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  1. Weekly Update: Bike donations; Kid's bike giveaway on July 17

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

    All, Last week we got inundated with donations. I counted 8 bikes donated on Friday alone. That doesn’t include wheels, tires, and parts that we received as well. We’ve got nearly half a dozen bikes in the queue that once on the sales floor will free up some space for more donations.

    Our friends at TBP are hosting another Kids’ Bike Giveaway event for July 17th. We have a dozen or so bikes we’ll be able to contribute to that event. That’ll clear up some more space, too.  

    This week I hope to be able to start a new student worker.

    The numbers:

    Visitors:
    Sales: $103.75
    Tire/tubes: 4 for $31

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Manager, Campus Bike Center

  2. archived info - previous project description

    Associated Project(s): 
    Lighting Conservation Projects

    The campus is in the process of retrofitting older T12 fluorescent lighting fixtures by replacing them with more energy-efficient T8 (or T5) fixtures and electronic ballasts. The lighting retrofit proposed in the SAIC report would reduce campus energy consumption by ~1.6 percent; a very small amount of this is due to the use of occupancy sensors and day lighting controls. Extending this retrofit to smaller campus buildings, replacing other lighting fixtures (besides T-12s), and a wide deployment of both occupancy and daylight sensors (which can reduce lighting use by 20 percent to 80 percent depending on location) should be able to provide significantly more energy savings than predicted in the SAIC report. The campus target for energy savings from lighting is 2 percent.

  6. Archive Info - Previous Project Description

    Associated Project(s): 
    CornCrete

    In April 2017 three faculty members received $14,522 from the University Research Board to conduct preliminary investigations surrounding crop residue as a building material at both small and large scale. The results of those initial investigations proved very positive. This project primarily strives to turn corn stalks into a building project. Students will support Dr. Mark Taylor throughout the project, giving students research and professional development opportunities. The Student Sustainability Committee provided $47,000 in December 2017 to support the design and construction of a small mobile field station using agricultural waste. Upon completion, researchers and students will have a better understanding on how agricultural waste materials perform as a building material that can get used at a larger scale. Moreover, the campus will have a mobile field station that uses corn stock insulation.

  7. Archived Info - Previous Project Description

    Associated Project(s): 
    Solar Urbana-Champaign

    The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is helping to promote and encourage participation in the Solar Urbana-Champaign program. 

    The successful Solar Urbana-Champaign group purchasing program is available again in 2018. Since 2016, the program led to the installation of over 1 megawatt of solar on 138 properties across Champaign County. The program educated hundreds of individuals about solar and helped people save on solar through volume purchasing.
     
    In 2018 the program expands eligibility to Piatt County residents as well. And, thanks to new state legislation, even more people can get access to solar. To increase awareness across Champaign and Piatt Counties, Midwest Renewable Energy Association partnered with Champaign-based Prairie Rivers Network, which champions clean, healthy rivers and lakes and safe drinking water to benefit the people and wildlife of Illinois.

  8. Archived Info - Previous Project Description

    Associated Project(s): 
    Geothermal Urbana-Champaign

    Geothermal Urbana-Champaign is a public education and bulk purchasing program that makes going geothermal easier and more affordable for Champaign, Piatt, and Vermilion County home and business owners. Made possible through a strong partnership between the City of Urbana, Geothermal Alliance of Illinois, and Midwest Renewable Energy Association, Geothermal Urbana-Champaign uses several key features to lower the price of geothermal for all program participants.

    Whether you adopt geothermal this year or in five years from now, we truly hope you gain a better understanding of this technology and the energy options available to you through this program.

    Some Key Features to this Program:

    • Public Education: Throughout this program, the MREA and GAOI will hold several free, virtual, hour-long informational events where you will learn the basics of geothermal, how it can save you money, and how the geothermal group buy program works.

    • Economy of Scale: Which is just a fancy way of say “bulk purchasing.” Through the power of bulk purchasing this program’s high quality contractor is able to offer a below market price/ton. The more people that go geothermal through this program, the lower the price will be for everyone

    • Competitive Contractor Selection: Led by the MREA, with help from a local advisory committee, the competitive selection process ensures that this program’s geothermal installations are performed by a high quality contractor at a below market price

    • Community Support & Outreach: Our programs are supported by both the leaders and community members of Champaign, Piatt, and Vermilion Counties. With the help of your jurisdiction leaders, fellow community members, and you, the MREA is able to spread the word of this awesome opportunity throughout your community!

