Reposting Results from Fall's GHG Inventory Seminar

Greetings, GHG-Inventory-Minded Students-

Here at the start of Winter 2008 quarter - I'd like to repost the Wiki webpage where the data from the Fall ES692 Seminar Course "OU's Greenhouse Gas Inventory" are archived:

http://ohioghgseminar.pbwiki.com/

At this site you will find the results of teams of students in the following categories:

OUBuildings_OU_GHGInventory

Transportation_OU_GHGInventory

SolidWaste_OU_GHGInventory

Fertilizer_OU_GHGInventory

Population Data_ohioghgseminar

Solutions_OU_GHGInventory

-- Dr. Kim Brown

Info from other schools...

http://green.msn.com/galleries/photos/photos.aspx?gid=134&GT1=10628

Thoughts for the Future

While brainstorming with Sarah and Matt A. about what we are doing and what the next steps should be of our efforts, I thought of an idea. If the University wants to take this commitment seriously and continue to inventory our green house gas emissions (which it should) then standards need to be in place in the departments where we are gathering the data. The GHG Inventory needs to be one of "T's" crossed and "I's" dotted for each department. So that when whoever is put in charge of that years inventory, the information will be there. I think that this would be key in maintaining our efforts for the future.

comming together

i met with gabe last friday and she was able to give me some information concerning the actuall area of each of the fields. i have finally heard a reply from david hamill, but i still have to wait for his answere. this is so frustrating, i just want to know how much fertilizer we have used. is that such a big deal?

anyway...i should have all of it together soon, im excited. ill se everybody tomorrow in class.
josh

presentations

i just heard from kimthe prez and the provost will be attending our presentations. cool. hopefully we can get some local media reps and some student based organizations to attend too!

Population Data

I have accumulated all the data on full-time, part-time and summer school students thanks to Serena McCollum in Institutional Research and all the data on the faculty and staff thanks to Liz Bennett in Institutional Research. Student data for the years 1990 thru 1998 was available from notebooks stored in the Institutional Research office and data for the years 1998 thru 2007 from the Institutional Research website (Student Data tab//Student Enrollment/Degree Reports//Quarterly Enrollment Stats). I used the ATHENS(00) sections of the report as this is the main campus. Other data in the Athens reports include Continuing Education (10), Proctorville (33), Pickerington (34) and Hong Kong (99) . Serena assured me that Proctorville , Pickerington and Hong Kong students were on those campuses and not in Athens. My only concern was Continuing Education (10) - were those students physically on the Athens campus? Serena didn't believe that they were on campus and directed me to the Lifetime Learning group in Haning Hall. I spoke first with Karen Pidcock of Independent & Distance Learning. She explained that distance learning had been available in some form for the last 80 years. She was sure that anyone who took the Distance Learning was already counted in the (00) data. She directed me to Pam Brown, Director of Summer Sessions. Pam was sure that students in the (10) category were not physically on the campus. She believed that the numbers in the (00) category covered all the students on Athens campus. To check the theory would require that she go through all the call numbers and compare them with class rosters - a lot of work on her part that probably wouldn't result in different numbers. So, I deferred to the people with the experience and used (00) data.

As soon as the excel file is available on Blackboard, I will copy and paste the data.

share with my teammates

One of my classes required me to go to the survey center and call people across Ohio tonight, so I missed the meeting with my teammates. As we discussed last Thursday, I contributed my thoughts in a written form. But probably I sent out to them too late today. Anyway here is an outline about my suggestions:

