Energy/Carbon Footprinting Curriculum Development

Richard Smardon, Ph.D., SUNY/ESF rsmardon@esf.edu

For February 8th Workshop

SUNY Global Center

EST 427/627 Environmental & Energy Audit

• Course objectives– Familiarization with GHG & energy processes– Assess CNY municipal operations for GHG

production/energy utilization + action plans– Possible other campus projects

• Student involvement & training with on campus & community projects

EST 427/627 Environmental & Energy Audit

• Course history with C. Hall & A. Drew– Campus student energy usage in 1999– Carousel Mall Energy usage in 2000– Syracuse energy & GHG production– Best trees for carbon sequestration plus– Rand track forest/open space functions– 2008 AASHE rating plus campus GHG

City of Syracuse GHG

• In 2001-2003 worked with the City of Syracuse, NY as a class project– Utilizing ICLEI’s Cities for Climate Protection

software to calculate baseline GHG for city operations

– This plus other measures won city national EPA award in 2005

There’s carbon in those trees!

• In 2006 student/faculty teams worked with US Forest Service Data Base UFORE to:– Calculate optimum tree species mix for carbon

sequestration, air pollution amelioration, hydrologic uptake and microclimate affects

– Paper later published by EnviroNews in 2008– And then picked up by Internet news spots

Open space is valuable!

• In 2007 student teams worked on assessing an undeveloped open space area in the SW corner of Syracuse– Which led to the City of Syracuse to consider

leaving the area undeveloped for multiple natural services and

– Looking into carbon sequestration values for standing biomass on city property and row’s

Carbon Neutral Campus?

• In 2008 two student teams worked on :– A sustainability rating system being developed

by the AASHE-applied to SUNY/ESF– And the impact of a new carbonate fuel cell and

other measures on campus carbon footprint– Leading to 2009 student teams working on the

carbon neutral goal for campus operations

Renewable Energy Research & Training

• Cellulosic biomass to energy research– Fast growing willow biomass– Northern hardwoods to four product streams

• Pilot biorefinery effort– Academic/industry consortium

• Bioprocess engineering degree

• Renewable energy undergraduate minor

LEED certification training

• Construction management program at SUNY/ESF has been doing LEED certification training for architects and engineers in CNY for about 5 years in conjunction with US Green Building Council

EST 427/627 2010 Projects

• Lighting survey as part of ESF carbon neutral plan

• Onondaga County facilities carbon footprint data compilation for input into CCP spread sheet

EST 427/627 2011 Projects

• City of Syracuse Municipal operations– Structure’s energy use– Traffic lighting system– Motor pools for City Departments– Syracuse Airport– All using City for Climate Protection (CCP)

ICLEI protocols

EST 427/627 Projects

• 2012 class projects– Municipal carbon footprints for Town of Preble

& Village of Skaneateles– State Fair solid waste management– ESF campus re-audit for carbon footprint

EST 427/627 class structure

• 1st week – course introduction

• 2nd-3rd weeks – carbon accounting

• 4th through 10th week –teams work on specific projects

• Final two weeks – finalize projects + climate action planning

2011 Environmental and Energy Audit of SUNY ESF

April 25, EST 627

Environmental and Energy Auditing

April 25, EST 627

Environmental and Energy Auditing

George Carey1, Dave Culbert2, Samvel Karapetyan3, Max Newland4, Alex Popov5

1Natural Resources Management 2Environmental Policy Planning and Law 3Master of Environmental Studies 4 Environmental Studies 5 Environmental Science

Overview

Introduction1.

Methods and scopes2.

Results and emission comparison to previous years

3.

Discussion and recommendations4.

Introduction

In 2009, the SUNY ESF established the

ESF Carbon Neutral by 2015 initiative (ECN 2015)

General information

The ECN 2015 seeks to mitigate the school’s climate impact through

a comprehensive plan of forty initiatives which range from

alternative energy projects to green-building energy systems.

Introduction

objective of this research is to conduct a comprehensive energy and emissions audit for the 2011 fiscal / academic year in order to monitor the college’s progress in achieving the goals set by the ECN 2015 initiative

ObjectiveObjectiveObjectiveObjective

Methods

Text

Usage of fuels Electric

and steam power

The total net greenhouse gases emitted.

Commuting, air travel

Scopes

Scope 1Scope 1

Direct emissions from sources owned and controlled by ESF

Indirect emissions from sources that are not owned nor operated by ESF but whose products are directly linked to on-campus energy inputs

Emission sources not owned or operated by ESF but either directly financed or encouraged by ESF

Scope 2Scope 2

Scope 3Scope 3

Results

% Energy Usage by Scope

Emissions comparison

1. ESF does not have a specific goal for 2011; however, these results are encouraging in the realization of the carbon neutral by 2015 goal.

2. Since the inventory completed in 2007, ESF has been successful in mitigating 694 metric tons of CO2.

3. Although ESF appears to be on progress to reach carbon neutrality, a great deal of mitigation still hangs in the balance of initiatives that have yet to be set in place.

Discussion