Stacey,

The air pumps are installed at both locations.  I have attached a picture

James

Dear iCAP Working Group,

First of all, I'd like to invite each of you to join us for the iCAP Forum from 1-4 pm on October 22 (Campus Sustainability Day), where the SWATeams will present their recommendations for the 2015 iCAP.  More details are appended below, along with a link to the RSVP form.  I hope you can join us!

Second, I attach the minutes from our last meeting.  I apologize for the delay in getting these to you, but iSEE has been swamped in the past few weeks as we hosted both a Congress on sustainable agriculture and a roundtable on sustainability education.  Please let us know by October 15 if you have any corrections.

Finally, I wanted to let you know that Morgan recommended separating the wind PPA process issue from the utilities master plan issue.  I took her advice, and sent the attached letter on the wind PPA process to Al Stratman today; I will follow up in ~10 days with a separate letter about the master plan.

Thanks again for your service on the working group!

Cheers,

Ben
 

Join us at iSEE’s iCAP Forum

What has the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus done to reach its Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) goals? Where have we fallen short? What’s next?

It’s time to update the iCAP, and we need input as we evaluate where we are — and where we want to be. The Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) invites you to attend a iCAP Forum from 1 to 4 p.m. Oct. 22 — Sustainability Day — in Illini Union Room 314B. The event is an opportunity for the Sustainability Working Advisory Teams (SWATeams) to seek public input on their proposed 2015 revisions to the 2010 iCAP, and for iSEE to recognize sustainability leaders on campus through the Certified Green Office Program and the Energy Conservation Incentive Program.

All faculty, staff, students and community members are invited to attend the forum and give valuable feedback to SWATeams. We need campuswide investment in the sustainability movement as we target ambitious goals here, including carbon neutrality by 2050. RSVP at http://bit.ly/1BIPn4K

Hello all, 

Here is my summary of the meeting from Thursday, October 9th.

If you believe that I should change something, please let me know and I can do so.

Thanks,

Ben Cigelnik

Japan House and the University of Illinois Arboretum request funding to provide bike racks. Although the Arboretum and Japan House are administered separately (Japan House through the College of Fine and Applied Arts, and the Arboretum through ACES, Japan House sits within the Arboretum and the two units often collaborate on projects.    There are currently no available bike racks in the 57-acre Arboretum and Japan House grounds. Japan House is the site of University classes and the Arboretum is frequently used as a resource for classes from units such as Landscape Architecture,  Crops Sciences, Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences and others. In addition, the Arboretum and the Japan House Gardens are a major recreational resource for Illinois students, faculty and staff, and yet currently, there is no bike parking or encouragement for students, faculty and staff to bike to reach these grounds. Currently, bikers are forced to lock bikes to benches, lampposts, trees, and other structures inappropriate for this use and sometimes permanently damaging to the trees or structures. The Japan House offices are located at the site and students routinely ask where they should lock up their bikes.   Funding is requested for the installation of two six-loop bike racks mounted on sufficient permeable pavement for easy access and grounds maintenance and relating biking policy signage.  

Objective 3.1 is for the SWATeam to lead an exploration of options for 100% clean energy and submit recommendations. F&S staff workload is too high to handle the exploration of options, so F&S will provide data and provide comments. Ben McCall and Scott Willenbrock will develop a plan for how to achieve carbon neutrality. They will make a document with potential options, pros, cons, and costs. 

Hi Energy Generation SWATeam,

I was looking at my records, and I came across this old biomass reference presentation.  I thought you may want to look into the current status of these projects.

Thanks,

Morgan

Good afternoon,

Yesterday afternoon, the question of how much carbon dioxide does an Enviropure unit produce was asked.  I’ve copied the information below from their website:

“According to the EPA and USCC, carbon dioxide emissions generated from the aerobic decomposition of food waste by systems such as the EnviroPure systems are considered to be “biogenic”. This means that our EnviroPure Systems and the carbon it returns to the environment are part of the natural carbon cycle and so it does not contribute to greenhouse gases and global warming.”

Please let me know if anyone has any further questions about the Enviropure units.  Also, please forward this information to other members of the swat team I may be missing.

Thank you,

Carol

Carol H. Strohbeck

Assistant Director of Dining Services, Equipment & Facilities

Dear Team:

Strategies 2 and 3 revised and attached.

After some research I find very little room for revision of the Spring revisions. Really just a minor bit of word smithing. 

We may want to explore more radical revisions but I didn’t attempt write those without group a discussion first.

~Rick Langlois