Final Waste Stream Characterization Study of Swanlund Administration Building, Henry Administration Building, the Illini Union Bookstore, and the Alice Campbell Alumni Center.

Dear SWATeam Members,

First of all, thank you so much for the very thoughtful input for the revised Illinois Climate Action Plan!  The iCAP Working Group is currently in the process of folding everything together into a consistent format, and reviewing the recommendations.  Our hope is that by the 21st or shortly thereafter, we will have a fairly complete draft to circulate to you for your feedback.  We'll need to ask you for a quick review, as we will be presenting the next draft to the Sustainability Council on December 8th for their comments. [We will hold a public comment period in January, and then we are targeting Sustainability Council approval in March, and Chancellor approval in April.]

Second, I wanted to encourage your teams (if you have not already done so) to begin whatever process you think makes sense for constituting your Consultation Groups.  I know that at least one team (Energy Generation) has begun this process, but I suspect others have not, since we've been receiving inquiries from interested participants wondering when they will be contacted.

Third, I'd like to remind you that in some sense the work of the SWATeams is just beginning...we are counting on your teams to make specific recommendations for new policies or actions that campus units should be undertaking to meet our iCAP goals.  I attach the template that should be used for these recommendations; completed templates can be submitted to me via email at any time.  Please bear in mind that formal SWATeam recommendations are public documents that will be posted on the iSEE website.

Thanks again for all of your help in making our campus more sustainable!

Cheers,

Ben

Dear Energy Enthusiasts,

Thanks to all who attended the first Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) biomass meeting, we are off with a strong start. This week we we will have the second consultation group meeting to carry on discussion and orient goals toward improving sustainability on campus. 

Dong Kook will present on the most recent publications from the research group of Praveen Kumar in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. His topic for discussion will be Threshold Dynamics in Soil Carbon Storage for Bioenergy Crops. Click (here) to become familiar with their group's work.   

We are gathering all interested persons to discuss the possibilities for a large-scale biomass facility that could eventually replace Abbott Power Plant. All ideas are welcome. Please pass this invitation on to anyone you think might be interested.

Meeting details:

Time: Tuesday, November 18 from 1:00pm-2:30pm

Location: iSEE Conference room #358

                 National Soybean Research Center (directions here)

                 1101 W. Peabody Drive

                 Urbana, IL 61801

Thanks and have a great weekend.

Nathan Wells

I have realigned the way we account for projects in AiM, so each RLF will need to have a specific  AiM account number that maps to a banner plant fund.  As soon as I can transfer the open work orders off of MY862-Revolving Loan Fund, I will inactivate that account number.

So, each new RLF project will need a Banner Plant Account number (I obtain) and a new AiM account number (mee, too.) then I will let the PM know so he/she can set up work orders.  This way, it keeps project costs segregated.  Putting it all into one account like I did initially dumps all project costs into one AiM account making it hard to keep the expenditures separate.  - Mike

Colleagues, I wanted to remind you of the upcoming webinar, Tuesday, November 18 from 2-3 pm providing an overview of the State Electronics Challenge (SEC). Register at https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/414238999. See the forwarded invitation below for further details.

I’ve mentioned this free, voluntary program for public entities and non-profits at previous UI Sustainable Electronics Campus Consortium meetings, and the benefits of participation. If you’d like to learn more, I encourage you to attend the webinar, and in the meantime, visit http://www.stateelectronicschallenge.net/. ISTC is a SEC partner, as is Engineering IT Shared Services. Currently there are only seven organizations within IL taking advantage of this program. I’d love to see that number grow!

The webinar will be archived and available for later viewing at www.glrppr.org if you are unable to attend.

Best wishes,

Joy

Joy Scrogum

Emerging Technologies Resource Specialist

Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC; www.istc.illinois.edu)

Coordinator, Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI; www.sustainelectronics.illinois.edu)

Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable (GLRPPR; www.glrppr.org)

ISTC is a Division of the Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

217-333-8948; 1 Hazelwood Drive, Champaign, IL 61820; MC-676

Hi Ben,

Thanks for your letter from the iWG about the Utilities Master Plan (attached for reference). 

F&S shares the iWG’s concerns with the slow pace of getting an acceptable draft product from AEI.  This has taken much longer than the original goal of completion; however, it is important to have an accurate and good quality report even if it takes longer than planned.  The scope of this study was developed in cooperation with the Office of Sustainability, and approved by FY12 Acting Director of the Office of Sustainability, Associate Chancellor Pradeep Khanna.  It is attached here for your records, as well as the executed contract.

It has always been our intention to share the draft report with campus stakeholders, especially those participating in campus sustainability efforts.  Once we get an acceptable product, we will share it with the SWATeam and iWG for feedback.  At this time, we expect to have a draft ready to share later this month. 

Thanks,

Morgan

From: Kyung, Grace H
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2014 3:34 AM
Subject: Video Conferencing Info

Attached is a description of what teleconferencing is, resources available and why people should are. Also, attached is a broken down excel graphs of current uses of teleconferencing. Below are questions I asked someone at CITES to help me understand the graphs.

Let me know if you need anything else!

----

1. I was wondering though where these numbers are coming from and if it’s for everyone at the university?

These numbers come from the built-in reporting service that is part of Microsoft Lync Server. The numbers are inclusive of all Lync users on campus, but keep in mind that undergraduate students and graduate students without appointments do not get Lync accounts. So these numbers don’t include everyone on campus, but do include all faculty, staff, professional students (e.g. vet med, law), and graduate students with appointments. In addition there are about 1,700 “common area phones” which would include the phones in many conference rooms and the courtesy phones that you might see in the dorms. The latter devices are never used for conferencing.