After a rough examination over current energy policies of Ohio University, carbon neutrality report of Middleburry College and renewable resource development plan of Ohio State, I would suggest we take the following steps to build our solution package for Ohio University.
1. Settle down the major areas that require immediate solutions to reduce the carbon emissions
My suggestions:
1) Electricity use for lighting, heating and machine running in each building, including student dorms
2) Transportation, including campus fleet and private cars
3) Fertilizer use
4) Personal consumption habits
5) Education
6) Offset activities
2. Map out possible solutions for each area
My suggestions:
1) Electricity:
A) Lighting: change all lighting bulbs into LEDs or compact fluorescent bulbs
B) Heating:
According to Middleburry College, the possible ways to reduce the power use for heating are updating windows facing the south to energy-saving windows in each building, adopting biomass as the energy source and resorting to solar energy as an alternative. These solutions are all applicable, but at considerable expenses. Placing meters in each building and student dorms to help control power use will be a more down-to-earth step currently and can be used as the first step. Cost evaluation must be conducted first before replacing windows and switching to biomass or solar energy.
It is also advisable to suggest the school maintain indoor temperature during winter time to around 26 C (about 78.8 F), the recognized temperature that saves energy and keeps people warm.
C) Machine running:
Computers, projectors and printers are among the most frequently used machines in the campus, not to mention those big machines to mowing the grassland and maintenance the golf course.
The first solution would be to diversify the power source of the campus, such as developing biomass and solar energy, to reduce the carbon emissions as well as to save the costs in the long run.
The second solution would be to educate machine users including the maintenance staff and students to keep the machines running in a low consumption manner. Good habits should be developed to reach the goal, including shutting down the computers if they are not supposed to be used in a considerably long time and avoiding leaving the machines running while not really working.

2) Transportation:
A) Campus fleet:
Adoption of biofuel or natural gas instead of diesel or oil is the first solution to reduce carbon emissions of cars and buses. Compared to private cars, campus buses are actually much better a way of transportation for students and faculties and therefore should be encouraged to develop, in my personal opinion.
B) Private cars:
Athens does not have an advanced transportation system that people can rely on to reduce their activities on cars. However, it is also because the place is small and most of the areas are within the walking distance. Therefore, encouraging less driving is the foremost solution. And like campus fleet, resorting to alternative fuels is also a good way of reducing carbon emissions.

3) Fertilizer use
So far I have little idea about how fertilizers are used in Ohio University. The possible solution I can think of is to reduce the usage as much as possible, and to purchase environmentally-friendly solutions instead of chemical ones as much as possible. But it is an area that requires further examination.

4) Personal consumption habits
This would be a big part of solution package that we can immediately start doing. It is an area that actually has many overlaps with above areas.
The habits that usually lead to high consumption of energy include: leaving computers, lights or air conditioning machines on while they are not in use; driving most of the time even within short distances; wasting papers in printing; keeping water running while it is not in use; never recycling wastes.
The solution to this can be combined with the following area – education. Notices can be posted in classrooms, libraries and labs to remind everyone save energy. Campaigns can be held to encourage people to drive less. For example, take the advantage of a soccer match to reward people who don’t drive to watch with T-shirts or extra tickets. Different clubs and associations in Ohio University can be included into a campus campaign that encourages them to integrate the notion of “low energy consumption” into their respective activities.
This is an area that we can do a lot of about.

5) Education
It will be advisable to persuade the school to set up an introductory course for freshmen and new staff of Ohio University about climate change effects and consumption behaviors. It can be a course that other levels of students or faculties can also take to earn some extra credits, but should be a compulsory course for freshmen.
I believe once this course is set up, it can have a more extensive effect than any other campaigns or activities we hold occasionally.
It is also advisable to cooperate with some non-profit organizations in this area. They can give lectures or hold activities in the campus to promote the notion of climate friendliness.

6) Offset activities:
Anyway OU will emit carbon dioxide. So, offset activities cannot be disposed. Tree planting is a common way of offsetting carbon emissions. Buying wind power or solar power can be another way. But it depends on the school budget and how we can first save the energy use for the school.
3．Evaluate costs and benefits on each area by using valid data.

