The last report by this weblog of a Green Power purchase in New York was a two-year contract by the City of Rochester to purchase eight megawatts of peak load electricity from Constellation New Energy, 15% of which would be renewable energy, i.e., electricity supplied by wind, small hydroelectric, landfill gas, and biomass.
Green Power Network routinely reports upon such large institutional purchases. One such report was on the Greening of the Ivy League.
Well, the Ivy League is getting greener. Don’t take my word for it. Ask MTV San Diego Treehugger Kristin Underwood. She reports that Cornell University, a member and original signatory of the Talloires Declaration, a.k.a., American College and University President’s Climate Commitment, has a Climate Action Plan.
Disclosure of Special Interest: The editor of this weblog resides in the Southern Tier of Upstate New York not that far, in terms of kilo-tons of GHG, from the main campus in Ithaca, New York.
“Cornell U. expects to meet their emissions goal of 7% below 1990 levels by 2010, two years ahead of schedule.
Cornell University wants its students to all get zeros! Zeros in total emissions, that is. The university recently hired consultants to help develop a strategy to eliminate 320-kilo tons of greenhouse gas emissions from the university and get a perfect score in carbon neutrality. October 22, 2008 kicks off “Getting to Zero” Day on campus.
The university has used hydropower since 1904 and in 2000 installed a lake-source cooling loop to use lake water temperatures to heat and cool the building. To get to zero, the campus will focus on on-campus activities like transportation, energy, green building, fossil fuel use and energy offsets.
Other adjustments already deployed by the University to meet its goals include a combined heat and power plant (set to go online in 2009) which will provide up to 80% of electricity needs on the main campus. In 2007, the campus won MTV’s Break the Addiction Challenge for proving their campus has worked to educate students about reducing their carbon footprint. All new buildings over $5 million USD must meet LEED Silver standards, and the Alice H. Cook House residence hall, built in 2004 was the first LEED certified residence hall in New York. Since 1990, garbage has declined 40% through the increased use of composting and recycling on campus.
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According to Brooklyn Treehugger Brian Merchant, the Rocky Mountain Institute has chosen 12 colleges to which a team of energy researchers will be sent.
The RMI energy team will collaborate with these collegial efforts in a search for breakthroughs in the fight against climate change.
-University of Minnesota at Morris, Morris, Minn.
-Furman University, Greenville, S.C.
-Unity College, Unity, Maine
-Luther College, Decorah, Iowa
-Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colo.
-University of Vermont, Burlington, Vt.
-University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo.
-Tufts University, Medford/Somerville, Mass.
-Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
-Harford Community College, Bel Air, Md.
-Richland College, Dallas, Texas
-Lakeshore Technical College, Cleveland, Wis.
According to Sally DeLeon, an RMI research fellow, the fundamentals of the project will be:
Briam Merchant find such efforts to be encouraging.
Other Treehugger Posts on Colleges Fighting Climate Change
Cameron M. Burns has written more about “Accelerating Campus Climate-Change Initiatives” in an article for the Fall 2008 issue of the RMI Solutions Journal. Michael Kinsley and Sally DeLeon are traveling across the country in hopes to change the focus from individual green buildings to whole community planning.
In a briefing to members of Congress, “High Performance Green Schools“, representatives from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute observed, “Schools typically spend five times as much on operating costs than on construction costs for their buildings, which can be attributed to utility bills and maintenance costs.”