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Project Updates

  1. links for resources

    Associated Project(s): 
    Food Literacy Project
    iCAP 2020: Illinois Climate Action Plan
    Zero Waste iCAP Team

    The Zero Waste SWATeam met 10-02-2020 to discuss the iCAP 2020 objectives for Zero Waste, and one of the topics was regarding the new objective for implementing a Food Literacy Project in campus dining halls. Team members identified a few resources that could be helpful in implementing this project:

    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jiec.12923

    https://dining.harvard.edu/food-literacy-project

    "Modelling nutrient flows in a simplified local food-energy-water system": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344918300818

     

     

  2. 10/2 Transportation SWATeam Meeting

    Associated Project(s): 
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)
    iCAP 2020: Illinois Climate Action Plan
    Transportation iCAP Team

    Attached are the meeting minutes for the Transportation SWATeam Meeting on 2 October 2019.

    The items discussed were:

    • Introductions
    • Announcements
      • Sustainability Celebration Information
        • Student member involvement
      • SSC Working Group Meeting Invitation
    • Team Member Updates
      • SSC Grant Application for Abandoned Bike Path Removal
      • Bike Census 2020 Volunteers
      • CTAC Membership
    • iCAP 2020 Objectives Assessment
      • Team Members assigned objectives.
      • Deadline for member contributions is 10/9 at noon.
    Attached Files: 

  3. 10/2 Zero Waste SWATeam Meeting

    Associated Project(s): 
    Zero Waste iCAP Team
    iCAP 2020: Illinois Climate Action Plan
    Develop Sustainable Purchasing Policies

    Attached are the meeting minutes and chat log for the Zero Waste SWATeam meeting on 2 October at 4PM.

    Also attached are resources for the conversation surrounding vending machine alternatives. 

    The agenda for this meeting is as follows:

    • Introductions
    • Announcements
      • Sustainability Celebration Information
        • Student member involvement
      • SSC Working Group Meeting Invitation
    • iCAP 2020 Objectives Assessment
      • Team Members assigned objectives.
      • Deadline for member contributions is 10/9 at noon.
    • Refresher

      • America To Go Sustainability criteria

        • SWATeam can provide help in determining appropriate sustainability criteria to include.
      • Vending Machine Single Use Plastics Alternatives Discussion
        • Working through various points of consideration.
        • Tabled discussion.
    Attached Files: 

  9. Final numbers from Light the Night 2020

    Associated Project(s): 
    Light the Night

    This year, Light the Night event was hosted at three locations: Alma Mater Plaza, Hallene Gateway, and Campus Bike Center (new location). Overall, the volunteers installed bicycle lights to nearly 450 bikes at these locations.

    Leftover lights:

    Red lights: 806

    White lights: 779

    The remaining lights are stored in Room 143 at F&S. They will be distributed among the four funding agencies.

  10. Light the Night 2020 - post event meeting

    Associated Project(s): 
    Light the Night

    The Light the Night 2020 organizing team met on September 29th, 2020 to discuss the event and lessons learned. Gabe Lewis said that he was in contact with City of Urbana to publish a final report for LTN 2020 in their upcoming newsletter. Sarthak Prasad would do the final count after the meeting so that Gabe can send the report to City of Urbana.

    The team noted that there were several students who needed repairs on their bicycles, so they were given the informtion about Campus Bike Center. Jeff Yockey was also doing minor repairs at the Hallene Gatway location. Next year, we could maybe advertize the event so that those needing minor bike repairs can go to the CBC location. Jake Benjamin said that we could have a repair station at the end of the volunteer line at the CBC location for anyone needing immediate repair. We all thought it was a great idea!

    The team also noted that since the light installation took minimal time, the attendees were more interested in learning more about the bicycle information, Census, and Wellness this year. We should also have the Bike at Illinois merchandize and other handouts at the exit rather than at the entry point.

    Finally, we all thought that the presence of UIPD was very encouraging, the officers helped out a lot with handing out information, and they were happy to help!

    The event was considered a success, considering the pandemic and concerns of having a distribution event. All volunteers were very careful and abided by the Safety Plan in place and helped keep the line of attendees moving (attendees were in and out within 2 minutes).

    Stacey DeLorenzo, Chantelle Hicks, Sinead Soltis, and Sarthak Prasad took several pictures for the event and posted them to social media.

  11. Weekly Update: First week open, Light the Night

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All,

    Last week was our first full week of being open since the pandemic-induced shutdown. We are by-appointment only and making do with that. Visits, sales, and the like are—compared to normal—way down for this time of year.

