A copy of the meeting notes for the Energy Generation, Purchasing, and Distribution team meeting on Friday, November 6th. 

A copy of the meeting notes for the Energy Generation, Purchasing, and Distribution team meeting on Wednesday, October 7th. 

Mike,

     Thanks a lot for a careful reading of the draft and for the many suggestions.   I have incorporated as many of your suggestions as I could, and left out as many things you crossed out as I could.    I usually found your rewording of sentences preferable to the originals.  Below is a list of reasons for why I did not make some of your suggested changes:

1.        Opening paragraph: It is our generation of steam and electricity on campus, and our purchase of grid electricity, that releases carbon dioxide, and we should say that.   These secondary energies are used to heat and cool buildings and to provide electricity to campus, but buildings can be heated and cooled, and electricity generated, in other ways that involve much less,  little, or no carbon dioxide emissions.   So carbon dioxide emissions are not integral to heating, cooling, or electricity generation, while they are integral to burning natural gas and coal.  

2.       It is problematic to say what percentage of carbon dioxide emissions is associated with coal, natural gas, and purchased electricity.    The first problem is that we purchased RECs, and so we should subtract from the purchased electricity  the carbon emissions avoided by this purchase (even though the actual amount avoided is “zero”).   The second problem is that we sold carbon credits to Chevrolet, so we should add this back to our carbon emissions.     I don’t even want to think about how to do that.  

3.       The discussion of combined heat and power is also problematic.   I decided to give the efficiency of electricity production and steam production separately.   Combining them into a total efficiency is a common thing to do, but by doing that you are combining two very different things.    Comparing with a conventional coal-fired electric generating plant is also problematic.    Why not compare with a combined-cycle gas turbine that is 60% efficient for electricity production?

4.       To say it is a daunting task “in both scope and budget” implies that we have looked at budget figures, which is not true (yet). 

5.       I would rather not get into the details of handling energy fluctuations and storage.   These are serious issues, and they will have to be addressed eventually.   I simply put in a disclaimer sentence rather than try to deal with the issues (in part because how to deal with the issues is uncertain).

6.       I included nuclear on campus, as you suggested, although this may be out of the question.  I don't really know.     I had initially put it in, then taken it out, so what the heck.   I actually emailed the Secretary of Energy, but he never replied (surprise).

7.       iCAP has a clear (enough) definition of goals, objectives, and strategies.   I realize these words can be interpreted in different ways, but here is the iCAP definition (in my own words):

Goals: XX% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030, etc.

Objectives: Increase solar photovoltaics on campus

Strategies: Identify buildings, land, and parking lots that can support solar photovoltaics.

                 The way you have rewritten things mixes up goals and objectives.  

8.       More importantly, you are proposing that we advocate for rethinking the way the goals are defined, in terms of CO2 per enrolled student or CO2 per research dollar.  This would impact not just our group, but potentially all of the iCAP groups.   I don’t think we should be advocating for this in this document.   We were asked to set goals compared to 2008 emissions.   If you want to advocate for a different way to set goals, you will need to talk to Ben about that. 

9.       I decided not to fight the REC issue.   I don’t know why you disagree with my stance on them, but we are not going to settle this today. 

10.   I don’t want to say that geothermal and air-source heat pumps use “large” amounts of electricity.    Large compared to what?   A geothermal system with a COP for heating of 3.8 (like Ball State) powered by a 50% efficient gas turbine would have an efficiency of 190%.   Combustion of anything (coal, biomass,…) for heating can never have an efficiency greater than 100%.   In this sense the amount of electricity used is “small”.

11.   I wrote a conclusion section.

There are many other small things that I am not mentioning here.  If you or anyone else disagrees with anything in this email or the revised draft, please tell me why so we can discuss.

   Finally, let me confess that I rushed to get this out to you all today, so please forgive typos, word crimes, etc. (but do point them out to me)

                Scott

Dear Egen gang,

    Here’s a first draft of our chapter.    You can email comments or transmit them verbally at our meeting on Monday at noon, Loomis 430A as usual. 

                Scott

Egen gang,

I apologize but I am not able to make the meeting today.

I have taken a first VERY ROUGH pass at an Energy Generation document based on the document that Ben sent out this weekend, as well as the format and content of the previous report.

Please note that the targets are something that I put down to get us started thinking.  We will certainly need to review the %’s to insure they both “push the envelope”, but are also achievable.

I tried to capture all of the strategies that I recall having been discussed.

When we reach some consensus on the targets and strategies, I will be happy to help putting some of the supporting text down for review as well.

Mike Larson

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Director of Utilities Production

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