    How to Participate

    Start by watching one of our free, virtual Geothermal Power Hours. In this hour-long presentation you’ll learn the basics of geothermal, how it can save you money, and how the geothermal group buy program works. You can register for any of our winter events by clicking on the date of your choice below.

    Afterward, you can sign up for a free, no obligation site assessment and quote with this program’s contractor by filling out this short form. 

    The deadline to participate in this program is May 30, 2021, so don’t delay. Your geothermal journey awaits!

  9. Weekly Update: BTWD and LTN dates finalized

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center
    C-U Bike to Work Day
    Light the Night

    All, Steadily picking up around here. Had to pull out the folding stands on a couple occasions. Got a new hire in the works. Dates are set for Light The Night and Bike To Work Day for the fall. On Friday we had a volunteer working towards a membership, which was a welcome occurrence.

    This week is business as usual.

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 20
    Sales: $1022.10
    Bikes (refurb): 3 for $500
    Memberships: 5 for $150
    Misc: $58.50

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Manager, Campus Bike Center

  11. Bike Registration Signs: 6/26 meeting between Sarthak and Shayna

    Associated Project(s): 
    Bicycle Registration

    In today’s meeting, we discussed the email we received from ARC about location and size of our signs. We are sticking with the size we discussed earlier, 12x18, and the idea is to mount them on posts. However, that will have an additional cost so the range of signs and posts we can produce will be around 10-15. That will be enough to target our priority locations. Before the next meeting with the ARC on Tuesday, we have to finalize a map with the specific locations pinpointed with images. This map will be created by Sarthak Prasad because he will be using the Bike Census information.

  12. Article: Can Solar Farms Help Save Bees?

    Associated Project(s): 
    Solar Farm 2.0
    Bee Campus USA
    Increase Pollinator-Friendly Areas

    Discover Magazine released an article highlighting the biodiversity benefits that can stem from pairing solar farms with pollinator-friendly plants. Supporting its claims with initiatives from universities across the country, the article recognizes the University of Illinois' pollinator habitat at Solar Farm 2.0.

    Read the article on Discover Magazine. Or, refer to the PDF of the article in the attached files.

     

    Attached Files: 

  13. News-Gazette article about CIF geothermal

    Associated Project(s): 
    Geothermal at the Campus Instructional Facility (CIF)
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)
    Carbon Credit Purchasing Program (C2P2) with Second Nature
    Issue Press Releases and Sustainability Reports
    Illinois Geothermal Coalition

    The News-Gazette printed this story about the geothermal at the Campus Instructional Facility: https://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/university-illinois/renewable-en...

     

    "URBANA — The University of Illinois’ glossy new building at Springfield Avenue and Wright Street represents the next step in its sustainability goals.

    The four-story, 122,000- square-foot, $75 million Campus Instructional Facility is also the biggest geothermal installation on the UI campus.

    Its geothermal system can pump 135 tons of hot or cool air into the building. That’s twice as much as the next biggest geothermal system on campus, and about 30 times the amount pumped into an average home.

    “The whole world knows about solar and wind power and things like that — hydroelectric power, too — but that’s only the electric side of energy. Energy also includes heating and cooling,” said Morgan White, director of sustainability at UI Facilities & Services. “It’s truly transformative, because it’s moving into the phase of getting us clean thermal energy and not just clean electricity.”

    Electricity provides heating and cooling as well, she said, but it’s primarily provided by natural gas, propane and other nonrenewable sources of energy.

    The key to the geothermal endeavor? Forty boreholes dug into the Bardeen Quad next to Grainger Library. They’re 20 feet apart, 6 inches wide and drilled 450 feet deep.

    Initially, the project required 60 boreholes, but UI researchers reduced that figure — and made the system financially feasible — by checking the thermal conductivity of different rock and soil layers, or the rate that heat passes through them, while considering the depth and flow rate of groundwater.

    To keep the building temperate year-round, a mixture of water and glycol circulates from a heat pump in the mechanical room into a pipe that runs up and down the underground field of boreholes.

    In winter, the pump pulls heat from the ground into the building. In summer, heat is pumped from the building back into the ground.

    “It’s like when you have a bathtub that’s a little too hot or a little too cold, and you pour some water in and stir it up,” White said.

    In all, the system reduces the building’s energy consumption by 65 percent compared to a typical heating/cooling installation, saving about $45,000 per year.

    Student initiatives helped fund the state-of-the-art thermal system. The 18-member Student Sustainability Committee, funded by the annual “Green Fee” assessed on students, allocated $375,000 — or about 13 percent of the system’s cost — to the facility’s geothermal installation.

