A new energy-conservation initiative at Cornell University is bringing about significant savings in the university's electric bill and is helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The first step in the new campaign has been pretty simple: just asking people to turn off the lights.

Before the university closed down for the December 2001 holidays, mass e-mails and posters asked faculty, staff and students to make a special effort to turn off lights and electrical devices before going on vacation. The result was a reduction of more than 360,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity used in the 10-day period compared with the same period the previous year, and savings of about $25,000.

The campaign was the most public action so far of the Cornell Kyoto Task Team, a committee of students, faculty and staff formed last fall in response to student requests for a more aggressive energy-conservation policy. Campus student groups, particularly one called Kyoto Now!, asked the Cornell administration to bring the university into compliance with the Kyoto protocols. Goals agreed upon by 174 nations at the Kyoto Climate Change Conference in Japan in 1997 call for reducing greenhouse gases by 2010 to 7 percent less than 1990 levels. The current U.S. administration has rejected the agreement, which was signed by President Bill Clinton but not ratified by the Senate. Cornell has, nevertheless committed itself to doing its best to meet these goals.

However, says Harold D. Craft Jr., Cornell vice president for administration and chief financial officer, it is a difficult target, given that the university has grown since 1990 and has many significant building projects under way and so must heat, cool, electrify and light more buildings with fewer emissions.

Of the several greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2) is considered by far the most important contributor to global warming. Since CO2 is produced by the burning of fossil fuels, the best way to lower emissions is to reduce the use of electricity and heating generated by burning those fuels."Our challenge, together with the Kyoto Now! students, is to encourage the campus community to reduce their energy use and to work with them to take existing systems and make them use less," says Lanny Joyce, Cornell's manager of engineering, planning and energy management, who heads the Kyoto Task Team

The campus community, he says, has submitted many energy conservation ideas and suggestions, several of which are now being acted on. Meanwhile, two full-time mechanics are at work on a preventive maintenance and recommissioning program for heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems.

Lynah Rink, the university's hockey arena, has been fitted with new lighting allowing for five levels – from extra bright, for tournament-level televised play, down to levels appropriate for regular play, practice and background lighting, to off.

These conservation features added about $46,000 to the cost of Lynah Rink renovations, Joyce says, with nearly all of that provided by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). There also are efforts to include solar panels in a future office remodeling project, and students are exploring this technology for new residence halls. Such installations make good demonstrations, but would not make economic sense without a significant subsidy, Joyce says.

Joyce points out there have been major savings in electricity use since the opening of the new Lake Source Cooling (LSC) facility, which uses the cold depths of Cayuga Lake to cool water for campus air conditioning. The pumping systems of LSC use 86 percent less energy than would be needed for conventional refrigeration.

Other Cornell energy-saving measures in the works:

• Labeling thousands of light switches on campus with "Please turn me off when you don't need me" stickers.
• Persuading users to institute the "powersave" mode on their computers. If "sleep" is clicked on all the estimated 20,000 computers on campus or the machines are switched off about half the time, savings of about 7 million kWh per year would result, Joyce says.
• Evaluation of vending machine power-saving controllers to minimize standby electric power use.
• Modifications to university design and construction standards to promote cost-effective energy conservation features in new construction.