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  1. review of progress and plans for FY23

    Associated Project(s): 
    Energy Models for Campus Facilities

    Professor Yun Yi, Tom Keller, Kelly Jo Hoffmann, and Morgan White met to review the progress on the Energy Models for Campus Facilities project.

    The Energy models were created for these facilities by an Architecture class:

    • 0154 – Personnel Services Bldg. – Packaged chiller, steam perimeter heat, constant volume fan-coil units.
    • 1528 – African Am. Cultural Ctr. – VAV.
    • 0209 – Speech and Hearing – AHUs replaced recently and a small/medium sized building. VAV.
    • 0075 – Children’s Research Ctr. - AHUs replaced recently and a small/medium sized building. Constant volume re-heat.

    There were two model types created for each facility, and a pdf report. Dr. Yi has sent us the energy models, and he will send us the pdf reports. We can share those with the Energy iCAP Team, UES, and put them into the FIR records.

    Dr. Yi will meet with Tom to review the energy model details and provide access to the energy modeling software for us to review the actual native files.

    We will proceed with doing this again, so how do we identify the buildings to do? Criteria? We would prefer many smaller buildings over a few larger buildings.  Energy modeling software is also not sophisticated enough for Here are some potential options:

    1. RIPE Greenhouse
    2. Transportation Building
    3. Architecture Building
    4. TBH
    5. LER
    6. Lincoln Hall
    7. Fred Turner Student Services Building
    8. Harker Hall
    9. ACES Library

    Yun will review this list, and talk with F&S again to finalize the building selection for this coming year. Then we need to provide drawings, via FIR. Yun will identify a TA for the class, and potentially the summer as well. Yun will find a TA to replace Fizza Hassan, since she graduated.

  2. Weekly Update: Bicycle Donations

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, We were closed Monday for Memorial Day and so were only open W/F last week.

    Thanks to the generosity of a local bike shop, we were absolutely inundated with donations—something to the tune of 15-20 bikes. Then two community folks dropped off even more donations. Needless to say, I’ll be processing these all week.

    I dropped off flyers with WRC last week, too, in the hopes of expanding our reach to folks that haven’t already come into CBC.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 15
    Sales: $557.95
    Bikes (refurb): 1 for $180
    Build-a-bike: 1 for $30

    Memberships: 4 for $120
    Tires/tubes (new/used): 12 for $76

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Coordinator

  3. Map My Emissions link

    Associated Project(s): 
    Reduce Emissions from Transportation

    "Transportation of all kinds accounts for nearly a quarter of global CO2 emissions(Opens in a new window). Commuters often have little choice about how they can get to work. But even if they make a concerted effort by using tools like Map My Emissions(Opens in a new window), which calculates how much CO2 commuting options generate, it’s hard to beat the zero emissions generated by walking from one room to another." per https://www.pcmag.com/news/remote-work-will-never-be-the-same-and-thats-...

  5. Spring 2022: iSEE Quarterly Update (iQ)

    Associated Project(s): 
    Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE)
    iSEE funding for Campus as a Living Lab (CALL)
    Certificate in Environmental Writing (CEW) [ARCHIVED]
    iCAP 2020: Illinois Climate Action Plan
    Freezer Challenge
    Sierra Club surveys [ARCHIVED]
    Solar Farm 2.0
    Certified Greener Campus Programs

    The Spring 2022 iSEE Quarterly Update (iQ) was released with the following message from Madhu Khanna, the Interim Director of iSEE:

     

    Greetings Colleagues,

     

    Attached, please find the Spring 2022 edition of iQ, our quarterly update. You will see that in this six-page pdf recapping the recent semester, we had plenty of news and updates from our research, education, events, and campus sustainability fronts.

     

    But the work did not end there! Since the semester ended, we have had two other exciting announcements:

     

    • The U of I campus was rewarded with the only USDA NIFA “Farm of the Future” grant. Our I-FARM project will be an 80-acre testbed for merging technology, sensing, and agronomy into a farm setting with crops and livestock that will be productive and profitable. Read our June 1 news release >>>
    • In addition, for the fifth consecutive time, our campus reached Gold-level status in the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) run by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). New solar and geothermal energy projects, a reduction in water use, and wide-ranging sustainability research helped us reach this level yet again. Read the May 25 news release >>>

     

    For more up-to-date news from iSEE, please sign up for our E-newsletter at https://illinois.edu/fb/sec/5031776.