Recycling & Waste Data

Ed Newman's folder contents were easily deciphered, and I have the recycling heavy-hitter data (cardboard, plastics, papers, cans, etc.) solid for most of the past 10 years. I'll be returning his files tomorrow. [Edit 10/15/07: Files returned.] What's missing is landfill totals for half of those years, and the special item recycling, like fluorescent bulbs, tires, computers, mattresses, and Re-Use donations. I have a list of names to call to fill in that data, starting at the landfill and filling in the rest as time permits. Hopefully when I'm done I can hand Ed back a complete & working spreadsheet.

Recycling and trash data is recorded as campus-wide totals, so I won't be adding this to the per-building analyses. I suppose we could get really creative and estimate building-level data from the recycling and trash pick-up schedule frequencies, but with that much estimation it wouldn't be "low-hanging fruit".

Full-time and part-time students

I spent the morning at the Institutional Research office going through enrollment data from 1990 - 1995. Data from 1995 - current is available from their website (I received instruction from Serena McCollum on how to retrieve the information that I need). One task completed, a thousand more to go. : )

GIS files

Yesterday Matt sent me the GIS files he got from Dave Simon. Thanks, Matt!

Looking through the files, they are spiffy. We got athletic field outlines (including the mini-golf yard at the ridges), the golf course, parking lots, some campus roads, water, and of course buildings. The buildings file especially has ALL campus buildings, including the ones in Albany at the OU airport. I'll have to double check to see if that includes buildings we lease. Attached data includes fun things like when the building was built and whether or not it is occupied (OU has 10 derelict buildings on campus). Together with Athens county material like roads and towns, we're well set.

I'm not sure how to put this stuff somewhere the class can reach. Do only the GIS team need to access the data? Ideas?

GIS files and Waste Leads

No reply yet from Dave Simon, so I sent him a reminder nudge today and offered to pick up in person any files too large to email.

I've decided to tackle campus waste, focusing on recycling-to-trash ratios and sewage treatment. Ed Newman of Campus Recycling said he'll send me records on recycling and solid waste sometime this week, and gave me leads on who to contact for sewage data:

OU Utilities Director Mick Harris at harris@ohio.edu
City of Athens Utility Director Nick Carr
Larry Lambert over the City of Athens Sewer Department

That's all for now. =)

What they are doing can be what we will do

Nicole, Donny and I decided to devote ourselves this week to examining other schools' solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in their campuses.

Here are two examples I found so far (I posted here so that we would not repeat each other's work)

1. Incorporate energy efficiency measures into design and operation of campus buildings

This is what many schools are adopting to help with alleviation of greenhouse gas emissions, such as the University of New Hampshire. UNH implemented several measures in its residence hall, including using energy-smart lighting system, revamping building control systems and energy education for maintenance and operations staff as well as the broader university community. According to UNH, through a series of retrofits and educational programs, it is estimated that the university saves $4 million annually in energy compared to national average.

The University of Vermont has a more detailed description about its carbon neutralization projects related to buildings management:
*The temperature and ventilation on most major buildings are controlled through time and scheduling programs with specified settings.
*All major buildings on campushave had lighting upgrades to T-8 or compact fluorescent light bulbs - incandescent lights are no longerinstalled on campus.
*Campus vending machines received an recent energy retrofit in 2003; eighty Vending Misers™ power down their lighting and cooling systems after 15 minutes of inactivity, preventing an estimated 176,000 pounds of CO2 emissions per year.
*In August of 2003 UVM replaced all laundry washing machines on campus with Maytag Neptune high-efficiency washers that each save up to $150 per year.
*The emergency exit signs in every campus building were replaced with LED bulbs during the 2003-2004 school year.

Campus buildings, including dorms, and the facilities inside should be considered as the core to the whole GHG reduction solution pack, because most of the energey consumption in school comes from these objects. It is also complex to develop detailed solutions for each building. But the main idea is clear: to have each equipment and each person who uses the equipment become energy efficient. Change the lightbulbs to LED bulbs, change the habit of keeping computers running all nights, remove unnecessary energy-consuming facilities...are all that can help carbon reduction.

