Would you invest $9 million in a business that "could" GROSS $270,000 annually?

U Morris on the road to energy self-sufficiency by 2010

The school hopes to soon meet much of its heating needs with the furnace, which will burn local corn residue, wood chips and possibly grasses to make heat. The $9 million facility, funded by state and federal agencies and agricultural trade groups, could reduce the campus' natural gas needs by 80 percent, saving $270,000 annually.

Together with the wind turbine, a second one in the works and a planned power-generating steam turbine, the Morris campus envisions reducing its carbon dioxide output from 12,000 tons in 2004 to 2,000 tons in 2010.

Because most of its energy will then originate in renewable sources and not fossil fuels, the campus will be "carbon neutral" or even "carbon negative," said Lowell Rasmussen, Morris' vice chancellor for finance and facilities. That's a green transformation few public or private organizations will have achieved.

As a commenter noted, what's the return after accounting for maintenance, labor, interest, insurance, etc? Is it vastly more environmentally sound to burn the cornstalks rather than plowing them under?