Dear Transportation SWATeam,

After extensive discussions with experts at University Payables, we have come to the conclusion that the apparent increase in air travel emissions in recent years may be due to the fact that the new TEM system more accurately captures air travel purchases than the previous systems did.  Payables is confident that the numbers for FY14 are accurate, but really does not have confidence in the earlier numbers because air travel was often reimbursed to travelers together with other travel expenses and may not have been captured in previous reports.

My recommendation for the iCAP would therefore be to de-emphasize the apparent increase in air travel emissions, and instead explain that the new TEM system has greatly improved our ability to quantify these emissions.  Perhaps our objectives in the air travel arena should be formulated relative to a new FY14 baseline.

Cheers,

Ben
 

Dear Transportation SWATeam,

Morgan and I had a very nice discussion with Pam Voitik at F&S late last week, and I wanted to brief you on some of the key points as they relate to the iCAP revisions.

1) F&S is in favor of hiring a full-time "Active Transportation Coordinator," and having that person report to the Transportation Demand Management Coordinator (Stacey DeLorenzo).  "Active Transportation" (as you probably all know, but I didn't!) is industry lingo for all transportation except single-occupancy-vehicles.  So this person would be responsible for mode shift, the Bike Plan, and so forth...basically the last two bullet points in item #6 on page 30 of the current draft.

2) Pete Varney and his team would be the sensible locus for efforts related to shifting the fleet more towards EVs and bicycles, and exploring renewable fuels for the fleet.  [The second and third bullet points in item #6 on page 30.]

3) The first bullet point, about air travel, is outside of the scope of F&S, and should perhaps be a focus of iSEE or another entity in the domain of the Chancellor or Vice Chancellors.

4) The Campus Bicycle Plan is essentially finalized now, but F&S is working on ascertaining exactly what entity should formally approve it. 

Pam's suggestion is that it should be approved by the campus leadership (rather than by F&S), but the responsibility for implementing it should be with F&S.  This would give the Plan more authority/heft than if it were approved by F&S alone. There is reason to hope that this approval will be finalized before the iCAP.

Cheers,

Ben

Dear Transportation SWATeam,  [Sorry for the barrage of emails...this is the last one for this morning!]

I met with Michelle Wahl from Parking late last week, and she had some very useful comments on the iCAP draft that I thought I should share with you:

1) She mentioned that in years past, she used to receive "idling reports" on her vehicles, which must have been equipped with some sort of system that tracked when the vehicles were idling.  This raised the question of whether such technology could be deployed widely on our fleet, rather than focusing only on "class 6 and above trucks" (neither of us knew exactly what that means).

2) She was concerned about the financial aspects of providing additional opportunities for people to purchase less than full-time parking privileges in lots with wait lists...this is probably something that deserves further discussion.  If Parking allows someone to drop their full-time parking pass for a particular lot and instead purchase less than full-time for the same spot, their revenue will decrease.  This is concerning because Parking is legally required to be self-supporting -- they cannot receive any subsidy from campus, nor can they make a profit.

3) She recommended adding a recommendation that parking rates be increased to provide a dis-incentive for single-occupancy vehicle use. 

This would also be essential if the number of parking permits sold were to decrease, as Parking's costs are essentially fixed. Raising rates would be a challenge because they are subject to collective bargaining, but it has been successfully done on other campuses (including UIC). 

Having an explicit call for this in the iCAP might help provide ammunition for such efforts.

4) She recommended some investigation of the subsidy that Parking currently provides to MTD.  At present, Parking pays over $500K per year for this, ostensibly to support the buses that run to the "shuttle lot" (E-14, I think).  But this amount greatly exceeds the total revenue that Parking receives from selling permits in the shuttle lot.  She thought it was worth making sure that the amount Parking is contributing towards the MTD is the appropriate amount, because any funds that could be "saved" there could be directed towards other sustainability-related initiatives within Parking.

5) She pointed out that there are now 18 "Level 1" charging stations for electric vehicles on campus, and Parking has plans to install some "Level 2" charging stations in 2015.  She thought it might be worth showcasing this work on page 29 of the current draft, and I am inclined to agree.

Cheers,

Ben

Dear Tim,

Some bad news to report.  The Revolving Loan Fund committee elected to defer consideration of the funding for the biomass boiler, because they were concerned that the operational and maintenance issues were not yet worked out.  This is not as bad of news as I first thought, because the RLF process is going to be revamped in the spring to be more of a "rolling deadline" process, so we should be able to go back to them sometime in the spring and get a quick response.

Given the delay in RLF funding, it seems to make sense to delay our proposal to ICECF until July.  Another important consideration here is that the North Campus Parking Deck Solar project is evidently going to apply to ICECF in January, and there is at least some concern about submitting two proposals from campus in the same round.  Yet another consideration is that upon reviewing the ICECF form, we noticed that they are looking for a well-developed educational plan...and we have not really spent any time working on that.

So I'm afraid we are in a bit of limbo here, until we get the O&M issues resolved and the MOU with F&S finalized. Hopefully we can tackle that in January, so that we're ready to go back to RLF as soon as their process re-opens.

At least we've finally made great headway on the engineering work, and will have some real budgetary numbers to work with soon...!

Cheers,

Ben

In 2007 the consumption per square foot of conditioned space was 312.3 kBtu/GSF.  That number was lowered down to 244.2 kBtu/GSF in 2014, primarily due to energy conservation and retro-commissioning efforts on campus.

