Energy/Carbon Footprinting Curriculum Development

1
Energy/Carbon Footprinting Curriculum Development

• Richard Smardon, Ph.D., SUNY/ESF rsmardon_at_esf.edu
• For February 8th Workshop
• SUNY Global Center

2
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

3
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

4
City of Syracuse GHG

• In 2001-2003 worked with the City of Syracuse, NY
  as a class project
• Utilizing ICLEIs Cities for Climate Protection
  software to calculate baseline GHG for city
  operations
• This plus other measures won city national EPA
  award in 2005

5
Theres 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

6
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 rows

7
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

8
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

9
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

10
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

11
EST 427/627 2011 Projects

• City of Syracuse Municipal operations
• Structures energy use
• Traffic lighting system
• Motor pools for City Departments
• Syracuse Airport
• All using City for Climate Protection (CCP) ICLEI
  protocols

12
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

13
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

14
2011 Environmental and Energy Audit of SUNY ESF
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
15
Overview
16
Introduction
17
Introduction
Objective
18
Methods
Commuting, air travel
19
Scopes
Scope 2
Scope 3
20
Results
21
(No Transcript)
22
Energy Usage by Scope
23
Emissions comparison
24
Discussion

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.