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Projects Updates for theme: all

  1. Natural History Building recognized by U.S. Green Building Council

    Associated Project(s): 
    Natural History Building: LEED Gold

    Natural History Building recognized by U.S. Green Building Council. Historic classroom and research building receives LEED Gold status after renovation. See attached or follow the link to read the whole article.

    https://las.illinois.edu/news/2019-02-08/natural-history-building-recogn...

    Attached Files: 

  2. Week 2 Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Water Audit / Inventory

    Good morning all,

    Austin here and yesterday’s meeting with Morgan White and Sarthak Prasad went well. I reviewed articles on how power plants use freshwater and the ways to reduce their consumption. The biggest factor in water use at power plants is their cooling system. The metric for measuring this is gallon per KWh and it’s categorized by their withdrawal, consumption, and discharge. The different types of cooling systems have their own pros and cons. For example wet recirculating cooling is good because it doesn’t withdrawal a lot of water but it consumes more than the other methods. Then an example of an advanced cooling system is a hybrid system that used air and a cooling tower to combine the advantages of a cooling tower and the resourcefulness of using a dry system. The draw backs of using only air is it makes the thermal conversion efficiency go down and increases operational costs. More details can be found in the attached file.

    We proceeded to continue research on how our power plant and chiller plants operate by looking at the water and energy consumption of the billing logs. We plan on meeting with Mike next week to gain more insight on the chiller plants and their water consumption. Then we looked at the piping layouts for the Universities potable and cooling water pipelines.

    To further our research I will finish reviewing some more articles on cooling tower water consumption. Then find articles with more detail on how cogeneration plants work and what metrics are used to measure their energy and water consumption. There should be more data on this from different European studies because they have similar systems like ours at Abbott. Lastly I will familiarize myself with our systems by researching the chiller plants and Abbott information given on the Facility & Services webpage.

    Thanks,
    Austin Jung

    Attached Files: 

  4. Meeting Minutes for iWG February, 2019

    Associated Project(s): 
    iCAP Working Group (iWG)
    Student Sustainability Leadership Council (SSLC)
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)
    Energy Generation, Purchasing, & Distribution (eGen) SWATeam [ARCHIVED]
    Energy Generation, Purchasing, & Distribution (eGen) SWATeam [ARCHIVED]
    Agriculture, Land Use, Food, and Sequestration (ALUFS) SWATeam [ARCHIVED]
    Solar Farm 2.0
    Internal price on carbon [ARCHIVED]
    Reduce Emissions from Transportation

    These are the meeting minutes from February 7, 2019.

    Attached Files: 

  5. Carbon Credit Funding Approval for Energy Piles at Hydro-Systems Lab

    Associated Project(s): 
    Hydro-Systems Lab Energy Foundations
    Utilize Carbon Credits
    Carbon Credit Purchasing Program (C2P2) with Second Nature

    $230,000 of funding from the Carbon Credit Sales Fund was approved for Energy Piles at Hydro-Systems Lab by Evan DeLucia and Mohamed Attalla

     

    Purpose of Project:

    "This project will install 8 energy piles in the foundation of the Hydro-Systems Lab on campus, and provide new research capabilities and a geothermal exchange system for reduction of energy demand from that building." -Morgan White (2/6/19)

     

    An email of the approval is linked below.

    Attached Files: 

  7. 18F Semesterly Report - Beginning bike maintenance classes

    Associated Project(s): 
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)
    Campus Bike Center

     

    Simon taught 15 sessions with around 100 attendants total, over the 15 weeks. The sessions were Mondays from at 6:30. The sessions began on 9/5/2017 and concluded at the end of the fall semester.

     

    The manager of the Campus Bike Center, Jake Benjamin, will help us seek another qualified student to teach the class this spring.

     

    Attached Files: 

  11. SSC Funds Hillel Micro Grant

    Associated Project(s): 
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)

    Illini Hillel Center for Jewish Life on Campus (the Center) has been working toward creating a more sustainable Center for the last few years. Starting with a student driven initiative to purchase and install a filtered, reusable water bottle filler, the Center has been working to improve its environmental impact in more ways. We would like to prepare a locally sourced Sabbath dinner for our community, using that time together to educate the community about our sustainability initiatives.