The attached link provide a pretty good summary of a typical reheat system used in buildings.

http://www.mge.com/images/PDF/Brochures/business/ReheatSystemForCommercialBuildingsFactSheet.pdf

http://news.illinois.edu/news/14/1002soil_carbon_PraveenKumar.html

I had some time this morning and did a super rough estimate of the number of waste bin on campus.  This is a simple extrapolation from the bins per square foot in the waste audits that ISTC did.  For larger size recycling bins, an extremely rough estimate comes to about 8800 landfill and recycling bins in campus buildings. - Morgan

To fund solar panels, there could be a Solar Donor program.  Tom Abram, previous F&S Sustainability Coordinator, wrote about the concept in 2009 (see file).

Congzhu Ruan's report on Climate Change issues - part one.  Part two will be produced in Spring 2015.  She said, "Here is the draft of the report,it basically covers all the points but I plan to do some editing (to correct typos and grammar if there's some, perhaps add some new points if I find some!) this winter to make it better."

It was a really pleasant experience working with you and Ethel. I appreciate your guide and assistance during the whole semester and I am looking forward to working with you again in the future.

Early wish for Christmas!

Sicong

Dear Swat team:

Attached is the chapter on Agriculture, Land Use, Food, and Sequestration (ALUFS) that is part of the draft 2015 iCAP compilation.  The whole document is about 70 pages and covers all areas of campus energy; I would be happy to forward it to you if you need something to read over Christmas.  Our chapter, however, is our immediate concern.  I ask each of you to review it with the idea that it can be edited, changed, as the final report will not be completed until March with the Chancellor to sign the final plan in April.  So, there is time but the review process is extensive, and we’re the first step.  

I would like to meet next Friday, the 19th, to discuss this chapter and our suggestion for revisions.  I know this a busy time and some of you may not be available, but rather than the whole doddle poll thing, just send me your availability for Friday Dec. 19th by tomorrow, and I’ll pick at time that is most convenient.  

Let me know if you have any questions.

Best,

Bruce

Dear SWATeam Members,

Attached please find what we're calling version 2 of the 2015 iCAP. This is a mostly complete document that represents a synthesis of all of your teams' contributions into a consistent format, together with some additions from the iCAP Working Group and its subcommittee the iCAP Drafting Committee.

We'd like to ask each of you to read through the entire document -- both so you have a good sense of the context your chapter is placed in, and also because you may well spot problems in other chapters. Please send any comments on other chapters to the relevant SWATeam (email addresses can be found in the headers of this message), or to me for chapters 1, 2, and 9.

We ask that each of your SWATeams discuss your chapters amongst yourselves, with any other relevant stakeholders on campus (for example, units that would be impacted by the recommendations), and also with your consultation group members (or folks who volunteered to serve on your consultation group).  Please especially note the comments and questions from iWG members and others that are noted in the file.  You should feel free to correct any errors we have introduced, and re-insert any important points we might have inadvertently omitted.  Please also take this opportunity to improve the flow of the language where needed, as we have not attempted to polish the language.

For consistency, please continue to use active verbs and "should"-type language for Objectives [which represent the items campus will hold itself accountable for], and use "could"-type language for Potential Strategies [which are to be considered as possible ways to meet the objectives, not as objectives themselves].

Finally, and this is a big one, we'd like to ask you to provide within your chapter a cost estimate for each recommendation, along with the estimated payback (if any) in either financial or emissions terms. 

These numbers, even if they are rough, will be incredibly useful to the Sustainability Council in evaluating the overall cost commitment of this plan, and also to iSEE and the administration as we prioritize campus efforts in response to the plan.  If there are certain things you need help in generating estimates for, please let me know and I'll try to get you in touch with folks who may be able to help.

We realize we are asking for a lot, and the timeline is also fairly short.  We really need to receive your revised chapters by January 24, so that they can be reviewed by the iCAP Working Group in time to go out for public comment in February.  That, in turn, is necessary so that we can secure Sustainability Council approval in March, and have the iCAP signed by the Chancellor before Earth Day.

We can discuss all of this in detail on Thursday morning, but I hope you'll have a chance to read through the document beforehand.

Thanks so much for all you have already done, and all you are doing to shape the future of our campus!

Cheers,

Ben

<<link to draft file>>

P.S. Yesterday we had the first meeting of the Sustainability Council (with the Chancellor, Vice Chancellors, Deans, et al.) and we received very good feedback on the work that you've all been doing!

--

Professor Benjamin J. McCall

Associate Director for Campus Sustainability Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus-sustainability@illinois.edu

Hello Big Ten Unplugged!

I registered our group today with the following schools and tentative dates:

• UNL - Nebraska tentative dates are Feb 25 - Mar 17
• Penn State tentative dates are Mar 16 - Apr 6
• University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign tentative dates are Feb 21 - Mar 14
• U of Minn - Twin Cities tentative dates Feb 23 - Mar 16    
• Ohio State University Feb 16 - Mar 9
• Michigan State University Feb 2-23

We're good to go but still on the lookout for a traveling trophy. If you happen to have something we could use, please let me know. 

Best of luck in your competition and we'll reconnect in early May when the winners are announced. 

Best,

Stacey White
Sustainability Coordinator

University Services

University of Minnesota

Office: 612-624-3285

See file.

iCAP Working Group

Thursday, December 4, 2014

358 NSRC, 1:30-3:00 pm

1. Update on Wind RFP ; Recommendation to Sustainability Council?
2. Update on AEI Utilities Master Plan report
3. 2015 iCAP Revisions
   1. Timeline
   2. Discussion of goals and objectives
   3. Requests for SWATeams
4. Scheduling Spring meetings
   1. Proposed: 1/15, 1/29, 3/12, 4/9, 5/7
5. Other business