On November 16, UIUC sustainability representatives met with Coca-Cola and discussed the following:

Attendance: Liz Doeschot, Sarah Carten, Bryan Johnson, Shawn Patterson, Meredith Moore, Jen Fraterrigo, Marian, Shreya Mahajan

• Debrief after the 11/14 zero waste game:
  • Shift based system for volunteers would work better: keeps the shifts shorter, more engaged volunteers, allows us to focus on specific roles at specific points.
  • Blue bags could be saved back until closer to half-time when things pick up (was a slow start, so it would be wiser to put these folks in other roles during the earlier part of the game).
  • Offer free ticket, so students could enjoy game either first or second half before or after their shift (incentive).
  • Bin placement - think about what works for SFC best (more permanent vs more moveable).
  • Get sustainability trivia announced during the pre-game, so it’s brought to everyone’s attention.
  • People loved the shirts, loved the tote bags.
  • Lots of positive feedback, there was a post-event survey sent out (Marty may have updates next week on responses to this).
  • Reach out to concessionaire about how many Coca-Cola products are sold vs recycled.
  • weight empty bottle to make the transition between number of bottles sold vs weight we gather at the Waste Transfer Station (would be an estimate with upper and lower bounds).
• Recycling Value Assessment by Circular Solutions
  • Get phone call done after Thanksgiving / in December.
  • Audit done sometime next year.

Below is an email from Sebestiano Geirdinella:

Hi Rob, Mike, Morgan,

I know that winter has just arrived so you must be having your hands full, but I wanted to contact you as there is now a DOE call for proposals for Long Duration Energy Storage Demos.

The Demo favors teams composed of industry / commercial partners with academic institutions. Pressure Corp has manifested their continued willingness to serve as commercial / industrial partner.

If our proposal is successful, it would allow us to consider other aspects to the project that would otherwise be too expensive to include into commercial contract without partial federal funding, such as: a) waste heat recovery from Abbott Power Plant, b) an alternate arrangement that includes providing cooling using the expander colder gas exhaust during summer, and c) including the expander at Curtis Road pressure regulation station (it could cover the roughly 3000 ft of electrical interconnection).

As part of the proposal preparation process, we feel it might have value to organize a visit to Abbott Power Plant with Pressure Corp, with the purpose of discussing technical, contractual and sustainability aspects relevant to the Compressed Natural Gas Energy Storage demonstration project:

1. Technical aspects:
   
   1. Visit the locations
   2. Look for potential tie-ins for waste heat (example: boiler blowdown, steam traps, or flue gas connections that would not be used after the capture pilot projects have been closed).
   3. Look for potential uses for cooling (example: electrical or control rooms, heat rejection from rotating equipment, etc.)

1. Contractual aspects:
   
   1. Discuss potential PPA general terms (for the Demos FOA, this would be of great help to assess economics and justify commercial potential; ideally this meeting could be with PEI).

1. Sustainability aspects:
   
   1. Talk about how project integrates into iCAP (Pressure Corp wanted also to ask about potential benefits that the project may have on UIUC’s STARS rating).

It would be ideal to schedule the visit within the next couple of weeks, since we need to submit a Letter of Intent for DOE by the second week of December, but we are subject to your availability.

Please let us know if you have preferred dates.

Thanks and regards,

SEBASTIANO GIARDINELLA

Below is an email exchange between Morgan White and Karl Helmink:

Hi folks,

I’ve revised the energy slides for the sub-council meeting next week, per discussion with Jen and Madhu (and a quick check in with Rob).  Please see attached and let me know if the energy slides look good to you.

Thanks,

Morgan

---------------------------------

Morgan,

Looks good.  I’d suggest that we need to get more proactive about campus space items.  We need to know where we have underutilized space like on the South end of Freer, Plant Sciences building, NRSA Annex greenhouse, ..etc. This probably exists more so on the South end of campus.  It would be nice for departments to let us know where fume hoods are no longer needed when faculty retire ..etc.   Departments tend to hang onto to space, generally speaking,  for just in case future events or faculty hires.   What about the new budget model??   This probably needs to be discussed more.  

Thanks,

Karl

Attendance: Tyler Swanson, Daphne Hulse, Meredith Moore, Sarthak Prasad, Shawn Maurer, Joy Scrogum, Justin Holding, Paul Foote, Shreya Mahajan, Brent Lewis, Jason Ensign, Tim Mies, Colleen Ruhter, Jonathon Mosley, Marcello, Thurman Etchison, Morgan White, Damon McFall, Robert Roman

• UIC would like to do a screening analysis scenario for a small or micro-scale digester on campus
• UIUC farms investigated this in the past with ACES
• Marcello’s introduction: 200lbs of waste per day in a small-scale digester (in the shape of the container), frequent bottom-line thinking, it’s more about sustainability and the creation of green jobs, involving students, because the economics may be tight for money savings. But there are a few companies that are manufacturing small scale digesters. UIC had a speaker during their TEACH AD webinar who was a student from San Diego California. Installed one of these on their campus, student was the operator of the digester. Interested to see if this is something to be replicated at UIUC?
• Morgan’s introduction: high-level feasibility analysis (not the most robust because of funding limitations). Hear from the college of ACES about a study of 10 years ago.
• Marcello thinks the outcomes weren’t very favorable for this time? This is another possible scenario too. University of Wisconsin Oshkosh is doing something similar. They are partnering with a farm which installed a small-scale digester in the farm for food waste and manure. The university owns the digester and the farmer owns the farmer, so it is a partnership. Maybe we could replicate this. These projects seem to become more and more feasible.
• Marcello’s question for the group: what are the main motivations for UIUC to look into anaerobic digesters?

• Reducing waste, looking at clean energy, protecting the planet
• Do not have an environmentally beneficial or neutral solution for organic waste at the large scale for our campus. Dining is able to do the digester at the sanitary district, but we have animal waste and food waste at more than just the dining halls
• Looking at how to get to carbon neutral energy. Anaerobic digestion was identified in 2010. Dean of Animal Science was ready to push for it, but then he was promoted and then retired
• ACES has agreed with current dean to include the analysis of a large scale digester when they build a new dairy facility, but this is very far down the road
• Swine modernization facility; needs to deal with waste that is there. animals will be added to this space in the future. looking into options for that particular facility.
• Operational + research perspective, a micro-digester looks nice. Oshkosh does tours, internships, etc so it is like a pilot project to demonstrate the feasibility of the technology
• Sanitary district is paid to receive the waste, and they get the benefit of seeing the methane capture
  • It would be good to see the benefits stay in house
• Hypothetically you could create a new position for this, or you could do it through student intern. What happens to the residual material from the digester? can be used as fertilizer, grow food, use the food and food waste goes back to the digester “circular economy”

Marcello’s second question: Takeaway for the old feasibility study?

• It should be at the future dairy facility (conversations were had, maybe not in the study)
• $10M capital cost, so it probably costs more now
• Shared the energy output we would expect if we took all food waste from dining
• Could use as compressed natural gas (CNG) for fleet vehicles
• Combined heat and power (Abbott) which primarily uses natural gas, but could use biogas from an anaerobic digester, there is an opportunity here

CHP, CNG or renewable natural gas are what Marcello is familiar with

Next steps: Marcello will work on an updated feasibility study.

Link to the recording