Hanley Sustainability Institute

By Kathleen Ziemba

Throughout the beginning of the semester, I, along with another student leader, Kiara DiLoreto, had the opportunity to plan out the Energy Assessment Bootcamp Friday session, which focused on the big picture of energy. With such a broad topic, we decided to split the topic into three parts – world/national energy, community energy, and campus energy.

We set out to find speakers for the event, and were able to find four Flyers excited to participate – Dr. Bob Brecha to speak surrounding the world and national world of energy, Meg Maloney to speak surrounding energy within Dayton and Leah Ceperley and Tony Ferraro to speak on campus energy.

As we geared up for the bootcamp, Kiara and I decided to have each speaker present for 15-20 minutes, followed by an open-question session. This would allow for clear communication of the topics, as well as allow for participants to engage with the speakers in a discussion format. Time quickly flew by, and, finally, during the last weekend of February, it was finally time to attend the inaugural Energy Assessment Bootcamp.

During the first Friday session, Kiara and I were excited to introduce ourselves and the speakers and learn more about people we would be spending the weekend with.

During Dr. Brecha’s talk, I was able to learn more about the global usage of energy, learning that the United States uses roughly 15% of the world's energy but only holds about 4% of the population, showing a very disproportionate usage. Nationally, New York and California use roughly half of what all other state’s use, however, they still use 25% more than European nations such as Denmark and Germany, which shows that its possible to reduce energy without reducing standard of living. As the U.S. slowly works to become more energy conscious, hopefully the usage will become more proportionate.

From a community standpoint, Meg discussed all the work that is being done in Dayton to reduce energy usage. Technically, the city is advocating for a reduction in energy use as well as more solar projects, especially on superfund sites. Throughout the community, the city is hoping for increased community engagement through electric aggregation as well as programs to allow for volunteers to find errors on electric bills to reduce the energy burden in the area.

Finally, Leah and Tony spoke regarding campus energy. Leah talked about her work with STARS reporting, and how more energy reduction and clean energy projects could help increase our campus sustainability. Tony spoke about energy density within the on-campus buildings. He reported that higher energy densities correlate to increased energy being used. On campus, Adele has one of the lowest energy densities, due to its solar panels.

The rest of the weekend went by quickly, with experts available to talk about how to run energy audits in both commercial and residential areas, and overall, participants were able to learn new concepts about energy.