Last spring Chancellor John Wiley unveiled the We Conserve campaign, pledging to ""trim campus energy consumption per square foot by 20 percent by 2010."" More than a dozen banners now adorn campus buildings proclaiming ""Earth Day Every Day!"" and ""Only you can waste it"" in an effort to promote conservation among students.
But shutting off your lights when you head to class will not be enough to curb UW-Madison's energy addiction. Campus energy consumption per square foot increased 4 percent last year alone, and overall consumption is up 8.4 percent from two years ago, raising the question of how feasible a move to curb our energy addiction is.
Rising even faster than energy consumption are costs of producing and purchasing power. Last year's energy bill came in at a record $50.5 million, up 77 percent from 2001, despite a mere 7 percent increase in size of the campus, according to information provided by Facilities Manager Rick Werre and the We Conserve campaign.
The high cost is due in part to increased energy usage, but the larger culprit is the price of fuel. Coal prices are rising and natural gas prices fluctuate so drastically that transitioning to gas consumption could raise budgeting issues.
To ease the strain of high energy costs, the university is taking a number of steps to reduce consumption—most notably revamping campus research buildings and labs to be more energy efficient.
Engineering and Chamberlain Halls are currently being refitted to determine how to best tweak electrical and heating infrastructure to save energy. They are expected to use 40 and 60 percent less energy, respectively, upon completion of the process.
""We are seeing very promising results,"" said Faramarz Vakili, associate director for facilities planning and management. ""The average payback for these projects is less than four years, which is excellent.""
Lab buildings are being targeted because research labs account for 60 percent of the energy used on campus, whereas classrooms consume only 15 percent. Still, achieving the goal of a 20-percent reduction in energy consumption by 2010 will not be easy.
""That sounds very aggressive,"" Jerome Malmquist, director of energy management for the University of Minnesota, said of the We Conserve campaign. The Twin Cities campus uses a state-of-the-art boiler that can burn anything from coal to wood. In fact, 25 percent of its energy comes from oat hulls, a byproduct of manufacturing oats that would otherwise go to waste.
Although the boiler came with a significant price tag of $65 million, the financial burden is compensated by a drastic increase in efficiency. The Twin Cities campus uses almost the same amount of energy as Madison—just over 400 million kilowatt hours per year—despite having 23 percent more enrolled students.
UW-Madison took a first step toward efficient energy production when it opened the west side cogeneration plant in 2005, which uses steam leftover from electricity production to heat campus buildings so less energy is wasted. The new plant will not affect energy consumption, but whether it will help to slow rising energy costs by reducing the amount of fuel used has yet to be seen.
