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Construction workers drill
boreholes for a geothermal project in this photo taken January 27, 2012 at Ball State University. (Courtesy:The Star Press) |
The first phase of Ball State's $45 million geothermal heat pump system is now fully operational, and construction on phase 2 has already begun.
When fully implemented, the project will allow the university to shut down its aging coal-fired boilers, saving $2 million a year in operating costs and cutting BSU's carbon footprint nearly in half.
When fully implemented, the project will allow the university to shut down its aging coal-fired boilers, saving $2 million a year in operating costs and cutting BSU's carbon footprint nearly in half.
The public is invited to the ceremony at 2 p.m. Tuesday in Sursa Performance Hall, where physicist and energy visionary Amory Lovins will be the keynote speaker.
Lovins is chairman and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute, whose mission is to map and drive the transition from coal and oil to efficiency and renewables. In 2009, Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and Foreign Policy called him one of the top 100 global thinkers.
The dedication will occur during Ball State's ninth Greening of the Campus national conference.
This year's conference brings together academics from Clemson, Pacific Lutheran, Duke, McGill, Indiana and Punjabi universities, as well as many other institutions, to share ways that campuses can become green models "for achieving environmental soundness through safe and sane management of resources."
The first phase of Ball State's $45 million geothermal heat pump system is now fully operational, and construction on phase 2 has already begun.
When fully implemented, the project will allow the university to shut down its aging coal-fired boilers, saving $2 million a year in operating costs and cutting BSU's carbon footprint nearly in half.
That's why the project is being praised by the National Wildlife Federation, which in 2005 identified global warming as one of its chief concerns.
"While the impacts of global warming are an overarching threat to wildlife and ecosystems, their reach also will touch every facet of society: human health, agriculture, national security and the economy," the organization reported last year in its publication Going Underground on Campus.
In Ball State's geothermal system, a network of water-filled pipes brings heat up from the ground in the winter and draws unwanted warmth into the underground tubing in the summer.
The U.S. Department of Energy provided a grant of $5 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and the Indiana General Assembly authorized nearly $45 million in state funding for the project's first phase.
Ball State is drilling some 3,600 boreholes in borehole fields for the project, which is tearing up areas of the campus. However, each borehole is being covered and the areas are being restored to their previous use, retaining campus beauty.
Construction is scheduled to continue throughout 2013-14, when the system will connect to 47 buildings on campus, eventually providing heating and cooling to 5.5 million square feet.
When completed, it will be the largest geothermal system of its kind in the United States.
The Greening conference will present keynote talks, panels and workshops on a variety of green issues such as climate change, recycling, integrated pest management, bottled water bans, energy audits, light switch plates as an energy saver, energy saving through renovation, solar power and urban farming. Several sessions will focus on Ball State's geothermal project.
One of those panels will examine three campuses (including Ball State) in different regions of the United State that have achieved the nation's largest reductions in campus carbon pollution.
The campuses featured will be either nearly grid neutral (or positive) or will have strongly positioned themselves to take that next step by addressing the heating-cooling load and demand-side strategies.
Another panel is titled, "BSU's Geothermal Bore Hole Field: Teaching Geology and Sustainability in the Field."
At 7 p.m. Tuesday in Cardinal Hall at Pittenger Student Center, Mike Luster of MEP Associates, Rochester, Minn., will deliver a keynote speech titled, "Ball State University's Conversion to a Campus Geothermal System."
