Our improvements continue!!!

The following is from an email from Mrs. Faux.

I thought you all might be interested in the comparison between March 2008 versus March 2007.

KWH used Energy Cost
March 2008 609,187 $19,502
March 2007 748,942 $17,115

Although we reduced our usage by 139,755 KWH (18.66%), our energy cost increased by $2,387. The good news is that the conservation efforts have continued past February!

It's Easy to be Green!

Here's another good NAIS article:
It's Easy to be Green Seven Steps to a Healthier School.

The Green Schools Climate Commitment

Here is the link to the Climate Commitment Pledge Westminster has signed this Spring.

As part of this, Westminster is currently forming a school sustainability task force (point 2 of the pledge), and the CCC will have a strong leadership presence as the school strives to become more environmentally responsible.

In our continuing efforts, we have also joined the Green Schools Alliance and the US Green Building Council

Bio-diesel

Westminster has started making its own bio-diesel from the cafeteria's waste vegetable oil. The bio-diesel is being used in the school's lawn equipment. It takes 4-5 days to process a batch of waste vegetable oil into bio-diesel and requires several processes. Samples of the waste vegetable oil, as it is being processed into bio-diesel are shown here.

Marist update through February 18th

Marist students, faculty, and staff have posted a 16.0% reduction in energy consumption through the first 18 days of February.  It's estimated that the school has saved over $2500 in energy costs so far.  Congratulations and keep up the good work!

Green Cup Challenge Update

Halfway through the month, the Green Cup Challenge has been a resounding success at Westminster. Through the first 14 days of February, Westminster's energy consumption was down 17.3% from last February. This reduction has brought down the school's energy bill by about $4000 in just two weeks!! Thanks to all who have been participating, and let's keep this up for the rest of the month and beyond!

11 Surprising Ways that Your Building Wastes Energy

This article from building.com shows 11 Surprising Ways that Your Building Wastes Energy.

There are some particularly good hints here. From our own experiences, the first point about powering down computers at the end of each day has been big. With that step alone, we have sometimes realized as much as a 20-25% reduction in our weekend electricity consumption on Sundays when no teachers are around. WARNING: Many people in the habit of walking out of their rooms at the end of the day oblivious to any electronics still powered up are notoriously difficult to reorient. While most faculty have immediately changed their habits, a persistent few continue to leave several items powered up at the end of every day. Bad habits are hard to break.

Fact of the Week!!

1/28
Every minute the U.S. spends around 1 million dollars JUST on energy.
A quarter of a family's energy costs go to heat and AC. Turning the thermostat to a more reasonable temperature can save huge energy costs.

2/4
Fun Fact of the Week!! According to Powerhosuekids.com, "A hot water faucet that leaks one drop per second can add up to a 165 gallons a month. That's more than one person uses in two weeks!!" Make sure you fully turn off all faucets! Thanks for all your effort and keep working hard to conserve energy! :)

2/11
According to American Almanac, "Though accounting for only 5 percent of the world's population, Americans consume 26 percent of the world's energy". Think of how much energy we can save by just turning off our computer screens. Thanks for the effort and keep up the good work in the Green Cup Challenge!

Environmental Sustainability Resources for Your School

This was lifted directly from the NAIS February 2008 E-bulletin:

Check out NAIS's free online resources on environmental sustainability:

How to Build and Run a Successful Recycling Program
How to Implement a Campus Biodiesel Program
How to Build and Run a Sustainable Dining Program
Making the Environmental Sustainability Case to Your Board of Trustees and Administration
Making the Environmental Sustainability Case to Your Facilities and Dining Service Staff
Making the Environmental Sustainability Case to Your Faculty
These are just a few recent examples of many free environmental sustainability resources available on the NAIS website.

Myth BUSTED ... Turn out those lights!!!

This comes from the Annotated Mythbusters pages that follow the Discovery Channel's popular MythBusters series. I copy the full article below, but full details and comments on the article from Annotated Mythbusters are available here. While urban legends persist about it being more efficient to leave lights on than to turn them off because of the power surge in start-up, this episode clearly shows that it is always a good habit to turn out the lights, no matter what kind you have, when you leave a room.

Lights On or Off

Myth: You save on energy bills by leaving lights on. Some people believe that the energy to turn on lights exceeds savings of turning lights off.

They talked to Mark Reisfelt, manager of the Independent Electric Supply where they purchased their light bulbs. He felt that it was best to turn the lights off.

To test the myth, they needed to measure energy usage during startup, maintenance (steady state), and shutdown.

For steady state energy consumption, they turned on several different types of bulbs for 60 minutes and measured their consumption using a Kill A Watt: * Incandescent 90 Wh * Compact Fluorescent (CFL): 10 Wh * Halogen: 70 Wh * Metal halide 60 Wh * LED: 1 Wh * Fluorescent: 10 Wh

For startup energy consumption, Grant hooked up an inductive current loop to a computer and measured the amount of energy used when the turned on the bulbs. With an inductive current loop, you run a wire through the center, which induces a current in the loop. This current is then measured by a digital sampling oscilloscope.