1. Are the total A/V conferences out of the total conferences or are they additional?

There is a difference between the field called “Total Conferences” and “Total A/V Conferences”. Total A/V only counts conferences where either the audio (phone) or video components of the conference are used. Total Conferences includes the Total A/V conferences plus any other conferences where audio and video were not used. The conferences without A/V could include a chat window with multiple people, it could be screen or application sharing, or it could be using the whiteboard feature of Lync. Let me know if this doesn’t make sense. At the bottom of this pagethere are definitions of the fields that are used in the Excel spreadsheet.

1. What does total unique conference organizers mean?

A "unique” organizer is anyone who schedules at least one conference. For example, if Pilar Ackerman schedules one conference she counts as one unique organizer. If Ken Myer schedules 148 conferences he, too counts as one unique organizer.

--

Grace Kyung, MPH

Sustainable Transportation Intern

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment

College of Fine and Applied Arts | Master of Urban Planning Candidate 2015

University policies about sustainable purchasing are derived from state requirements. https://www.procure.stateuniv.state.il.us/dsp_procurerules.cfm  check Article 45, section 45-15 onward.

http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=5a5fde07df8c393e84b11ff8e&id=464df81...

We're very excited to be working with 1 intern from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. If you're interested in learning more about the program or connecting with the myActions intern on your campus, please let me know.

Thank you for your consideration,
Kristine Sturgeon
President, myActions.org

myActions on Campus | Learn more

Stakeholders were asked about what they thought went well and what they thought should be improved if attempted again next year.  These are the responses, broken down by topic.

From: Jessica Mondello [ecoolympics@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2014 12:09 AM
Cc: Aj Unander USGBC; Yeung, Brian Silu; Alston, Brianna Rachelle; McConnell, Claire Ellen; Saerang, Estherlita Angelica; Canteiro Reis Sobral, Francisco; Kim, Christine H; Mondello, Jessica Rae; Ross, Karoline Jeanne; Kyle Solner USGBC; Filipiuk, Magdalena; Nishant Makhijani USGBC; Foote, Gerard Paul; Jacoby, Rachel Aryn; Sun, Siyang; Johnson, Rory M
Subject: Meeting Recap

Hello Eco-Olympics team,

This will be a bit of repeat from the last email, but just bare with me:

COMPETITION DATE

• February 22nd - March 14th

ADDITIONAL UPDATES

• Amber Flight is another potential band to play for our benefit concert
• Engineering Council is another source to look at for funding
• We're looking for an RSO that advertises/markets other RSOs, we were having trouble coming up with a name for them

WHAT TO WORK ON

• Build Eco-Olympics organizational team
• Continue recruiting persons or RSO's

Attached below is a document explaining the responsibilities of each member of the organization team. It also has some other useful information about the competition. If you have any confusions what so ever, please ask me!

Have a lovely week,

Jessica Mondello

Eco-Olympics | President

Email: ecoolympics@gmail.com

 Responsibilities of Organizational Team, CCN 2015

​

Dear Al,

I am writing with another request (see attached) from the iCAP Working Group, but I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank you and Kent for arranging to have an iWG representative on the selection panel for the wind PPA RFP.  I sincerely hope that our input will be helpful, and I look forward to working with that team!

Cheers,

Ben

The Game Day Challenge people have released a half-time report.  Two Big Ten teams have reported as of this report, MN had a diversion rate of 81% and Purdue had 27%.  We were a little over 60%.

http://gamedaychallenge.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Halftime-Update2.pdf

Dear SWATeams,

The iCAP Drafting Committee is now in the process of synthesizing your chapters into a complete draft of the 2015 iCAP for review by the iCAP Working Group.  Once the iWG has reviewed it, we will share it with all of you to get your feedback as well.

If you have any further edits to your draft chapters, please submit them by the end of the day on Thursday.  Of course we would welcome additional comments after that deadline if your teams garner new insights, but those should be submitted as separate lists of bulleted comments rather than incorporated into your chapter (where they might get lost in our editing process).

Thanks for all of your hard work!

Cheers,

Ben

Work Request 163801 converted to Work Order 10329198

Work Order: 10329198

Building: 0206 - ILLINOIS SUSTAINABILITY TECHNOLOGY CNTR

Room:

Department Reference: SSC Quad Recycl

Customer Description:

Shop - Painting & Signs:

Per conversations between Bart Bartels, David Middleton (Paint Shop Foreman), & Sean Cassidy (Sign Shop) - Sandblast and prep trash bin lids from Quad (40) and recently purchased trash bins (20); Add new vinyl lettering signs to prepared trash bin lids (Bart will work with you on the design and wording).

Rough estimate provided to Bart - $3000 for sandblasting & painting; $1500 for new signage.

Phases:

Phase: 001 PAINTERS

Phase: 002 SIGN SHOP

Dear Colleagues

On your behalf I am pleased to submit our final Transportation ICAP report 

Thanks for all your hard work.

I will work on getting us together again soon

Have a happy halloween :-)

Wojtek

Energy Conservation & Building Standards

In attendance:

• Shadi Sherafat
• Claire McConnell
• Dhara Patel
• Karl Helmink
• Scott Willenbrock

Discussion points:

• Forming the consultation group
• Formatting of iCAP:  goals—objectives—strategies
• Objectives are the things that we hold ourselves accountable for
  
  • Goals are all supposed to be directly connected to emissions
  • Strategies help achieve objectives
• Objective of zero new growth
• Use of ENERGY STAR as a strategy

Notes:

• First draft of ECBS recommendations due early next week
• Work on forming Consultation Group

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