The Campus Bike Center opened for business in May 2010, funded by The Bike Project of Urbana-Champaign, a grant from the Student Sustainability Committee, the Center for a Sustainable Environment, and supplementary funding from the Facilities and Services Department at UIUC[1]. The Center offers a hands-on, educational space in which students and community members can have access to knowledge and experience in maintaining and fixing bicycles, as well as all of the necessary tools and products to do so. The Center’s outlined mission is to teach bicycle maintenance, providing access to affordable equipment, support overall safety education, and participate in campus bicycle community outreach2. The Center also has described goals for sustainability; to contribute towards the ICAP goal to reduce transportation emissions by 50% in 2025, support those who use bicycles for transportation, to make bikes a more feasible alternative to motor vehicles on this campus, and to expand these efforts even more through increased outreach and publicity efforts, increased staff capacity, more events outside of the shop to reach new audiences, more refurbished bikes to sell to students, and more courses, workshops, and demonstrations to educate the campus about bikes2.

[1] Neptune, Amelia. Bike Shop Student Sustainability Committee Application. UIUC ICAP Portal. http://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project-updates/102. 11 Nov 2012. Accessed 8 May 2014.

In the words of Valerie Oliveiro, Assistant to the Senior Associate Director of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, KCPA is “dedicated to the advancement of the education, research, and public engagement mission of the University of Illinois through the pursuit of excellence and innovation in the performing arts.”[1] These words exemplify the importance of KCPA to the campus community. A hub of social interaction and innovation, Krannert has a unique role as a leader and innovator in sustainability initiatives at the University of Illinois. This unique importance is what drove KCPA to the idea of implementing LED lighting in its lobby. After more than two years of research and experimentation, consideration to the developing goals of the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) and joint funding from the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC) and the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation, KCPA finally decided to pull the trigger on The University’s largest LED lighting project.

[1] Oliveiro, Valerie. ICECF Funding Proposal for the KCPA LED Lobby Lighting Retrofit Project. Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, University of Illinois, September 17th, 2009

For the Spring 2014 semester, I am enrolled in NRES 285 – a field course entitled Performance Metrics and Assessment Techniques for Sustainability Projects. This course utilizes experiential learning in order to gain hands-on experience with sustainability projects on the UIUC campus. In order to assess these initiatives it is necessary to evaluate effectiveness of the project, means of improvement, methods of communicating results, and suggestions for the future. In particular, a project I found particularly appealing is the solar thermal system at the Activities and Recreation Center (ARC) used to heat the indoor and outdoor pools.

In 1820, Illinois contained 22 million acres of prairie, but due to modern intensive agricultural practices, only a few thousand remain today. Of high quality, remnant prairie, there are only 2,300 acres which mostly persist along railroads, in cemeteries, and in ground that is not fit for farming (DNR, 2014). Prairies are part of the history and culture of Illinois. The rich soils that grow so much food for people all over the country were formed under prairie landscapes. These grassland habitats have a lot of potential to continue providing ecosystem services for the citizens of Illinois, but first we have to recognize those ecosystem services and realize the value of the sustainability of prairie landscapes. Faculty at the University of Illinois Veterinary School and at the Illinois Natural History Survey have aimed to do just that through a prairie restoration project on the Veterinary Medicine campus.

From: Sweeney, Eva Maria
Sent: Saturday, May 10, 2014 3:41 PM
To: Chasco, David; Hall, Gaines B; Johnston, Morgan B; Tousignant, Teresa Marie Giardina
Cc: Rubin, Joshua
Subject: RE: Temple Buell - lighting controls upgrade

Dir. Chasco,

Thanks for your reply.  I’ll notify the project coordinator to proceed without the dimming controls.

Regards,

-Eva

From: Chasco, David
Sent: Saturday, May 10, 2014 2:05 PM
To: Hall, Gaines B; Sweeney, Eva Maria; Johnston, Morgan B; Tousignant, Teresa Marie Giardina
Cc: Rubin, Joshua
Subject: RE: Temple Buell - lighting controls upgrade

See below.

From: Hall, Gaines B
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2014 12:27 PM
To: Sweeney, Eva Maria; Johnston, Morgan B; Tousignant, Teresa Marie Giardina; Chasco, David
Cc: Rubin, Joshua
Subject: RE: Temple Buell - lighting controls upgrade

I will defer to Director Chasco for this answer.

Gaines

From: Sweeney, Eva Maria
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2014 11:24 AM
To: Johnston, Morgan B; Tousignant, Teresa Marie Giardina; Hall, Gaines B; Chasco, David
Cc: Rubin, Joshua
Subject: FW: Temple Buell - lighting controls upgrade

All,

Please see below.  Per our discussions at the 95% review, I added in continuous dimming

to the 2nd and 3rd floor studios daylighting controls.  I had hoped we could afford this within the

project budget, but the bid has come in too high.

Would it be acceptable to the department to remove the dimming function, and have the

daylighting operate in on/off mode only?  This will save a huge amount and put us back on budget. Yes, that is ok if it helps the budget.