      

    Best wishes for a healthy and productive summer,

     

    Madhu

     

    Attached Files: 

  6. Weekly Update: Grabbing scraps; Safety Checking bikes

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, I was out most of last week and my staff ably handled running the shop in my absence. This week we’ll only be open W/F due to the Memorial Day holiday.

    Thanks to Todd for grabbing scrap over the weekend as we were getting quite full on that. Still have a few more bikes to strip.

    This week I am meeting with a prospective new hire, a U of I dad who is involved with a similar non-profit group in Boise, ID (of all places), and safety-checking a few bikes that’ll help us build our for-sale inventory back up.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 21
    Sales: $1,043.00
    Bikes (refurb): 3 for $550
    Memberships: 6 for $180
    Tire/tubes (new/used): 10 for $77

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Coordinator

  8. ArcGIS Field Maps application to be used for tagging abandoned bicycles

    Associated Project(s): 
    Collection and Donation of Abandoned Bicycles

    Sarthak Prasad worked with Chad Kupferschmid, from F&S FIR, to develop an electric way to tag bicycles on campus and mark them on a GIS based map. Chad developed the Field Maps application for this project. We would use it in three phases:

    Phase 1: Initial tagging of the bicycles - Only Tag ID and Comments section available

    Phase 2: Confirming the abandoned bicycles - New field (Abandoned or not) would be available

    Phase 3: Inventory of the impounded bicycles - Once confirmed, the Parking department would remove the bicycle and transport them to the Round Barns, where Sarthak Prasad along with his intern will inventory all the impounded bicycles. During this phase, more fields - Make/model information, Bike Registration information, Serial Number information, pictures, etc. would be available

    This app was ready for us to use by the end of May

  10. Sarthak met with Gabe Lewis to talk about Electric Vehicles and EV charging

    Associated Project(s): 
    Increase use of EVs and other Alternative Service Vehicles
    Use Electric Vehicles (EV)
    Install Public Use Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Stations

    On May 24, Sarthak Prasad met with Gabe Lewis to talk about EVs. Gabe is the Transportation Planner at the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission (CCRPC) and he currently leads the RPC Tech Committee which consists of 7 members – Champaign, Urbana, Savoy, Rantoul, St. Joseph, Mahomet, and Champaign County. Most recently, they had been talking about the feasibility of EVs in urban as well as the rural areas in the county.

    We talked about the US DOT's Charging Forward, an EV toolkit, that is primarily focused on EV Charging in the rural areas: https://www.transportation.gov/rural/ev/toolkit

    We also talked about Clean City Coalition. State of Illinois does not have a coalition, but Chicago has one and we could potentially reach out to them: https://cleancities.energy.gov/coalitions/

    https://cleancities.energy.gov/coalitions/chicago

    Also discussed the federal funding available through National EV Infrastructure (NEVI), Carbon Reduction Program (CRP), State and Local Planning for Energy (https://maps.nrel.gov/slope/), and EV Pro Lite (https://afdc.energy.gov/evi-pro-lite)

  11. Lighting Retrofits are important - article in Popular Science

    Associated Project(s): 
    Lighting Conservation Projects
    Provide Centralized Communication about Sustainability
    Centralized Energy Efficiency Efforts

    “Incandescent bulbs use more energy and produce more heat due to their engineering designs,” says Paul Foote, energy efficiency and conservation specialist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It’s important to shift to more energy-efficient alternatives to reduce the environmental impacts of incandescent bulbs from the utilization of fossil fuels for electricity, he added.

    By mandating a minimum light output or lumens per watt, manufacturers make sure all bulbs can effectively light up a room, which ensures that consumers will avoid overusing energy with substandard bulbs to get the same level of brightness, says Foote. “When upgrading from incandescent bulbs to LEDs, we have noticed a 60 percent decrease in energy consumption on average, and therefore energy cost avoidance has reduced our utility bill by similar amounts for lighting,” he adds.

    <--break->Popular Science interviewed Paul Foote at F&S as part of their article about the importance of lighting retrofits. the full article is available online at https://www.popsci.com/environment/light-bulbs-sustainability-energy/. 

     

     

     

  13. meeting with F&S and iSEE about Zero Waste programs

    Associated Project(s): 
    "Don't Waste" with Coca-Cola
    Achieve Zero Waste

    iSEE and F&S met to discuss commodity recyclables at F&S and the interest in looking at getting Coke to buy our PET, the Zero Waste messaging campaign and potential collaboration with Coke on the messaging for our Use the Bin campaign.  Also, Coke offers a tailgate package that may be helpful in our conversations about increasing recycling at athletic events.