    The building has a number of other unique features. It contains two dozen new classrooms — one of the highest figures on campus — replete with active-learning and distance-learning spaces. In the fall, engineering courses will occupy most of the space, along with math, statistics and other technical classes.

    The facility is also the first UI building funded through a public-private partnership, which allows for tax-exempt financing.

    Meanwhile, faculty and graduate students will use temperature information from a 385-foot-deep monitoring well, funded by Facilities & Services and the Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment, for continued research opportunities. 

    As part of the Illinois Climate Action Plan, the university plans to get to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

    Currently, around 12 percent of electricity is provided by renewable sources, like the solar and wind farms near campus, White said. But only 4.5 percent of the UI’s total energy use, counting thermal, comes from renewable sources.

    “Clean electricity is important, but it’s not enough,” White said.

    In the planning stages, the UI wasn’t supposed to start implementing geothermal systems until 2035, but a suggestion by Yu-Feng Forrest Lin of the Prairie Research Institute jump-started that process."

  15. list of projects needed

    Associated Project(s): 
    Independent Student Projects
    Tree Campus Higher Education
    NRES 285: iCAP Sustainability Ambassadors
    EPA SmartWay Affiliate
    Champaign County Sustainability Network (CCNet)

    This is a list of projects that need students to work on.  It will be updated periodically by sustainability staff members, the last update was 6/24/21:

    • Develop informational messaging about SmartWay, get more UIUC departments aware of the program, and coordinate a related student event.  Contact Morgan White at mbwhite at illinois.edu.
    • Conduct a campus poll (fall semester 2021) regarding the Top 10 most iconic/significant/impressive trees on campus (including the arboretum). Develop an online survey tool (i.e., an online poll) whereby students and campus employees can nominate their favorite campus trees. Upon conclusion of the survey, work with Jay Hayek to tabulate and rank the results and create a publicly viewable ArcGIS Online StoryMap showcasing campuses Top Ten Trees. Prepare a presentation of results for the annual Arbor Day Celebration. Contact Jay Hayek at jhayek at illinois.edu.
    • Follow through with Facility Liasons for implementation of recommendations from NRES 285: iCAP Sustainability Ambassadors class: Illini Union.
    • Follow through with Facility Liasons for implementation of recommendations from NRES 285: iCAP Sustainability Ambassadors class: Huff Hall.
    • Follow through with Facility Liasons for implementation of recommendations from NRES 285: iCAP Sustainability Ambassadors class: ECE Building.
    • Follow through with Facility Liasons for implementation of recommendations from NRES 285: iCAP Sustainability Ambassadors class: Armory.
    • Follow through with Facility Liasons for implementation of recommendations from NRES 285: iCAP Sustainability Ambassadors class: Bevier Hall.
    • CCNet Website: Work with the Champaign County Sustainability Network (CCNet) leadership team to redesign and publish the CCNet website (old version is online at http://www.champaigncountynet.org/). There is a monthly brown bag sustainability networking event on the Third Thursday of each month, but the website hasn't been updated since 2016. Contact Morgan White at mbwhite at illinois.edu.
    • We are seeking a student volunteer who can do tree identification for a series of trees in the Arboretum, and work with the University Landscape Architect, Brent Lewis, and the Superintendent of Grounds, Ryan Welch, to compare the tree identification to the draft tree inventory. Contact Morgan White at mbwhite at illinois.edu.
    • If you have a project idea, please contact us at sustainability@illinois.edu, or submit it through the iCAP Portal Suggestions page.

  17. archived info - previous project description

    Associated Project(s): 
    Kill a Watt Monitors at Libraries

    There are three Kill A Watt monitors that the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC) bought for the Student Weatherization Program.  After the SSC project was done, the Kill A Watt monitors were given to the University Library so that other students can use them. To check out a Kill A Watt device, request one through the Library Catalog at https://vufind.carli.illinois.edu/vf-uiu/Record/uiu_6491875. 

    To find it directly, go to library.illinois.edu.  Click on catalogs in the light blue section of the page, and choose library catalog.  It will open a search page, and users can search for “kill a watt” to get the link above.

  18. 2021 International Freezer Challenge

    Associated Project(s): 
    Freezer Challenge

     

    Research, managing labs, and personnel keeping you busy? No worries!

    International Freezer Challenge Coordinators can enter your lab's information and the cold-storage sample management efforts you have made during the past year.

    Any changes, upgrades, cleaning out, defrostings, filter cleanings, and reductions to freezer/refrigerators can all be added to your score sheets. 

