The Office of Sustainable Energy & Environmental Engagement is encouraging students and employees to take one short hour this Saturday to turn off all electronic devices and enjoy the serenity of candle light, or no light at all.  When you walk around turning off all gadgets and lights, you'll realize just how much...or how little...you are actually contributing to the necessity for more energy.

We only have one planet.  Earth Hour is the world's largest single campaign for the planet.  More than 5,200 cities and towns in 135 countries worldwide participated in Earth Hour 2011. 

With Earth Hour falling at the end of Spring Break, there will not be a campus showing this year, so make plans now to do your part at home!.  Check out http://www.earthhour.org/ to sign up for the challenge!

Cory Brennan, the Graduate Assistant here at OSE3, was awarded the Missouri Waste Control Coalition Student Scholarship at the group monthly meeting on February 17. The award was at the recommendation of Dr. Joel Burken and Dr. Mark Fitch.

Cory's work with solid waste reduction at the university began when he first started at OSE3 with a initial municipal solid waste and recycling study and has continued since then.

The Missouri WCC Scholarship included a monetary award, but more importantly gained Cory access to the coalition's annual conference in June. Cory plans to attend this important conference and hopes to return with new ideas to benefit the university and community.



Congratulations to Cory. 

OSE3 would like to wish Missouri S&T and all our alumni a happy and safe St. Patrick's Day.
2012 Best Ever!

On February 16, Smith Electric Vehicles visited Rolla and the Missouri University of Science and Technology. They joined OSE3 and Dr. Kevin Martin to discuss developments in the universities new electric bus transportation system.

Smith EV spent time with the university working on creating efficient routes and setting up the charging infrastructure necessary for electric vehicles at S&T. Designing routes throughout campus and around Rolla, to best utilize the campus and city's attractions. The 

Benefits to the campus will include electric public transportation, Rolla community involvement, investment in Rolla local businesses, and safe transportation between campus zones divided by the interstate highway.

The university should expect these electric buses mid summer and the system should be readily available for use by the beginning of the fall term.      

This Saturday the Missouri S&T One Book Program is hosting the very first campus Freecycle event.  This is a great way to unload gently used items and find new treasures.  Bring your items to the Havener Center on Saturday, March 3, from 10 am - noon.  Members of the EcoMiners group will provide assistance in offloading donated goods.  Return at noon to browse and select items.  The event will run until 2 pm.  Any leftover items will be donated to The Community Partnership Resale Shop. 

All items are welcome, including:

• Books
• Electronics (no CRT monitors, please)
• Video games
• Toys
• Clothes
• Small appliances/gadgets (in working order)
• Gift items (candles, picture frames, etc.)
• Sports/exercise equipment

What could be better than having a yard sale without the hassle?!  Help yourself, help the community, and help the environment all in one day. 

The Missouri Solar Energy Industry Association's Annual Conference brought together some of the most influential players in the Missouri solar industry. This event, hosted at the Town Hall Pavilion in Kansas City, gave the office and university a unique look into the industrial world of solar energy.

The conference included speakers ranging from rooftop installers and mounting professionalism, to sustainable site development, to solar government policy. Overall, it was a very informative event.

 


 

At the end of last year, the Mid America Regional Council (MARC) began an initiative to bring the US DOE Solar Decathlon to Kansas City, Missouri. Bringing together government, industry, university (OSE3 among others), and public and private sectors, this initiative pushed KC to within the top spots to win the location of the competition. Unfortunately, the draw of Irvine, California won out against KC and Irvine was chosen for the competition site of the 2013 US DOE Solar Decathlon. Look here for the full press release: http://www.solardecathlon.gov/blog/archives/1996 .

Though with every cloud, comes a silver lining. The Missouri S&T Solar House Team through OSE3 has now joined with MARC and its partners across the state to bolster the S&T Solar House Teams chances within the competition.

This collection of engineering professionals, industry contacts, and sustainability advisers will give the S&T team a great group of professionals to look to for guidance and support.

Thanks to MARC and its partners for continuing to support Missouri sustainability and Missouri Students. 

Let's Show California What Missouri Can Do. 

OSE3, in conjunction with Dr. Medhi Ferdowsi of the Electrical Engineering Department at Missouri S&T and City Utilities of Springfield, Missouri, just finished and submitted its another Demonstration of Energy Efficient Developments (DEED) Grant to the American Public Power Association (APPA).

If you remember OSE3 helped two groups of students at S&T make strategic partnerships with APPA member utilities in late November last year. Each of those student grants were awarded. OSE3 built on these partnerships to create a new submittal for the APPA's Spring grant cycle.  

This grant could bring a much needed update to the solar village's battery storage capabilities. In addition to removing the Lead Acid battery storage, this grant will be used to be replace the existing technology with Lithium Ion Battery Technology.

This project could bring about the development of an onsite community energy storage bank. This bank will be able to regulate the flows of energy to the loads within the village and from the integrated photovoltaic arrays within the community. 

This project has brought together some of OSE3 strategic partnerships, including the solar village, A123 Systems, and City Utilities of Springfield. OSE3 would like to thank everyone who worked to get this grant in.

Looking for something to do this week?  The English Department is showing four documentaries related to the No Impact Man One Book Program.  Each movie will be shown at 7:00 pm, the first three in 204 McNutt, the last in 125 Civil:

Monday:         No Impact Man:  The Documentary
Tuesday:        Garbage Warrior
Wednesday:  Tapped
Thursday:       Food, Inc.

These thought provoking films will inspire you to think about your choices. 

It's that time of year...

RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities.

This year, OSE3 is sponsoring the Trim Your Waste campaign.  Using the Mini Bin Program, employees in Parker Hall have reduced their waste significantly.  We are looking for 80 volunteers to use the system in order to meet one of S&T's Environmental Management System (EMS) objectives:  increase participation in the program by 100%.  The first department to jump on board is the Environmental Health & Safety Department.  All seven employees began using the system last week. 

Trim Your Waste is a campus-wide competition beginning February 27 to see which department can reduce its waste the most.  Call Julie to sign up TODAY! (341-4262)