    We also had Light The Night last week and hosted one of the sites here at the Bike Center. It wasn’t as great a turnout as hoped but it was a new location for LTN and it’s a pandemic. We weren’t able to do our normal word-of-mouth publicity during open hours to the degree we’re accustomed. Thankfully we got some signage up at the old garage alerting people to our new location.

     

    This week we’ll work on optimizing the scheduling system, staff meetings, and safety checking a handful of bikes.

    Visitors: 38
    Sales: $951.50
    Memberships: 1 for $30
    Bikes (refurb): 5 for $790
    Tires/tubes: 3 for $27

     

    Thanks!

    Jacob Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Manager

  12. F&S sharing SmartWay status with UIC

    Associated Project(s): 
    EPA SmartWay Affiliate

    Morgan White and Sinead Soltis met with Katherine Yoshida, the University of Illinois-Chicago's Sustainabiliy program director about our system's status of being an EPA SmartWay Affiliate. Discussion included the history of SmartWay on our campus, along with ideas of how to integrate into UIC's campus. 

    A follow up call is scheduled for the end of October. 

  13. eweek announcement

    Associated Project(s): 
    Stop Burning Coal at Abbott Power Plant

    FGI Webinar: US EPA Reconsideration of Coal Combustion Residual Regulation

    This webinar will discuss a series of proposed & finalized amendments to rules promulgated by the US EPA to the Coal Combustion Residuals Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Rule.  This presentation will summarize the analysis from EPA’s Composite Model for Leachate Migration with Transformation Products and contextualize that output with the USWAG Decision and the 2020 Rulemaking efforts.

    October 8, 11 am–12 pm • Map

    Jen Miller • Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

  14. The Day After Tomorrow: Cycling Through Urbana’s U-Cycle Program with Courtney Kwong

    Associated Project(s): 
    Climate Justice Forum - 2020 [ARCHIVED]

    The Youth Climate Justice Forum presents this podcast series in which we will be trying to find ways for all of us to continue to work for climate justice during and after the coronavirus crisis. This week, Kaia and Theo interview Courtney Kwong, the Recycling Coordinator at U-Cycle, about waste management, COVID-19, and the difference Urbana’s community has already made on the environment.

    https://youthclimateforum.wixsite.com/summit/podcast/episode/221f2e53/th...

     

  15. Senior project about Deep Direct Use (DDU) geothermal

    Associated Project(s): 
    Geothermal on Campus
    Independent Student Projects

    Lauren Kumle, Tess Sobol, Jaboc Heglund, and Tommy Robey in CEE 493 - Sustainable Design Engineering Technology worked with Dr. Andy Stumpf in Fall 2020 on a Deep Direct Use (DDU) geothermal proposal for north campus.

    Dr. Stumpf provided this information to the team in September:

    If your team is interested, you might consider a different technology for geothermal energy at Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory. Specifically a deep direct-use (DDU) geothermal energy system (GES). I suggest this because I am not certain there is enough ground space at Newmark for a geothermal borefield like at CIF. The advantages of DDU GES is it requires fewer wells, and there would be enough thermal energy extracted to condition space in multiple buildings. Essentially, the DDU GES comprises extraction and injection wells (likely 2 of each needed) to access geothermal fluids (brine) from deeper bedrock formations. Under campus, one of the potential bedrock formations, the St. Peter Sandstone, lies at ~2,000 feet depth and contains an abundant amount of fluid at 78-82°F. When I last talked to Professor Liang Liu (who recently retired from College of Engineering), he was very interested in a study for DDU GES for the Engineering quad (south of Grainger library). So I think your findings from this type of system would be timely and more likely to be implemented.

     

    My colleagues and I just completed a feasibility study of DDU GES for six agricultural research facilities on the South Farms (see summary paper attached).

    The focus was on the deeper Mt. Simon Sandstone (lying at >6000 feet depth) because we were interested in extracting the hottest brine (110-130°F) since some of the farms needed to make hot water. They are not connected to the steam and hot/cold water energy system servicing the main part of campus, so propane and natural gas are the primary fuels. However, the St. Peter Sandstone would be an alternative… and this formation is also being considered for cooling buildings.

