Discussions and dialogue among the community of students, staff, and faculty at UW-Eau Claire working on the 2nd campus greenhouse gas emissions inventory: Carbon Neutral Team 2010.
I went on the Civil Rights Pilgrimage over spring break and one of our stops was the Heifer International Building, one of the most sustainable buildings I've ever seen in my life. I've been meaning to upload these pictures for a little while. Basically they built the building extremely narrow so that natural light could be use to light the majority of the building. Similarly, the LED lights used to light the areas of the building that do not receive enough natural light sense how much light is in the room and become correspondingly more or less dim to save energy. They also collect rainwater to use in toilets, etc. where they don't need actual city water to save water resources. They have their heating vents in the floor to allow for more efficient heating and cooling. The carpeting is recycled and made in squares so that if any needs to be replaced it can be replaced one square at a time to save money and resources. These are just a few of the things I remember from the building and I actually submitted a few for the new Davies Center, but I thought some of it was really cool and you guys might be interested.
As the heating team met today after class, the idea came up to include a quote from the heating plant supervisor Jim Franklin. I bring this up to the whole class because I was wondering if for consistency, we would all like to include at least one quote in our respective sections. It could make our writing more personal as it did when Kolbert added her characters. Ours would be on a smaller scale, but I think it's something we should consider and decide on.
Also, maybe we would like to discuss consistency with photos as well. Would everyone be willing to commit to providing at least one photo for their section? We could use it at the beginning of each section with the heading, perhaps.
Finally, I have a separate question regarding the electricity team. This might be over your heads, but I hear every now and then that a lot of electronics take energy when they're plugged in even if they're turned off. I personally use a power bar for most of my electronics, and I turn it off every night. I'm curious to know if that makes any difference in my carbon footprint, and if so, could we promote the use of power bars for the campus especially with the student body living in the dorms?
Hello again from Sweden, it’s been a while. From the look of the blog, you’ve all been making quite a bit of head way. I thought I’d write a little about the buildings on campus today.
One evident piece of work being done to make the university here more sustainable is in the design of buildings. They have heavy doors, large air-locks, great insulation, and always an abundance of natural light. Nearly all the buildings have skylights and the floor to ceiling windows found in many rooms are extremely thick. (It’s quite cold out right now, but when I touch the window to my left it only feels slightly cooler than the room. I have a feeling the windows in Phillips might fail this test.) On many of these windows there are automatic shades that sense the level of sunlight coming in and lower to prevent glare. There are also rooms within the buildings that have glass walls, allowing sunlight to penetrate far past the periphery. Structures are also built with their exposure to the sun in mind. Over south facing windows there are awnings that work to shade against the summer sun, and the north face of buildings are typically less exposed. Overall, the theme here seems to be well thought out construction that focuses on energy conservation.
I went on the Civil Rights Pilgrimage over spring break and one of our stops was the Heifer International Building, one of the most sustainable buildings I've ever seen in my life. I've been meaning to upload these pictures for a little while. Basically they built the building extremely narrow so that natural light could be use to light the majority of the building. Similarly, the LED lights used to light the areas of the building that do not receive enough natural light sense how much light is in the room and become correspondingly more or less dim to save energy. They also collect rainwater to use in toilets, etc. where they don't need actual city water to save water resources. They have their heating vents in the floor to allow for more efficient heating and cooling. The carpeting is recycled and made in squares so that if any needs to be replaced it can be replaced one square at a time to save money and resources. These are just a few of the things I remember from the building and I actually submitted a few for the new Davies Center, but I thought some of it was really cool and you guys might be interested.
