Fertilizer

we should be hearing from the fertilizer guy by the end of this week (tomorrow). he'll have the numbers as far back as he can go, he'll also have the tonnage bought each year, the organic/synthetic ammounts, as well as the N-P-K ratios of it all. with that info i can figure just how much nitrogen has been dumped on the lawn in the last ten years. that should be cool, or maybe it'll be scary.

last week we got the most current version of the carbon calculator from ron chapman, it should be a big help with our project.

i just sent an e-mail to Diane Mack, she shold be able to finally provide us with accurate numbers for the building square footage. i'll post her reply, than maybe i'll finally bean active part of this blog.

everyone please remember the copy of the carbon calculator should be on the Bb site by the end of the night... as long as i can figure it out. please feel free to contact me if any one needs some help doing ANYthing.

Josh

Solutions

Southern Oregon University passed a bill to add $15 to every college bill so that they could offset their energy use.

This passed with 85% of the vote of their student body.
The offsets are for both their electric use and natural gas use.

In our survey we could ask the student body the amount of money they would be willing to pay for offsets.

This is the link to the website if anybody would like to take a closer look.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/students_vote_t.php

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?

P3 International Kill-a-Watt Electricity Usage Monitor

Here's the link for the Kill-a-Watt meter at Amazon.com. It seems pretty cool.

Comparison schools

I am looking into several of the schools (though not to overlap with Chong Wu and Donny) that have posted their tech report of the inventory results on the clean air cool planet website. Potential solutions can be discussed tomorrow in class.

Additionally, I will contact Ed Newman regarding what is involved in the residence challenge and recycle mania or who to contact about that.

Hasta manana~

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

GHG Seminar Launches

Hello from the Class!
We are stoked to get started.
This is a test post from Dr. Brown

--KJB