Attached are the meeting notes for the Energy SWATeam meeting on 2/21/2020. The meeting focused on progress reports on members interested in drafting recommendations on behalf of the team.
Final design for the bike shelter at Flagg Hall and the IFP thereof was completed.
The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded a $3.3 million grant to a multidis- ciplinary research team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to develop a precise system for measuring greenhouse gas emissions from commercial bioenergy crops grown in central Illinois.
The three-year project through the Insti- tute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environ- ment (iSEE) is expected to reduce emissions associated with ethanol and other biofuels by enabling new technology for managing bioenergy crops, improving yield, reducing overfertilization, and designing new tools for “smart farms.” The vast data collected will be publicly available and could someday lead to financial rewards for farmers who reduce emissions through sustainable crop management. To read full article go to: https://sustainability.illinois.edu/doe-project-will-measure-bioenergy-crop-carbon-emissions/
1. Would the University be willing to convert some of their vehicle fleet to CNG? If so, how many?
a. The fleet is managed at the department/college level. Each unit purchases their own vehicles. F&S would be a prime entity willing to acquire CNG vehicles as part of a normal replacement cycle. Perhaps 8-12 vehicles annually.
2. What are the pros and cons of using CNG in campus trucks vs cars?
a. The use of CNG is more focused on how the vehicle is used rather than type. Most “cars” are used for travel out of the local area where CNG fueling would pose challenges. Most F&S “trucks” are exclusively used on campus where CNG fueling would be centralized
This week (2/10 - 2/14) I distributed the letter to the offices in the NRSC to inform them of this composting project. We hope to collect the names and contact information in order to conduct a training and inventory how many supplies are needed. I also continued working on the composting guide for future projects.
Meredith Moore also met with Shantanu Pai, Zero Waste Coordinator, to discuss formalizing our procedures for other campus entities interested in starting composting projects.
All, Business as usual last week. The Scottish dude finished his build-a-bike. He only came in, too, because his German friend did a B-a-B as well and talked it up. Nothing beats good word of mouth. He was positively giddy about the whole thing and never got discouraged or frustrated by the process. The highlight for me was bending back a canti brake boss using the hole in the end of a crescent wrench. It’s not perfect but it’s functional enough. That’d make a good motto for us.
I’ll head to the warehouse this week to grab a few more bikes. I’ll also schedule a couple training sessions with my staff to refresh on some repair basics .
The numbers:
Sales: $428.50
Bike (refurb): 1 for $180
Bike (B-a-B): 1 for $30
Memberships: 3 for $90
Tires/tubes: 4 for $17
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center
Please see attached the meeting minutes from the kickoff meeting for this project.
Attended by: Yanfeng Ouyang, Shelly Zhang, Morgan White, Stacey DeLorenzo, Sarthak Prasad, Weichen Li, Rui Feng She.
Attached are the meeting minutes from the iWG meeting on 2/17/2020. This meeting focused on discussing the resilience objectives.
The next Kent Seminar is set for Thursday, Feb. 13, from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. at the Illinois Center for Transportation, 1611 Titan Dr., Rantoul. Eleftheria Kontou will present “Data-driven modeling of electric vehicle charging pricing and worth.” Pizza and soft drinks will be provided at noon. You can also watch the seminar live via YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6ukx7meG90
1611 Titan Drive Rantoul, IL 61866
Noelle Arbulu • Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Join us for this seminar sponsored by local Master Naturalists. Scott R. Tess, the Sustainability & Resilience Officer for Urbana, will discuss City programming designed to develop local solar energy resources. Solar Urbana-Champaign is an ongoing program intended to both simplify the process and reduce the costs of purchasing and installing solar photovoltaic systems for homes and businesses.
February 17, 6:30–8 pm • U of I Extension, 801 Country Fair Dr. Champaign, IL 61821
Amanda Christenson • Cooperative Extension Service
Vision Zero is a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all. This survey is designed for the UI community to take into consideration the safety concerns of all students, faculty, and staff members. If you have any question, contact Professor Ray Benekohal at rbenekoh@illinois.edu. Use Chrome, Firefox or Opera browser.
February 7–13
Sarthak Prasad • Facilities & Services
There was a Dump & Run meeting on 2-11-2020.
The meeting agenda is attached below.
All, Really slow last week as the weather got rainy and snowy—sure fire ways to keep people off their bikes. Although a nice Scottish gentleman studying here came by to claim one of the remaining bikes as a B-a-B. He repeatedly mentioned wishing there was something like this back home in Scotland, so we’re basically cooler than Scotland.
We had our first Fix-a-Flat class on Friday but that was a no-show, sadly.