  15. Paper Bottles

    Associated Project(s): 
    Achieve Zero Waste

    From: Heaton, Emily <heaton6 at illinois.edu>
    Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2022 9:55 AM
    To: Kidwell, Kimberlee K <kkidwell at illinois.edu>
    Subject: from our meeting now - paper bottles

     

    Hi Kim,

    As we move to a circular carbon economy and consider a pulping plant in central Illinois, this paper bottle company looks interesting. Has opportunity for people to buy bottles and to start manufacturing https://paperwaterbottle.com/. Also compostable with a screw on top!

    Emily

  16. Weekly Update: Very busy last week, Reduced hours for summer, bike donations

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center
    Collection and Donation of Abandoned Bicycles

    All, The semester is over, and the students have left. For summer we’re down to just a couple of folks. And of course, Friday was super busy all day but we were lucky to be well-staff for the last day of the semester as staff report that it remained ASF (All Stands Full) until after close. We’ll see how busy we are this week.

    We’ve reduced hours to M/W/F in accordance with projected diminished demand and staff availability. As we get more staff hired/onboarded and demand is there, we’ll bump hours back up.

    We received 10 direct donations last week with I’d guess about half being students.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 38

    Sales: $854.60
    Bikes (refurb): 2 for $370
    Memberships: 3 for $90
    Tire/tubes: 7 for $61

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Coordinator

  18. Meeting between Sarthak Prasad, Morgan White, and Robert O'Daniell

    Associated Project(s): 
    Increase use of EVs and other Alternative Service Vehicles
    Use Electric Vehicles (EV)
    Install Public Use Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Stations

    Robert O'Daniell met with Morgan and me on Friday, May 13, 2022. We talked about the following topics:

    • The University's upcoming task force for EVs. There will be two task forces -
      • On-campus
      • Community
    • Reserve List for new EVs - backlog of about 18 months. Ford is not putting more people on this list now.
    • How much EVs/Hybrids save over time
      • With the Tax credits and saving on fuel, the cost is very comparable and sometimes cheaper than gasoline car
      • Maintenance cost of EVs are very low
    • EV Town initiative at Bloomington/Normal area
    • QwikTrip chargers
      • None currently in Champaign
    • We talked about possibly adding Solar Arc at Lincoln & Florida parking lot
      • I will look at the product and possibly ask SSC for funding in the future
    • We also talked about the people Robert has reached out to so far
    • EV-Go
    • Electrify America
    • Where to place a Fast Charger in Champaign-Urbana?
    • I will connect Robert with Gabe Lewis at CCRPC.

    Robert also provided some documents that were updated from last meeting with me (Introductory meeting with Robert O'Daniell)

    Attached Files: 

  19. National Environmental Justice Community Engagement Call: May 17, 2022

    Associated Project(s): 
    Resilience iCAP Team
    Environmental Justice Plan

    National Environmental Justice Community Engagement Call: May 17, 2022

     

    EPA invites Environmental Justice (EJ) advocates to participate in the next National Environmental Justice Community Engagement Call taking place on May 17, 2022 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. (Eastern Time). These calls are free and open to the public.

     

    Registration Link:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/epa-natl-environmental-justice-community-engagement-call-may-17-2022-registration-325114615567

     

    Agenda:

     

     

    The purpose of these calls is to inform the community and other stakeholders about EPA's EJ work and enhance opportunities to maintain an open dialogue with EJ advocates.

     

    Please email Motilall.Christina@epa.gov by May 13, 2022 to request reasonable accommodation for a disability or interpreter services in a language other than English, so that you can participate in the call and/or to request a translation of any of the event documents into a language other than English.

     

    For more information about the National Environmental Justice Community Engagement Calls, please email Robinson.Victoria@epa.gov or Motilall.Christina@epa.gov.

     

    Recordings and meeting materials for all calls are posted here: https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/national-environmental-justice-community-engagement-calls.

     

    For up-to-date information about Environmental Justice funding opportunities, events, and webinars, subscribe to EPA's Environmental Justice listserv by sending a blank email to: join-epa-ej@lists.epa.gov. Follow us on Twitter: @EPAEnvJustice

     

    Para recibir información actualizada sobre oportunidades de financiamiento de Justicia Ambiental, eventos y seminarios web, suscríbase al listserve de Justicia Ambiental de la EPA enviando un mensaje en blanco de correo electrónico a: join-epa-ej@lists.epa.gov. Síganos en Twitter: @EPAEnvJustice.

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