIOR - Thousands of students and staff at the University of Wisconsin-Superior frequent buildings, live in dorms, and use hot water every day. Many spend years at the campus never thinking about where that heat is coming from.

A lot of people consider the Halbert Heating Plant the heart of UWS. It's the internal engine of the entire campus. “I would not be hesitant to say that we're probably the most important people on campus in the winter time,” said power plant operator Thomas Wiberg.

The Halbert Power Plant in Superior has been providing heat and hot water for U.W.S for the past 40 years. The plant burns mostly natural gas. Coal is burned during the coldest months of the winter.

“The furnace is called a Detroit vibro–grade stoker. It's set at an angle. The weight of the coal up in the shoot when it shakes, feeds into the furnace. The fires in the furnace, the boilers have got tubes that are filled with water. The heat process, the heat energy, the furnace is absorbed through the tubes into the water and makes steam. And then the steam goes out the system and fed into all the buildings,” said Wiberg.

To ensure smooth operation the Halbert plant must be manned by at least one person 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. “That's what our job is, to run it efficiently. Keep it in peak conditions, so that we get the best efficiencies you can get out of these units. You keep all the parts up to date and renewed so you can control the fires and you keep everything clean so you have good heat exchange,” said plant superintendent Oscar Smith.

It takes 96 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 2,000 tons of coal to heat all of the buildings on campus. “This is Superior Wisconsin. And it's 20, 30, 40 below in the winter. We heat all these buildings, vocational and every building on campus and when it's twenty below outside you cannot have the fires go out,” said Smith.

Regardless of whether or not students and staff at U.W.S realize where their heat is coming from, the university could not function without the Halbert heating plant and the hard work of all of the plant workers. “We all have a little bit of pride in the fact that we've never failed to do our job. That we've always kept online, we've always kept steam going out,” said Wiberg.

The heating plant and its pipes also create a unique sight all winter. The snow melts above the pipelines, creating strips of green across campus. The plant’s towering 225 chimney can be seen from across the twin ports.