The Green Fee Committee held its first meeting of the spring semester on Jan. 20. Among the items discussed were the projects promised by the committee’s original proposal platform. Progress made so far includes the final delivery of bike racks, which will be installed as weather permits. As part of a pilot program, the motion sensor light switches in the classroom building bathrooms have been installed and are now up and running.
Cheap, yet durable, decals were proposed as a way to advertise to the student populace where their $3 a year Green Fee money is being spent, and placing these decals on the bike racks and other related locations was discussed.
NEIU’s chief engineer, John Murray, discussed several bids for the installation of solar panels. He also demonstrated that there were many problems associated with previous proposals. One desire of many committee members was to install solar panels in a place where they would be visible to people as they walked by. This way the students would be able to see that their money was being spent in a timely and efficient manner. The Student Union, with its sloped and highly visible roof, was seen as the ideal place to install these panels.
However, many issues came up in regards to this proposal. Solar panels are very expensive, even if matching grant funds are made available. Also, the cafeteria kitchen draws an extraordinary amount of power on a daily basis. In essence, installing enough of these very heavy solar panels to carry the entire electrical needs of the Student Union would exceed the building’s structural load. It would also interfere with the natural sunlight coming through the skylight.
A more feasible proposal to install a solar panel system on the roof of the B-Building to power the computer lab was also mentioned, as well as installing a system on the power plant building for heating all of the university’s hot water supply. This hydronic system would utilize a photovoltaic, as compared to a strictly solar, system. The cost advantages of using photovoltaics were also looked into. Although these systems don’t carry the same electricity generating capacity as solar panels, they are lighter, cheaper and have a calculated payback on initial costs of about 100 years, which is far longer than solar. In the course of the meeting, it was discovered that the administration employs a grant writer who was available to assist in the bidding process, therefore saving the Green Fee fund a good deal of money. The entire solar issue was tabled until the next meeting.
The administration representative also reminded the committee that more student participation was required, as per the initial agreement made between themselves and the Green Fee Committee. Paul Harris of the SGA suggested an essay contest or some other idea-generating forum as a way to get students more involved in the proposal and planning process. It was then decided to form a student subcommittee made up of student Green Fee Committee members.
They also elected Ellen Larrimore, Senior Library Specialist, and Dr. Abhijit Bannerjee of the Geography and Environmental Studies Department as heads of the Public Relations subcommittee. This subcommittee is responsible for working with the NEIU Public Relations department, drafting press releases for publication in the Independent as well as currently working with students who might have ideas for the Green Fee Committee to consider.
It was then announced that an audit of the university’s energy consumption was approved by the administration and will be voted on by the university’s board in June. The committee needs the accuracy of this information in order to be fully prepared for the bidding process on the various solar and photovoltaic projects currently on the table.
Mention was made that the other two NEIU campuses have yet to see any return on the Green Fees collected from their own students. Various ideas were discussed, but Mr. Murray also mentioned that the El Centro facility was a leased space. This brings up several contractual and legal issues with the building’s owners, and for this reason he was skeptical as to whether any large-scale project could ever be attempted there. An upcoming campus recycling audit was also announced.
Before the meeting was adjourned, the balance of the Green Fee Committee budget was announced at approximately $115,000. Most of this money is earmarked for the large-scale solar projects previously mentioned, which once completed will represent an independent power source that will likely come in handy considering the recent power failures on campus. Not to mention that in the long run it will save the university a large amount of money on utility bills, and it will be much better for the environment than tapping into Commonwealth Edison’s power grid, whose energy supply largely comes from the burning of coal. Students interested in contributing to the Green Fee Committee’s efforts should visit their Web site at: www.neiu.edu/~greenfee/