Sarthak & I met on 5/1/2023 and 5/15/2023 to work on the BFU application. 

 

The current version of the log we are using is attached below.

 

Hi Mr. Helmink,

 

My name is Kendall O'Keefe and I am a freshman at UIUC. I am a journalism major, and for one of my final projects for my reporting class we were instructed to write a series of three stories that have to do with a specific category. My category is history, and my final story is about how we preserve historic buildings on campus and what that mainly entails. I am focusing on the differences between Lincoln Hall, Altgeld Hall, the CIF, and the ECE. I emailed Robert Roman with some questions about energy sources in new buildings compared to older buildings, and he copied you on his response saying that you would have more information for me. If you saw that, I would love to email you a couple questions about energy/conservation in new buildings compared to older ones, and what changes are often made to historical buildings in order to make the energy there more preserved/sustainable. Let me know if this is possible, thank you so much!

 

Kendall O'Keefe

Journalism 

-------------------

Kendall,

 

Please send your questions in.  Paul, I’ll want your help on this one.

 

 

Thanks,

 

karl

-------------------

Here are my questions:

 

How is energy conservation/sustainability in new buildings different from older ones?

 

New buildings typically have a much more inclusive portfolio of temperature control systems.  We can see all of the room temperatures and systems remotely from our command center.  Older buildings likely have aged pneumatic control systems with no remote visibility on whether these systems are working or not. We also typically have occupancy sensors in the newer buildings and we can tell how often a room is occupied or not and the HVAC system adjusts accordingly. Data trending is very important on the newer systems so we can see temperature trends over time and as well as airflow rates etc.   Lots of data to manage and store in computer servers.  The newer buildings are built to LEED, ASHRAE, and campus energy standards.  These have not always been around.

The building infrastructure and systems may be different as Karl pointed out, but energy conservation and sustainability are pursued the same across campus.

Noteworthy are heating and cooling methods have evolved to include heat recovery systems and chilled-beams for cooling.

 

What changes are often made to historical buildings in order to make the energy there more preserved/sustainable?

 

I’d  say that typically more insulation needs to be added to the walls and roof areas.  The R values in the wall of old buildings is astounding low. New windows get considered.  Steam systems get retired. More hot water is used.  The mechanical systems of the 1960’s thru 80’s are pretty inefficient.  We typically see energy reductions of 50% plus in these buildings.  We have a billion dollars of deferred maintenance on campus, there probably is not nearly enough money coming in fast enough to make upgrades.  Interestingly some of the older buildings with steam radiators and window air A/C units are some of the most efficient  buildings on campus.  People tend to shut off the window a/c units.

We are also working to incorporate clean energy systems in new building designs which helps with LEED and leaning toward net-zero such as in the ECE building.

 

I also would like to know how energy is managed in places like Altgeld and Lincoln compared to the CIF and ECE.

 

Not a lot different.   There is utility metering on each campus building that measures water, chilled water, steam condensate, electricity, and sometimes natural gas and hot water where needed.  The monthly data is reviewed and exceedingly low and high energy usage numbers are checked.  The CIF project is not out of the warranty phase yet I don’t believe. The project is still making adjustments up there, so this one is different, so far.

 

As Karl mentioned previously, technology makes it easier to monitor the new/upgraded systems and therefore we have more visibility when part of the system deviates from the setpoints or optimized building parameters. This helps catch maintenance items before they become costly problems or require more resources to resolve.

Thank you so much, I really appreciate your time!

 

Kendall O'Keefe

-----------------------------

FYI  I’ll let Paul add to this as he sees fit.

 

 

Thanks,

 

Karl

-----------------------------

Hello Kendall,

 

Let me start off by pointing out the obvious, but often overlooked!

Today’s lifestyle demands peak comfortability, access to the latest and greatest technology, and everyone wanting to be connected to everything worldwide instantly.

This statement alone drives intense energy consumption and often from antiquated inefficient systems.

 

With that understanding at hand, the older buildings were not designed to accommodate the requirements of newer technology and mechanical systems.

For example, the ductwork and fan sizing have a big impact on proper airflows and efficiency within the buildings spaces.

From a greenhouse gas perspective, we are looking more toward renovating older structures vs building new structures simply for the advantage of capturing the benefits from embedded carbon, not to mention reuse of natural resources and waste removal and recycling.

 

Regardless of the vintage, campus does it’s best to make sure everyone is comfortable, has all of the amenities and technology necessary to perform at university today’s fast pace.

P.S. See below in green font

 

Best

Paul Foote

---------------------------

Hi, 

 

Thank you so much for your responses! They were extremely helpful to my story. If possible, I was wondering if you happened to know how much the annual power bill for the university is. I would also like to know what the current carbon footprint of the university is. Let me know if you can help me with these. Thank you again for all of your help!

 

Kendall O'Keefe

----------------------

 

Hi Tony,

Can you share the information with Kendall?

See the beginning of the thread for who Kendall is and what she is looking to do with the campus utilities information.

 

Best

Paul Foote

--------------------

 

Kendall,

 

When you say power bill do you mean the total cost of generated and purchased electricity for the Urbana-Champaign campus?

 

On the carbon footprint question, I will need to check with our sustainability folks.