2. Energy education for faculties, staff and students

The University of Vermont has a peer-to-peer education program with which students work in dorms to educate each other about reducing electricity use.
The UVM has also implemented the "Sleep is Good" campaign for computers, and placed mouse pads in all of the computer labs with info on the program. This is to encourage students to shut down their computers while they don't use them.
Similar projects also include a display using bikes to power appliances; lightbulb exchanges; and events.
The energy education looks particularly attractive to me. It will be a good idea, too, to have OU consider adding similar courses and holding similar campaigns for students, staff and faculties. Particularly, it is important to educate students who live on campus to save electricity in their dorms. Athens is a small town, so it will also be significant to encourage students to reduce their use of cars for transportation.

GIS files

I got a promising email today:
------------------------------------------------------------
Gabe,

We have a lot of the GIS layers for the campus. Let me know what you need and in which format and I can send it to you. You can call to discuss as well.

Dave

Dave Simon
Data and GIS Specialist
Voinovich School for Leadership and Public Affairs at Ohio University
The Ridges, Building 22
Athens, Ohio 45701
Mailto: simon@ohio.edu
740-597-2506
------------------------------------------------------------

I emailed back this evening:
------------------------------------------------------------
Dave,

That's wonderful! We were hoping for shapefiles of the following: buildings, grassy areas, parking lots, athletic fields, golf course, streams & ponds, campus grounds boundary, and roads. We need files that include the outlying areas like HDL and West State Street. Polygon format is more helpful than line or point. That should keep us busy a good long while, but I'd love to chat with you or look at a list to see what else is available.

Thank you so much!!
~Gabe

Useful URL for class

Hello -
Don't forget that the URL = http://www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org/
is a great place to start on your class project.

--KJB

Square footage assessment

Ron and I met today and went over all of the discrepancies between the information provided by Ron and the information provided by the Office of Institutional Research. We believe that some of the discrepancies may be accounted for by transcription errors, and others are because the Office of Institutional research did not seem to update their informaiton after buildings were renovated. However, we were not able to come up with an explanation for the differences in the data for the Ridges. Ron will converse with Diane Mack (?) and try to clear up why the information does not match.

Good Luck, team!

GHG Meeting Today

Hey guys, Laura and I have to work today and we won't be able to make the meeting. Amanda's updates: I have just started gathering student enrollment data from the Office of Institutional Research. I have also sent an email to Jennifer asking how we should incorporate data from OU's airport and flight program. I have also made contacts with the main people at the airport whom I'll be getting the information. Laura still needs to talk to Ron about discrepencies in square footage and plans on talking to Ron sometime on Thursday (tomorrow). Hope everyone else is doing well.

Amanda and Laura

Square Footage Problems

I have finished comparing the data for square footage, and I have found many errors. Several discrepancies are only a few square feet off, most are 1,000-9,000 square feet, and some are tens of thousands of feet off. I must meet with Ron next week when he comes back from vacation because it seems like some of the numbers may just be old numbers that were not updated either by Facilities or the Office of Institutional Research. I found roughly 40 errors. One difficulty in checking the information was in the lack of consistency of the names of buildings. On one set of information, for example, the name of the building that I work in is called "Facilities Shops 2", on another set of information it is called "Facilities Shops 2 - Old Storeroom" and on another it is called "Factory St, Stores." There are many examples of this type of inconsistency.

Square Footage Assigned

I (Laura) was assigned the project of checking all of the square footage figures for inputting into the CACP v.4 calculator on July 18th. The assignment was to check the information in use by Facilities for all of the General buildings, Dorm buildings, the Ridges, and Auxillary buildings against the information provided by the Office of Institutional Research.

