Tech Takes Its Carbon Footprint
By Marcia Goodrich
We have met the enemy, and he is us. —Cartoonist Walt Kelly, 1913-1973
Students are calculating the University’s net carbon footprint by balancing emissions, including those from Michigan Tech’s steam plant, above, against activities that mop up carbon from the atmosphere, such as the growth of University-owned forests, below.
Lake Superior is warming up, moose wilt in the summer heat, and the Bering Glacier is melting like ice cream on an August sidewalk.
Researchers throughout Michigan Tech are piling up enough evidence of global warming to send a chill down the back of the most ardent skeptic. Now, a group of students led by a forest scientist and a mechanical engineer are challenging Tech to walk the climate-change walk and lighten its own carbon footprint.
“Glenn [Mroz, University president,] told me he was interested in developing a model to help us estimate our carbon emissions,” says Peg Gale, dean of the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science. “A couple students in our unit said they would be willing to help.”
John Sutherland, the Henes Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering, who codirects the Sustainable Futures Institute, helps lead the effort.
“There is growing recognition that CO2 emissions and other global-warming gases are having an effect on climate, and as responsible citizens, when given choices, we need to try to do the right thing,” says Sutherland.
Step one on the right-thing road is to gauge Michigan Tech’s carbon footprint—how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases the University releases.
“Then at some point, the project could evolve into an Enterprise,” Sutherland says.
Students in Tech’s Enterprise Program work in teams to solve knotty problems, often with industry funding. In this case, with support from the University, they might refine the analysis of Tech’s carbon emissions and suggest ways to lower them.
The students are launching the project using the Campus Carbon Calculator developed by the nonprofit Clean Air—Cool Planet, which allows them to create a balance sheet. Carbon-emitting activities, such as heat generation from the University’s power plant, are on one side, and carbon-fixing activities, like the University’s forestlands, are on the other.
“It’s more complicated than you could imagine,” says Dan Graham, a senior in wildlife ecology and management. “There are a lot of things we are trying to account for.”
Among them are air travel—how much carbon in a trip to present a paper in Beijing—and trees. The University owns many small plots of undeveloped land, and just cataloging them is a challenge, let alone figuring out how much carbon their vegetation sucks from the air.
As Graham and his fellow carbon trackers scurry around Michigan Tech gathering data, a profile of Tech’s footprint has begun to emerge. “It’s primarily energy use,” he says. The University operates a steam-generation plant that heats the campus and its water, and it buys electricity from the local utility, which generates it from hydroelectric facilities and burning coal and natural gas.
In 2006, the University spent $3.2 million for fuels, primarily to heat the main campus, and $2.5 million for electricity. The fleet of cars and vans that transport students and employees around the neighborhood and around the country uses about 57,000 gallons of gasoline a year, and another 10,000 gallons of diesel fuel.
The numbers give Graham pause, and he is already offering up a few suggestions. “If we used motion sensors campuswide, that would probably cut down the light bill,” he says. “And all the computers that stay on twenty-four hours a day, especially in the labs? If those were to be shut off, that would save a lot of money.
“You could even save energy dollars if everybody just had laptops. Most desktop computers use about 300 to 500 watts compared to 60 to 120 watts for laptops.”
Sutherland agrees that reducing Tech’s carbon emissions makes good economic sense. “Energy costs money, and the amount of money we spend on energy is unbelievable,” he said.
Michigan Tech also has a moral obligation to address carbon emissions, particularly in light of its priorities, Gale adds. “If Michigan Tech is going to lead the way in teaching and researching sustainability, we should lead the way in how we address issues such as global warming,” she says. “A lot of people here are very passionate about this. I get calls from mechanical engineers asking, ‘Can’t we plant more trees?’
“As a university with a commitment to sustainability, we can’t just talk the talk,” she says. “It’s time to walk the walk.”
More on Clean Air—Cool Planet: www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/.