The Fall 2020 iSEE Quarterly Update (iQ) was released with the following message from Madhu Khanna, the Interim Director of iSEE:

Dear Colleagues,

Attached, please find attached the Fall 2020 “iQ” – the quarterly update from the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE).

It has been two months since I became interim director of ISEE.  It has been exciting to see ISEE bring in multimillion-dollar research grants, launch a new research initiative in regenerative agriculture, and help coalesce sustainable agriculture research on our campus during this period.

Our Certificate in Environmental Writing has engaged students in making insightful contributions to a new issue of Q Magazine. We have also expanded our opportunities for education and scholarly discourse with several online events, including those on nuclear energy and geothermal energy research.

We formally launched the new Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP 2020) on Oct 20, 2020. This ambitious plan is the result of the hard work of campus sustainability folks who worked hand-in-hand with Facilities & Services and incorporated the vision of hundreds of students, faculty, staff, administrators, and community members into a plan for the next five years and beyond — all the way to carbon neutrality no later than 2050!

I am so grateful to Evan Delucia for his efforts over the first seven years as the first director of our Institute. He has left iSEE as a vibrant part of the Illinois community, and I am working with our outstanding ISEE staff to expand upon the work already begun — as evidenced in this six-page update.

Please take a quick look at those updates and more in “iQ.” For more regular news, please sign up for our E-newsletter at https://illinois.edu/fb/sec/5031776.

Wishing you a successful end to the fall semester,

Madhu

Food for Justice | Food for Thought, with Artist Seitu Jones

Artist Seitu Jones will join a panel of Champaign-Urbana residents to talk about local food insecurities and the needs, desires and hopes of the community. This discussion, moderated by Urbana arts and culture coordinator, Rachel Storm, will feature Dawn Blackman, Ruby Mendenhall, Jennifer Monson, Magdalena Novoa, and Bobby Smith II, in conversation with Seitu Jones.

October 26, 5:30–7:30 pm • Map

Sharon Irish • Center for Advanced Study and Dance

Sustainable Issues and Opportunities for Handling End-of-Life PV Modules

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, solar power is the fastest-growing energy source in the U.S. and this growth will continue to rise. At the moment, only a few states have adopted solar PV end-of-life handling policies. Thus, a lot of modules may end up in landfills. The panel discussion will be on barriers, policies, and sustainable opportunities for end-of-life PV modules.

October 22, 9:30–11 am

Jennifer Martin • Illinois Sustainable Technology Center

Please see the attached newletter, published by Inovateus Solar, that includes a piece on the University of Illinois' Solar Farm 2.0.

Lauren Kumle, Tess Sobol, Jaboc Heglund, and Tommy Robey in CEE 493 - Sustainable Design Engineering Technology worked with Dr. Andy Stumpf in Fall 2020 on a Deep Direct Use (DDU) geothermal proposal for north campus.

Dr. Stumpf provided this information to the team in September:

If your team is interested, you might consider a different technology for geothermal energy at Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory. Specifically a deep direct-use (DDU) geothermal energy system (GES). I suggest this because I am not certain there is enough ground space at Newmark for a geothermal borefield like at CIF. The advantages of DDU GES is it requires fewer wells, and there would be enough thermal energy extracted to condition space in multiple buildings. Essentially, the DDU GES comprises extraction and injection wells (likely 2 of each needed) to access geothermal fluids (brine) from deeper bedrock formations. Under campus, one of the potential bedrock formations, the St. Peter Sandstone, lies at ~2,000 feet depth and contains an abundant amount of fluid at 78-82°F. When I last talked to Professor Liang Liu (who recently retired from College of Engineering), he was very interested in a study for DDU GES for the Engineering quad (south of Grainger library). So I think your findings from this type of system would be timely and more likely to be implemented.

My colleagues and I just completed a feasibility study of DDU GES for six agricultural research facilities on the South Farms (see summary paper attached).

The focus was on the deeper Mt. Simon Sandstone (lying at >6000 feet depth) because we were interested in extracting the hottest brine (110-130°F) since some of the farms needed to make hot water. They are not connected to the steam and hot/cold water energy system servicing the main part of campus, so propane and natural gas are the primary fuels. However, the St. Peter Sandstone would be an alternative… and this formation is also being considered for cooling buildings.

If you are interested in looking at DDU for the Newmark site, I can share the report with you. It should contain much of the information you need. Some of colleagues can help you with the life cycle costs and mechanical energy system analyses. Completing this project would also help researchers on campus compete for funding from DOE to complete tests wells which will be needed to validate your findings. DOE is very interested in developing DDU GES in non-volcanic areas of the US, especially for district-energy systems. Cornell University just received funding from DOE for a test well to develop a DDU GES on their campus, but they will most likely have to drill >15,000 feet into the Precambrian granite develop the system. They are looking to generate electricity with very hot water. https://eos.org/science-updates/exploring-by-boring-geothermal-wells-as-research-tools.

Doing a rough calculation, I think constructing a DDU GES would be of similar cost to a shallow borefield with 50-100 wells. The DDU GES would be much more efficient since you are directly using the heated brine and not trying to conduct heat in the ground. The payback period would be much quicker since it will be servicing more than one building.

 On 9/25/2020, Lauren, Tommy, and Jacob met with Dr. Stumpf.  He provided the following update:

I had a meeting with Lauren Jacob and Tommy today about their design project. I suggested they look at a DDU system that would heat/cool 4 buildings (Newmark, DCL, Uni High, and Siebel Center). I guess the number of buildings will depend on the amount of energy that can be extracted from the geothermal reservoir. I also suggested they look at the shallowest reservoir, the St. Peter Sandstone. As part of their analysis, they indicated there is a need for building level energy use data.

7 projects were approved during the FY2020 Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) project selection. At this time, final scoring results were determined as well. F&S will be beginning these projects soon and will start assessing their correlated utility savings.

Due to COVID-19, the voting process was conducted via email as opposed to meeting in person. As a result of the success in the virtual voting process, future selections are planned to occur in a similar fashion.