     

    If you are interested in looking at DDU for the Newmark site, I can share the report with you. It should contain much of the information you need. Some of colleagues can help you with the life cycle costs and mechanical energy system analyses. Completing this project would also help researchers on campus compete for funding from DOE to complete tests wells which will be needed to validate your findings. DOE is very interested in developing DDU GES in non-volcanic areas of the US, especially for district-energy systems. Cornell University just received funding from DOE for a test well to develop a DDU GES on their campus, but they will most likely have to drill >15,000 feet into the Precambrian granite develop the system. They are looking to generate electricity with very hot water. https://eos.org/science-updates/exploring-by-boring-geothermal-wells-as-research-tools.

     

    Doing a rough calculation, I think constructing a DDU GES would be of similar cost to a shallow borefield with 50-100 wells. The DDU GES would be much more efficient since you are directly using the heated brine and not trying to conduct heat in the ground. The payback period would be much quicker since it will be servicing more than one building.

     On 9/25/2020, Lauren, Tommy, and Jacob met with Dr. Stumpf.  He provided the following update:

    I had a meeting with Lauren Jacob and Tommy today about their design project. I suggested they look at a DDU system that would heat/cool 4 buildings (Newmark, DCL, Uni High, and Siebel Center). I guess the number of buildings will depend on the amount of energy that can be extracted from the geothermal reservoir. I also suggested they look at the shallowest reservoir, the St. Peter Sandstone. As part of their analysis, they indicated there is a need for building level energy use data.

  16. Solar Farm 2.0 construction update from Sushanth Girini at F&S

    Associated Project(s): 
    Solar Farm 2.0

    The Solar Farm 2.0 construction is on schedule to be in service by 1/28/2021. Currently the project is installing approximately 4,400 posts in ground for the panel foundations. One of key objectives is to complete the Golden Row* by end of this month. Once the golden row is completed, inspected, and approved, the construction will be in full force to reach completion. The university is scheduled to perform routine inspections and capture all the underground equipment GPS points for reference. A recycling plan is in place, and the project is coordinating with F&S Transportation to collect the recyclable waste. The installation of a utility switch on the east side of the farm is complete.

    Procurement: We have received all the racking equipment and about 80% of the solar panel on site. Transformers and inverters are scheduled to be delivered by end of Oct 2020.

    ~by Sushanth Girini, management engineer at F&S Utilities and Energy Services

     

    * Golden Row - is a single row of solar panel constructed by the construction crew. Once the project make sure all the connections are good and row is as per design, it gets approved. It's like a start of what's coming. Like a movie trailer!

  17. Final Check

    Associated Project(s): 
    Light the Night

    On September 18th, the organizing team met to finalize the tasks before the event. We discussed the bike rack on bus demonstration, volunteer update, and some remaining tasks in the to-do list in the LTN google drive. We decided to meet once more before the meeting on Wednesday.

    Confirmed 37 Volunteer  submissions, 6 police officers will be present for the duration of the event (2 at each location), and 2 Wellness Ambassadors at each locations to talk about the current situation and the need for precaution (they will also handout safety information packets including masks). Gabe confirmed that 2 representatives from Census 2020 could join each location as well.

    Campus Rec and iSEE will provide some water bottles to be handed out to the volunteers who dont have one. DIA will provide 6 Gatorade containers for water refills for volunteers only. Stacey and Sarthak will fill them up with ice and water and deliver them to the three locations.

    We discussed the table setup, how to organize the lines, and the assignments for the volunteers. All volunteers were sent the Safety Plan and Warning and Waiver Form on Wednesday, September 23, 2020. Sarthak and Stacey will drop off the lights and merchandize at each location by 3 pm.

    All tables and chairs will be delivered by 3 pm. Sarthak and Stacey will arrange the tables at 3 pm at Hallene Gateway and Alma Mater location. Sarthak will print out numbers for each table/volunteer station, list of volunteers for each location, etc.

  19. Design Constraint discussion with F&S and Researchers

    Associated Project(s): 
    Adaptive Aluminum Tensegrity Structure as a Bike Parking Canopy

    F&S staff met with the researchers to discuss the design constraints for installing the tensengrity structure for bike parking at Newmark Civil Engineering Lab (NCEL).  Dr. Ann Scychterz and Dr. Nishant Garg at CEE met with Stacey DeLorenzo, Brent, Lewis, Sarthak Prasad, and Morgan White from F&S on 9/22/2020. We discussed a few design constraints, such as staying out of the tree lines and height requirements for the proposed structure.  We also discussed the potential lifetime of the structure, various design shape options that may be incorporated, material selections, and maintenance plans.  The faculty will contact F&S again in early December.

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