    Attached Files: 

  13. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, This past week was an uneventful one. We closed on Wednesday due to the cold and the rest of the week wasn’t much better. Had a meeting with Morgan and Sarthak on Monday about Sustainability with regards to CBC.

    This mini heat wave we’re experiencing might help visitor numbers this week.

    At worst, I’ll be able to make some inroads on the backlog of safety checks. And along those lines: as useful as the safety checklist has been the student workers are still failing it on the regular. This week I’ll run through the checklist again with the staff for a refresher.

    On Tuesday a guy came in looking for a couple broken frames for a non-bicycle related project. I was surprised and kind of happy to notice we didn’t have any junker frames left in the shop. Just about everything in here is buildable. I will spend some time this week culling the wheels we have.

     

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 33
    Sales: $436.01


    Thanks!

    Jake Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Manager

  17. archived info - previous project description

    Associated Project(s): 
    Sustainability iCAP Portal

    Sustainability is: Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

    The Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) outlines a path for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to achieve carbon neutrality as soon as possible, and no later than 2050. The campus committed to this ambitious goal when in 2008 it signed the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) — later to be renamed the Second Nature Carbon Commitment for its emphasis on emissions.

    In 2016, Illinois took on an even greater leadership role when Interim Chancellor Barbara Wilson signed its sister pledge, the Second Nature Resilience Commitment, which charges campus to examine the vulnerabilities of its landscapes and infrastructure in the face of an already changed climate. Together, these two commitments form Second Nature’s comprehensive Climate Commitment. As a charter signatory of the Climate Commitment, Illinois continues its dedication to being on the forefront of sustainable future planning.

    This site is a repository for summary information about each iCAP project, both to share the information publicly and to assist in collecting information for reporting purposes. These projects are organized into ten themes: Education, Energy, Funding, Land & Space, Outreach, Procurement & Waste, Reporting Progress, Research, Transportation, and Water.

    The Objectives page is a dashboard of 2015 iCAP metrics. Each Project page provides details and background information. The Map page can be filtered by associated theme. If you would like to recommend a new project or are aware of an existing project that is not listed on this site, please use the “Suggestions” tab to let us know.

    Read the approved 2015 Illinois Climate Action Plan.

  18. RightCycle End of Year 2018 metrics

    Associated Project(s): 
    Glove Recycling

    Hello Shantanu,

    Congratulations on your outstanding waste diversion accomplishments in 2018!  By participating in the RIGHTCYCLE* Program, University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign has diverted 10,086 pounds of glove waste from landfills. Thank you for your commitment to corporate social responsibility and your continued efforts to reduce your impact on the environment.

    9/12/2018

    University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign

    RC4016

    Gloves

     

    8/27/2018

    University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign

    RC3983

    Gloves

    9515

    10/1/2018

    University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign

    RC4226

    Gloves

    71

    1/17/2018

    University of Illinois Urbana- Chemistry

    RC3362

    Gloves

    500

    Please remember to email rightcycle@kcc.com to request a release number prior to shipping your waste and to clearly display this number on your shipment.

    It all adds up to zero landfill and a more efficient workplace. 

     

    Thank you,

    Erika

  19. Week 1 Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Water Audit / Inventory

    Good evening everyone,

    My name is Austin Jung and I am a senior in chemical engineering with a minor in the iSEE Fellows Program. I will be helping Morgan White and Sarthak Prasad with the 2015 iCAP objective #5.3 water audits for my SEE Fellow’s senior capstone. After the first successful meeting, the following will be addressed through the semester:

    • Create a water audit program/process for an existing building that will be the basis for the campus wide water audit.
    • Quantify and reduce the distribution and line losses for steam by measuring the steam/condensate loss. Then compare this to the national and peer averages.
    • Develop a list of buildings that have and need to have their water fixtures upgraded.
    • Find out a metric to measure the water consumption of our power plant and water cooling plants to develop a way to record this data for further analysis.
    • Continue support to help F&S meet their water consumption goals.

    These will be the main objectives focused on during the capstone and any changes will be stated in one of the following weekly updates. I am excited to do my part and begin my investigations.

    Thanks,

    Austin Jung

     

    Attached Files: 

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