    Sample management, reductions, inventory creation or changes and upgrades, as well as, increasing room-temperature sample-storage inventory are all actions that increase your score and reduce the environmental impact of your lab operations.

    All actions in sample management you have made since August 2020 help your lab improve environmental impact, reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption, and are eligible to boost your lab and UIUC's overall point totals in the 2021 International Freezer Challenge.

    If you would like us to register your lab and complete your score sheet?

    • Send a completed copy of the linked word document with your action items, or send a request for assistance to gfoote2@illinois.edu.
    • If requesting assistance, we will arrange a time to meet with you and gather the necessary information to complete your lab's registration and scorecard.

    Help UIUC defend our 1st place international standing and win the opportunity to be highlighted and have your photo in NATURE magazine!

    For more information and questions about the International Freezer Challenge, please contact Paul Foote, F&S energy efficiency and conservation specialist, gfoote2@illinois.edu, 217-244-1048.

     

     

  19. June Tour at Allerton Park & Retreat Center

    Associated Project(s): 
    Champaign County Sustainability Network (CCNet)
    Allerton Climate Action Plan (apCAP)
    Solar Power on Campus
    Zero Waste iCAP Team

    For June, CCNet has arranged and sponsored a tour at Allerton Park & Retreat Center. This tour will take place on Friday, June 25th at 3:00 PM CDT. As mentioned in their monthly newsletter: 

     

    Tour at Allerton & Food at 3 Ravens

    Date: Friday, June 25th at 3:00 PM CDT
    Location:
    Allerton Park & Retreat Center (515 Old Timber Road, Monticello, IL 61856) &
    3 Ravens (108 South Charter, Monticello, IL 61856)

    Join us on a tour of Allerton!

    We will be meeting near the outside patio of Greenhouse Cafe at Allerton Park & Retreat Center. During this tour, Derek Peterson, the Director of Allerton, will show us clean energy installations at the center and we will visit the compost toilet funded by the Student Sustainability Committee. The Clivus Multrum compost toilet system is installed at the park’s Schroth Trailhead, providing park volunteers, trail-hikers, and other visitors the ability to use the restroom in an environmentally sustainable and convenient manner without needing to travel all the way to the Visitor Center to do so.

    Afterward, all are more than welcome to continue your visit to Allerton or join us for a quick bite at 3 Ravens in Monticello, IL!

    Please note that coordinated transportation will not be provided for this event. If you would like to drive to the event, parking is available at multiple locations around the park.

    Learn More About Planning Your Visit (Parking & Accessibility)

  20. Recent Environmental Justice Projects

    Associated Project(s): 
    Environmental Justice Plan
    Independent Student Projects

    The following list was provided by Warren Lavey and includes a detailed description about recent Environmental Justice projects:

    • Project for: Stop EtO (community environmental organization in Lake County, Illinois)
      • Environmental injustice: air pollution from industrial activities affecting low-income, minority communities
      • Status: ongoing
      • Students involved: 4 (law and medicine)
    •  
    • Project for: Forest Preserve District of Champaign County
      • Environmental injustice: lower access to and use of parks and other resources by low-income, minority communities
      • Status: ongoing
      • Students involved: 1 (undergrad in integrative biology)
    •  
    • Project for: Asociación Petón do Lobo (community environmental organization in Spain)
      • Environmental injustice: waste from taconite mining operations threatening small, low-income farmers; national and regional governments denied residents access to environmental information and participation in licensing proceedings
      • Status: ongoing
      • Students involved: 7 (law)
    • Project for: Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (community environmental organization in Chicago)
      • Environmental injustice: proposed expansion of a truck terminal near an elementary school for low-income, minority students
      • Status: completed (buffer with trees planted)
      • Students involved: 2 (undergrads in public health and computer science)
    •  
    • Project for: Friends of Riverfront Park (community organization in Peoria)
      • Environmental injustice: proposed conversion to develop luxury apartments of 20+ acres of a city park that was financed by the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund and borders on affordable housing
      • Status: completed (park conserved)
      • Students involved: 2 (law)
    •  
    • Project for: NAACP of Sandbranch, Texas
      • Environmental injustice: lack of adequate water and sewage infrastructure for a town of low-income, minority residents
      • Status: completed (state and federal funding obtained)
      • Students involved: 2 (law)
    •  
    • Project for: Gullah/Geechee Nation (African-American group in coastal South Carolina and Georgia)
      • Environmental injustice: proposed highways disrupting cultural heritage sites for low-income, minority residents
      • Status: completed (highway construction not approved)
      • Students involved: 2 (law)

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