Based on the amount of energy consumed turning on the bulb, they were able calculated how long the bulb would have to be turned off in order to make it worth the energy savings, i.e. "It's best to turn off the bulb if you are leaving the room for":

* Incandescent: 0.36 seconds
* CFL: 0.015 seconds
* Halogen: .51 seconds
* LED: 1.28 seconds
* Fluorescent: 23.3 seconds

In other words, its almost always best to turn the bulb off. Even the 23 seconds for the fluorescent lights isn't very long, and the rest of the times are pretty much blinks of an eye.
Bulb Longevity

They tested one final element of this myth: frequently turning lights on and off decreases their life span, thus leading to greater costs. Grant setup a timer and relay to turn the bulbs on and off repeatedly every 2 minutes. After six weeks, only the LED bulb was still working. Based on this test, they extrapolated that it would take five years of ordinary usage to cause the bulbs to burn out.

* busted *
Side-note: 105-year bulb

Grant and Kari visited the Livermore/Pleasanton Fire Department to view their light bulb that has been burning for 105 years. It has a carbon filament that is much thicker than modern bulbs and also burns much cooler/darker. You can check on the light using the bulb's webcam.

December 28, 2006

Myth BUSTED ... Turn out those lights!!!

The following complete article comes from the Annotated Mythbusters pages that follow the Discovery Channel's popular MythBusters series. I copy the full article below, but full details and comments on the article from Annotated Mythbusters are available here. While urban legends persist about it being more efficient to leave lights on than to turn them off because of the power surge in start-up, this episode clearly shows that it is always a good habit to turn out the lights, no matter what kind you have, when you leave a room.

Lights On or Off

Myth: You save on energy bills by leaving lights on. Some people believe that the energy to turn on lights exceeds savings of turning lights off.

They talked to Mark Reisfelt, manager of the Independent Electric Supply where they purchased their light bulbs. He felt that it was best to turn the lights off.

To test the myth, they needed to measure energy usage during startup, maintenance (steady state), and shutdown.

For steady state energy consumption, they turned on several different types of bulbs for 60 minutes and measured their consumption using a Kill A Watt: * Incandescent 90 Wh * Compact Fluorescent (CFL): 10 Wh * Halogen: 70 Wh * Metal halide 60 Wh * LED: 1 Wh * Fluorescent: 10 Wh

For startup energy consumption, Grant hooked up an inductive current loop to a computer and measured the amount of energy used when the turned on the bulbs. With an inductive current loop, you run a wire through the center, which induces a current in the loop. This current is then measured by a digital sampling oscilloscope.

Based on the amount of energy consumed turning on the bulb, they were able calculated how long the bulb would have to be turned off in order to make it worth the energy savings, i.e. "It's best to turn off the bulb if you are leaving the room for":

* Incandescent: 0.36 seconds
* CFL: 0.015 seconds
* Halogen: .51 seconds
* LED: 1.28 seconds
* Fluorescent: 23.3 seconds

In other words, its almost always best to turn the bulb off. Even the 23 seconds for the fluorescent lights isn't very long, and the rest of the times are pretty much blinks of an eye.
Bulb Longevity

They tested one final element of this myth: frequently turning lights on and off decreases their life span, thus leading to greater costs. Grant setup a timer and relay to turn the bulbs on and off repeatedly every 2 minutes. After six weeks, only the LED bulb was still working. Based on this test, they extrapolated that it would take five years of ordinary usage to cause the bulbs to burn out.

* busted *
Side-note: 105-year bulb

Grant and Kari visited the Livermore/Pleasanton Fire Department to view their light bulb that has been burning for 105 years. It has a carbon filament that is much thicker than modern bulbs and also burns much cooler/darker. You can check on the light using the bulb's webcam.

December 28, 2006

Westminster CCC & the Lexus Environmental Challenge

Today, the Westminster CCC submitted its entry to the fourth and final stage (Climate) of the Lexus Environmental Challenge. Following is a short movie clip the CCC made during the Climate Challenge to promote environmental action.

Energy Saving Tips

Following is an initial list of electricity saving tips. We encourage everyone to add to this list by leaving comments.

• If your classroom or office has multiple light banks, try turning on only 1 or 2 of them. You can probably work just fine with less than a full light blast.
• Especially on sunny days, try working without any lights on in the room. You'd be surprised how much natural light can do for a room.
• Turn off your computer monitor when not in use. This includes when you are using a SmartBoard.
• In large common areas, only turn on necessary lights. Many areas with natural lighting don't need any artificial lighting at all during the day.
• ALWAYS completely shut down your computer at the end of EACH workday.
• If you share a room or office and no one will be using the office within the next half hour, completely shut down all computers & lights in the room before leaving.
  
• Turn off projectors as soon as you finish using them. This can save LOTS of electricity!
• Whenever possible, print multiple pages on a side of paper. In Microsoft Word, you get this option in lower right corner of the print window in the "Pages per sheet" pull-down menu.
  
• Print only what you need! Using "Print Selection" under the "Print" menu saves lots of paper and the electricity needed to produce the copies.
• If you have lamps in your room, consider switching to CFL or LED bulbs. The energy savings over the lifetime of the new bulbs is well worth their additional purchase cost.
  
• Unless medically necessary, take the stairs, not an elevator. You'll save energy and get in better shape!
• Completely shut down all printers when not in use.
• Completely shut down all copiers at the end of each work day.
  

History of the AGCC

--> Add more here<--
The AGCC is an extension of the Green Cup Challenge that began in 2003 with several northeastern United States boarding schools.