 

Regards,

 

Tony

 

Greetings Carbon Offsets Workshop Attendees, and those looking to stay engaged with us!,

 

Thank you so much for your participation at our workshop on Tuesday April 18th 3-4pm EST, and thank you as well to those who couldn’t attend but are looking to follow-up on the information we shared. We are grateful for the variety of perspectives represented in the meeting space, and the questions and comments we were able to address in the time we had. Moving forward, we’re looking to get your feedback on if there is a collective appetite for diving further into this topic, and what resources are still needed. 

 

Please feel free again to email Meredith directly with your questions and to get involved directly with our Carbon Offsets Network, C2P2 Initiative, and advisory council....

 

For those of you looking to gain support with your climate action and resilience work in the southeast...

 

Please visit this link to share your thoughts and feedback on this workshop by Friday April 28th. Please see links to resources included in the survey.

 

View Meredith Leigh’s presentation linked here. 

View our recorded zoom meeting video here. 

 

See below our Q&A of questions and comments institutions and attendees had:

 

Q&A with Meredith Leigh:

 

Sandra Van Travis, Morehouse College’s Environmental Health and Safety Officer asks:

Please send information on how to calculate offsets using trees.

 

Campuses have hired arborists to determine sample areas and measure trees. These measurements require tree height, diameter at breast height, and species identification. Arborists are positioned to do this work. 

If hiring an arborist is not possible, new remote sensing technology providers offer phone apps that can be used by students or faculty to calculate tree data and categorize by species. One company in particular is interested in partnering with HEIs. If you are interested in connecting with this company, email Meredith. 

 

Christina Kwauk Asks:

I am curious if any of the members of the working group are familiar with carbon offsets that go toward non-mitigation activities but rather to climate adaptation activities that may benefit climate resilience outcomes of environmental justice communities (i.e. instead of carbon removed, what about respiratory illnesses averted/reduced?). This may be totally out of scope for carbon offsets and this workshop, but I wanted to join to listen for these connections today. 

 

This is a great question and a badly needed type of offset! Right now these kinds of values are considered “co-benefits” of carbon offsets, and people don’t put a dollar value on them like they do on MTCDE reductions, but offset projects are more attractive to buyers when they list these kinds of co-benefits. Campus participation in the Offset Network is a great way to develop projects uniquely suited to your campus, especially when your goals are to serve co-benefits and you have less pressure to just produce quantifiable offsets. An example of this is Clarkson ISE’s recently avoided forest conversion project through the Offset Network. Their main goals were to create student involvement in forest inventory and carbon project development, and to protect a piece of land and the endangered species of turtle that lives on it. The offsets generated from the project are small, and will count toward Clarkson’s Scope 3 emissions, but the co-benefits were what really made the project worthwhile for them. 

 

Dr. Maria Boccalandro asks:

If you are in a community college setting where you work with tax payer’s money how do you justify buying these credits? I think narrative matters... are there any best practices for community colleges you can share?

 

A great question, and one that Second Nature is still working on as we diversify the institutions we support. I think the key to this is transparency- communicating to stakeholders both the intentions of the offset purchase and its impact. To this end, it would be advisable to make space for community input when the school develops its offsets strategy. This way taxpayers can provide feedback on whether they see value in the college purchasing offsets as a way of becoming climate neutral, and if so, what types of projects would feel valuable to them. Furthermore I think engagement in the Offset Network, where faculty and students can create local projects with high co-benefits would be a good fit for community colleges. The projects can be designed for community involvement and high community co-benefits so that the expense of engaging is co-owned and the positive impacts are felt beyond campus. 

 

Thank you all again, and we look forward to reviewing your feedback!,

 

Blythe Coleman-Mumford (she/her/hers)

-----------------------------------

Hi Morgan, Madhu, and Elizabeth –

 

Given that we have been discussing offsets and Second Nature’s role, I thought you might find the slides linked below (Meredith Leigh’s presentation, highlighted) of interest. They provide an overview of the topic of offsets and several examples of what various HEIs are doing in this space.

 

Notably, slides 10-11 indicate that C sequestered in trees can be removed from total campus emissions as a “sink” in SIMAP. As you know, sinks are not the same as offsets because they do not require additionality. We know C sequestration for Trelease Woods and have the data to determine C sequestered by campus trees. So I think we should consider listing them as sinks. We could also consider other campus lands where land use/land cover might support C sequestration (cover cropping?).

 

Based on the public SIMAP report (here), we have reported 0 sinks/non-additional sequestration in the past. When will we complete the next SIMAP report?

 

Thanks,

Jen

--------------------------------------

Thanks for sharing this Jen. This is helpful to have. I will look over the slides. Can you also send me the write up by Warren Lavey.

 

We should plan on discussing this at our next CS team meeting unless there is urgency to discuss it sooner

 

 

Best

Madhu

-------------------------------------

Hi Madhu,

 

It is not urgent; we can discuss at the next CS team meeting.

 

The Resilience Team will be discussing the offset policy letter at today’s meeting. I will share once it is finalized. The law student working with Warren presented her findings about the MOU and paths forward at the April meeting. Notes can be found here:

https://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project-update/resilience-icap-team-april-meeting

 

Jen

Attached is the Carbon Offset Planning and Buying Guide Step 1 and Step 2. The documents contain information on UIUC's offsetting goals and approach with Second Natures MOU with UIUC.

Hello Ehab,

Attached is the purchase item received for the 5yr extended service agreement with Solar Turbines, Inc.

Please let me know if there is anything additional I can help with ~ Jill

 

Jill C. Odom