Winter 2000 Environmental Audit

Winter 2000 - Environmental Audit

Western Unplugged
by Katie Stephens

The Environmental Studies Building looms solemnly in the farthest corner of Western’s campus, where concrete pillars lead the eye upward to precipitous glass ceilings. Housing a variety of natural science classrooms and labs, its façade is that of an energy-friendly shrine. The vast interior atrium exposes a mid-air maze of pipes and ducts, while shelves of suspended fluorescent lights illuminate students’ paths.

Despite good intentions, the Environmental Studies building is an energy hog, eating vast amounts of power as precious heat is lost through those picturesque glass ceilings and sturdy concrete walls. Fans and hoods are perpetually running, sapping large amounts of electricity to push old air out and pull new, cold air in.

The seemingly innocuous daily activities that fill our school routines are actually masking a continual, silent consumption of energy that sneaks stealthily into most of the buildings on Western’s main campus. Keeping classes warm, providing adequate lighting and running countless pieces of office equipment are prices paid not only in dollars and kilowatts, but in the depletion of mostly nonrenewable energy sources.

The price of maintaining a facility like Western rivals the local Georgia Pacific paper mill for energy usage, consuming an average of 30 million kilowatt hours to GP’s 50 million annually.

Against the backdrop of the Physical Plant, where High Voltage/Danger signs guard powerful equipment, Tom Thorp, the utilities services manager at Western, further explains the awesome energy totals Western accrues on a yearly basis.

"Our biggest consumer of electrical energy is in lighting and other kinds of innocuous office equipment," Thorp said. "Things you wouldn’t really consider, but when you add them all up, you will find a tremendous amount of energy used."

And add up they do.

Thorpe explained that Western contracts utility providers, such as Puget Sound Energy, to fuel Western’s own Viking substation. Totals for electricity last year averaged $135,000 per month. Because of Western’s favorable high-usage institution rate, each electrical kilowatt-hour costs the university roughly three cents. A typical Bellingham household, in contrast, pays almost five cents per kilowatt-hour.

And then there’s the gas bill.

Behind the Art Annex, frantic plumes from Western’s steam plant fill the sky, heating the main campus by generating steam fueled from natural gas. The standard basic measurement for gas is a therm; last year Western used 1.9 billion of them at a cost of $600,000.

Huge numbers, however, do not necessarily indicate wasteful or excessive usage. Thorp said Western is actually maintaining steady energy use relative to increased student enrollment and continual expansions.

"Western has been expanding consistently since about 1992," Thorp said. "We are becoming more efficient in the process. We’ve built some very expensive buildings to operate, which are the science buildings, yet at the same time they’re using the latest technology to keep their operating costs down, and it’s paying off."

In the long run, using alternative energy sources could pay off in terms of reducing environmental impact. But when money drives the decisions, it’s out of the question.

In the past, Western considered cogeneration, an alternative that utilizes waste energy to produce heat or electricity. The projection and initial study, however, concluded that this method wouldn’t have saved any more money than the archives operating system, though it would have saved significant landfill space. The pursuit of alternative energy sources has since been abandoned.

Financial backing for a new, more environmentally sound system in place of one that is already relatively inexpensive is hard to justify when applying to the state for increased funding, Thorp said.

"You won’t see us trying to invent any new energy-saving methods - but we’ll always take advantage of the latest advances in technology," Thorp said.

Energy-efficient devices and products are becoming more widespread in Western’s core campus. Light motion detectors have been installed and retrofitted in many of the new science buildings and older buildings as well - including classrooms in Bond Hall, Humanities and Miller Hall.

However, the practicality of such devices is unfortunately undermined when buildings bustle with activity at all hours of the day.

Technologically advanced fluorescent lighting, designed to use less energy and still provide the same amount of light, Thorp said, has been used for years.

Even efficient systems, however, have their drawbacks.

Relatively clean-burning natural gas is utilized in the steam plant, creating byproducts such as water vapor, carbon dioxide and small amounts of sulfur dioxide. These products are not innocent. Carbon dioxide is the largest contributing factor to global warming. Sulfur dioxide is the leading component in acid rain.

Steve Henson, associate professor of economics at Western, explains the dynamics of energy use to students in his Energy of Economics class.

"Cost comes in a variety of different forms," Henson said. "Even energy sources that you might think of as being relatively environmentally benign are not necessarily so."

Henson settled back in his swivel chair, thumbing through the proliferation of at-his-fingertip facts pouring from the ceiling to floor library in his office.

"The point is that you have to look at every stage of the operation and you can’t simply point and say ‘wind is good and coal is bad,’" Henson said. "No matter what energy source you consider, there are costs and benefits, and what it comes down to is comparing them in particular situations."

The tradeoffs Henson described weigh the good with the bad of all types of energy - renewable and non-renewable. Hydroelectric plants, which generate roughly 60 percent of Washington’s electrical power, alter aquatic environments and disrupt the natural habitats of marine and land animals.

Energy conservation becomes the natural solution to reducing the environmental costs of generating electricity and consuming resources - but it must be initiated on a personal level.

Each building on Western’s main campus and most of the residence halls are individually metered – but they’re not billed for individual usage. Students may take advantage of the virtually unlimited use of energy Western supplies, stifling efforts for conservation.

"If the good is free for the individual user, we know that it is not free to society," Henson concluded. "There will be a tendency to use more than what we call an economically efficient amount."

What about the energy bills for the Environmental Studies facility? Do Huxley students conserve more, heeding the cry for reducing environmental burdens?

Eric Youngren, graduate student of geography, said even Huxley students have trouble practicing what they preach.

"I find myself turning lights off after people all the time," Youngren said. "Even around here. I mean, we’re an environmental science college and lots of people still don’t think it’s important to shut things off."

Last year, the Environmental Studies Building ranked fourth in heat consumption compared to the other 21 metered buildings. It ranked tenth in consumption of electricity.

"It’s hard to conserve here because we want to always maintain a certain environment that is conducive to what our mission is – education," Thorp said. "It’s hard to go in and turn off lights if it means it’s going to reduce the ability of our faculty and students to teach and learn. We could be miserly and shut these things off, but you’d be wearing gloves and coats in class."

Within the tidy confines of keeping costs down through inexpensive power, Western balances its utility checkbook with amazing accuracy. But even though energy use and increasing expansions archivesly fit snugly within dollar-sign parameters, the environmental impacts of old, energy-eating buildings and the myth of unlimited usage without consequences loom dead ahead.

Meanwhile, the campus still hums with activity, lights blazing and heat wafting to warm chilled bodies. The Environmental Studies building still sits quietly in its corner.

"Energy was not really a concern," Thorp said in regard to construction of the giant. "Architecturally, it just looks good.

Winter 2000 - Environmental Audit

Western Unplugged by Katie Stephens

Western Unplugged
by Katie Stephens