Notes: Meeting, July 18 '07

Meeting Notes

July 18, 2007

In attendance:
Sonia Marcus
Ron Chapman
Jarrod Pollard
Laura Allen
Amanda Annis
Kim Brown

• Jarrod's update: hasn't been working in the office this past week. Had issues posting to the blog because he couldn't remember his user name.
• On the budget issues, Ron talked to Julie about archival data. She said OU posts financial statements on the web. They're on there now, but the links aren't active. Sonia said she thinks that's due to the fact that they've just overhauled their site. Someone should let them know that the links aren't active.
• Julie said that April Henderson is the person to contact directly for archival budget info.
• Question: Is same info available for branch campuses? Not clear yet. Ron will floow up with Julie.
• Kim says that individual colleges have hard copy reports of budgets filed at Alden. April has these too in her office, acc to Ron.
• Laura's update: didn't get a task from Ron this past week, but is planning to work on the square footage data once Ron shows it to her. Note that square footage data will need to be compared back to figures from institutional research. Ron has those figures.
• Kim's update: Fred Kight would like her to come to WOUB News Watch to talk about the EEC's role in the President's Climate Commitment. She will discuss what this group has been up to so far.
• Kim also met with the CEO of the Chicago Climate Exchange last week because they are looking for a forestry person. She said that a number of colleges and universities including Michigan State have joined the CCX, and that we might want to consider that. Sonia and Ron shared some info about past discussions that have taken place at OU regarding that. One benefit of joining that Kim pointed out was the possibility of selling offset credits at the CCX if we are able to reduce our own GHG emissions past the 6% (per year) required. Could be an additional incentive to do forestry projects, for example. However, we could not then count those as our own offsets if we were to sell them off. Can't do both.
• The Russ College has appointed Kevin Crist as the representative of the college to the PCC sub-committee of the EEC. Kevin has expressed interest over the years in having OU join the CCX.
• Amy wasn't present, but Ron updated us on some of her findings and progress (posted on the blog! Go Amy!): All the data we use for the spreadsheet should be in fiscal years, acc to CA-CP. That makes it easier for us. Also, they were able to clarify what they mean by "efficiency". In house use of steam is included. Again, that makes things easier.
• Ron pointed out that industry efficiency standards are 80% for overall steam efficiency and 35% for produced electricity.
• Sonia's update: Sorry about not posting last week's meeting notes yet. Will be more prompt in the future. Sonia is meeting with Bruce Nottke and Marty Paulins, the new hires in the Transportation & Parking department on Monday to discuss sustainability issues. Amanda will be there too to talk to them about our data needs for the GHG emissions inventory.
• Amanda would like to investigate GHG data as concerns the airport and air travel. Amanda and Ron will meet in the next few days to discuss those data needs. Then Amanda will get in touch with the appropriate contact person there.
• Ron pointed out that getting independent travel info that will be useful to our inventory is going to be VERY DIFFICULT. We instituted use of the Oracle system 2 years ago, so that data is searchable, but everything before that is in hard copy. Also, Oracle just gives you dollar values for travel, and nothing like miles traveled or destination. That might be added to the form in the future but we still won't know for all past travel.
• Kim suggested that it might be interesting to do a regression analysis to figure out whether there would be a reliable conversion factor for dollars to GHG emissions. Perhaps that could be a project in the fall seminar.
• VP Bill Decatur recently required all departments under his command to submit travel plans for the upcoming year in advance. That has specific destination info in it. Maybe the other VP's have made similar moves? Worth asking.
• We should also ask the CA-CP people whether other schools have tried to determine a conversion factor for $$ to GHG emissions for travel.
• Sonia let the group know that there was a possible summit of IUC schools in the works for October here at OU to discuss implementation of house bill 251. More on that soon. Also, Sonia will be meeting with the sustainability coordinators at Oberlin and OSU (and possibly Miami) on July 30th to touch base.
• Kim suggested that we include University of Cincinnati and figure out what they're up to and how they are approaching the PCC there.

END

Notes: Meeting, July 11 '07

Again, I apologize for being tardy in getting these posted!