I picked up some bikes from the warehouse to keep my staff busy while we wait for the real moving to commence. We’ve built up just about every bike in the shop, save some old 3 speeds. A good amount of inventory has been boxed up and moved to the Urbana shop or stored here for use at our new space.
This week I’ll be meeting with marketing and IT folks to discuss how the new bike center will look from those respective areas.
The numbers:
Visitors: 46
Sales: $261
Bikes (B-a-B): 1 for $50
Memberships: 3 for $90
Tires/tubes: 4 for $26
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Manager, Campus Bike Center
Attended by: Sarthak Prasad (organizer, F&S), Morgan White (F&S), Stacey DeLorenzo (F&S), Marty Paulins (Parking), Gary Williamson (Parking), Bryan Johnson (Housing), Barbara Robbins (UIPD), Tara Hurless (UIPD), Jake Benjamin (Campus Bike Center), Alana Harris (called in, Campus Rec), John Lantz (called-in, Office of the Dean of Students), Ben LeRoy (City of Champaign), Lily Wilcock (City of Urbana), Jeff Yockey (Champaign County Bikes), Donna Williams (Called-in, Project 529)
Sarthak Prasad organized this meeting on January 31st from 2-3 pm to discuss Bicycle Registration using Project 529. We started off with the introductions, and Sarthak briefly explained the agenda for this meeting.
We talked about the current bicycle registration system for the University and both the cities, and the need to bring a new registration system to the university and the community. City of Urbana has a paper based bicycle registration system and City of Champaign does not currently have a bicycle registration program. We discussed the potential benfits for having Project 529 as the national bike registry vendor. Some of these benefits include:
Following this, Sarthak talked about the costs that will be incurred to bring this system, and went over the Quote (attached) with the group. We (university) have started the Purchase Order process, and is in progress. To start with, the University will pay the entire quoted amount (including the Secondary accounts) to bring the system here. Sarthak has asked the Cities to contribute the Secondary Account funds. This system will also include the Village of Savoy, but since the population is much less compared to the University and the cities, Project 529 will not charge a Secondary Account fee for Savoy. This will mean that there can be administrators from the University, Urbana, Champaign, and Savoy. These admins will have access to the program (not separarte programs for each unit).
The University is also considering adding a $10 registration fee, but we trying to get approvals on that. The funds from this registration fee will go towards the bicycle programs in the university and community. Sarthak, Morgan, and Stacey will discuss with the Cities on how to distribute the funds.
Facilites & Services Transportation Demand Management (F&S TDM) at the University is purchasing the Community Plan from Project 529, and will lead this project. We would appreciate the support from all of departments involved.
Sarthak briefly explained the implementation plan, which is to launch a Pilot program immediately after the Spring Break, look for what works and what needs work, right up a report by the end of June, and launch the program to the public starting in July 2020. Following this, Donna from Project 529 briefly explained how the system works and some of the existing features. We also discussed how to add new features as well.
In the final 15 minutes, we asked Project 529 some questions about their system.
Ben LeRoy and Lily Wilcock will get back to Sarthak Prasad about funding the Secondary Accounts fee.
Attached are the meeting minutes from the Transportation SWATeam meeting on 10 February 2020.
The agenda was as follows:
Updates
SP20 Recommendations
Teleconferencing Assessments Survey
Faculty/Staff Carpool
Attached are the meeting notes from the iWG meeting on 2/10/2020. This meeting focused on discussing the Zero Waste section of the iCAP 2020.
Attached are the meeting minutes for the Zero Waste SWATeam meeting on 7 February 2020.
The agenda was as follows:
Introductions
Updates
SP20 Timeline
Global recycling of material has been widespread throughout the world for many years as an option for source reduction, excess waste generation and materials diversion from landfills. According to recyclingtoday.com, 2019 has been a challenge for the recycling materials market as it adjusted to tightened Chinese import restrictions and U.S-China trade war issues as well as a softened domestic market that affected commodities pricing.
Going into the New Year, recyclers don’t predict any significant market changes for the first half of 2020.
Saying Goodbye to a Difficult Year-2019 has challenged the resolve of many recyclers.
https://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/2019-scrap-market-review/2019-scrap-market-review/
Hi Meredith,
Here's my update for this week:
This week I started to write a general guide on composting best practices and the implementation process for on-campus offices/departments to start a small-scale composting program similar to our own.
Next week, we will begin distributing the outreach letter informing the NSRC units of this initiative. The units in this building are being asked to contact me so we can start training the offices and so we know how many receptacles to purchase.
Hope you have a great rest of the week!
Theresa
RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the January 2020 Buyer's Share amounts by hour, totaling 2,131.5 Megawatt hours. See attached file.