Please let me know your thoughts ASAP so I can have the contractor revise their bid.

David

Thanks,

-Eva

From: Rubin, Joshua
Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2014 4:44 PM
To: Sweeney, Eva Maria
Subject: Temple Buell

Eva

As discussed, the fixed cost JOC scope of work for the TBH Lighting upgrades is ~$119,580.  This does not include any F&S system integrity support (this would be time and material support for things like smoke outage support, electrical outage support, ballast disposal) which would be minor on this project.

The emergency exit light replacement cost is approx. $9,500.00

Removal of the dimming requirement for the studio/lab areas would save somewhere in the range of $33,300 - $50,000

Please let me know if you and the customer (Gaines Hall?) would like a more exact proposal for any of the options above and how you would like to proceed with this project.

Thanks,

Josh Rubin

JOC Project Specialist

Facilities & Services

University of Illinois

1501 S Oak St.

Champaign, IL 61820

Office:   (217) 300-2469

Cell:        (217) 377-5493

Hey Bike Team,

Found this awesome thing online today: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#6/-120.90000/38.36000/blue/bike

It takes GPS data from Strava (an app people use to log bike and running mileage and share it with friends) and lays it over google maps. Kind of neat to see where people are biking on campus.

Hope you're all enjoying the weather.

Andy

Dear Mike,

The Student Sustainability Committee recently decided to fund a project entitled "Energy Shade Curtains - Phase III" for the Plant Care Facility in the amount of $71,000.  The project aims to install and program new shade curtains to decrease unnecessary overuse of energy to heat, cool, and power greenhouse rooms.  An earlier phase of this project included detailed metering, which demonstrated a 50% reduction in heat inputs and a 32% reduction in electricity consumption.

The SSC, and iSEE, would like to ask whether the energy savings resulting from this project can be "paid back" into the Revolving Loan Fund in order to help facilitate future energy-saving projects.  Obviously we would have to quantify exactly what the savings are, before moving forward.

Sincerely,

Marika Nell (Outgoing Chair, SSC)
Amy Liu (Incoming Chair, SSC)
Ben McCall (Associate Director for Campus Sustainability, iSEE)
 

Hello Big Ten CCN competitors! 

CCN officially ended on April 25th and the results were published yesterday. Congratulations to Penn State University on taking the lead of Big Ten Unplugged with an overall 3.3% electricity reduction during the competition. Penn State University was also a winner in the poster category.  

Taking 2nd place was Ohio State University with a 3.1% reduction. 3rd place goes to University of Wisconsin - Madison with a 2.2% reduction. Congrats to our top 3 Big Ten Unplugged winners! 

I'd like to propose that we continue a Big Ten Challenge in the future not only for CCN but any nationwide competition focused on resource reduction. I will propose a meeting for us some time in late summer to outline what future competitions within Big Ten might look like. 

Best, 

Stacey White
Sustainability Coordinator

University Services

University of Minnesota

Office: 612-624-3285

Cell: 612-978-0843

Fax: 612-625-4133

From: Marquissee, Mike
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2014 11:22 AM
To: Mies, Timothy A; Anderson, Gary L; Dale Johnston (dkjohnst@igb.illinois.edu)
Subject: RE: Copy of UofI propane 040414-MLM EDITS.xls

Tim,

See answers below.

Mike

From: Mies, Timothy A
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2014 9:01 AM
To: Marquissee, Mike; Anderson, Gary L; Dale Johnston (dkjohnst@igb.illinois.edu)
Subject: RE: Copy of UofI propane 040414-MLM EDITS.xls

Hi Mike,

Several questions have come up that I would like you input on in regards to the green revolving loan fund in cases that might occur that do not follow the typical project pattern.

Scenario 1) The energy farm reverts to another department at the completion of the grant of the Energy Biosciences Institute before the loan is repaid.  How would the loan be handled in cases where the new department weren’t within the VCR cost area? 

• Since the loan is being repaid from the campus pool in favor of the VCR, it is likely that it would still pay out in favor of which other campus department it goes to.  Unless it turns into a self-supporting entity, which is unlikely.  In that unlikely event, the self-supporting entity would repay the loan.

Scenario 2) A crop loss occurs one year that would limit/prevent the savings that are estimated from our initial estimates? 

• The Campus utility pool would still pay out.  Just that the savings would not be recognized.  It would also pay for the additional propane.  The loss would not come out of the project.

Scenario 3) Miscanthus ceases to be produced on the energy farm, resulting in no more mxg produced locally?  Would F&S then consider purchasing MXG from a local farmer who could supply the material? Assuming the boiler installed could handle multiple feedstocks, wood chips may be an alternative. 

• We support this project because there is a research project attached to it.  If that project is discontinued, we would then have to discuss who repays the loan.  Most likely it would be out of the research fund, then, which would also pay for the restoration of the site and so on.  I don’t think we would be interested in providing alternative fuel sources or manage an abandoned research project.

Thanks for your input.

Tim