Meeting Notes
July 11, 2007

In attendance:
Sonia Marcus
Amy Nordrum
Ron Chapman
Jarrod Pollard

• No one seems to be using the blog! This is a problem. Everyone who is working on collecting or processing data in any way should be postings updates on their progress (or lack thereof, as the case may be) at least twice a week. We have to keep in mind that we are creating a resource for people outside our group and outside our university to understand what we are up to. It is also essential to our communication within the group. So post twice a week, fer cryin' out loud!
• Amy's updates and questions, as well as comments from Ron --

- Natural gas varies in its BTU potential during the year. In the summer, you can get more MMBTU per MCF than in the winter. That has to do with the rate of withdrawal of the gas from the ground.

- Volumes do not need to be modified. But if we post in MMBTU's, that's going to depend on the year and the time of year.

- We had MCF's and MMBTU's in the version 4.0 of the spreadsheet which was one reason for the discrepancies. The newer version asks for natural gas in MMBTU's.

- Industry assumption is the following: 1 MCF = 1 million BTU's = 1 MMBTU

- Currently we are actually getting 1.0986 MMBTU per 1 MCF. So they're not exactly the same.

- Is the data reported in fiscal years or calendar years? Or according to the academic calendar?? Amy should ask the CA-CP person about this. All data from Ron is fiscal year-based.

- On coal (used to generate heat at Lausche): OEPA, USEPA and DOE require calendar year documentation on % ash, BTU per lb., % sulfur, SO2.

- Coal data entered into the 4.0 spreadsheet looks good.

- Ron commenced reporting mid-year in fiscal year 2000. Before that it was someone else (Bruce).

- Amy needs conversion factors for natural gas and steam (lbs to MMBTU's). She will use historical average of conversion factors for nat gas data from pre-1999.

- Bruce's data is stored in hard copy somewhere at the Ridges but we're not exactly sure where.

- Amy was pulling steam values off of actual production documents, not summaries. No data pre-1999.

- Ron has solid numbers back to January 1998 (mid fiscal year 1998).

- We have to make sure we are being consistent with fiscal vs. calendar year data!

- Converting steam to MMBTU's:

1 lb of saturated steam has a latent heat value of 1000 BTU

1000 lbs (1 kilopound) --> 1 million BTU = 1 MMBTU

- Amy could not find effiency values for steam production. Ron does a separate report with total MMBTU of gas and coal. In that doc, you get average overall blended efficiency of gas and coal. So that doesn't do the trick.

- 82% was an estimate of efficiency suggested by Clyde Pierce, chief operator at the Lausche heating plant. We need to analyze this further. Ron will go back and look at monthly reports to determine heat input to derived heat output value. Is that what CA-CP means by "efficiency"?

- Prior to 1999, there is no split between Lauscho gas and the rest of the gas used on campus. Problematic! Two old notebooks have been located which may contain more detailed info. Ron will look through them.

- No data for nat gas for all stationery sources on campus after 1999. Amy couldn't find it in the charts. That will be total gas minus Lauscho gas. Ron will check.

- About 11% of heat is produced using nat gas, 89% using coal.

• Jarrod's updates, comments, questions:

- Looking up info on operating budget, 06-07. Checked all info from prior years and it looks ok.

- The 06-07 budget numbers will change to some extent until final close. Need 5 more days or so.

- Also trying to find energy budget and research budget. Will go through institutional research for this.

- Ron says Diane Mack might be of help at institutional research.

- Jarrod is also interested in agriculture & transportation issues.

- Bruce Nottke is the new Transportation Director. He has been alerted that we are going to be investigating records of miles, overall fuel use by type, fleet efficiency, overall # of vehicles, etc.

• Sonia pointed out that the date was wrong for Gov Strickland's signing of the Executive Order on the document comparing the PCC vs. house bill 251 vs. the E.O. Ron let us know that the Governor actually signed it on January 4th, 2007. He will correct that file and re-send. Certain provisions were made effective immediately, others in April.

END