Energy Sources

For energy sources the options used at UC are most likely electricity generated by various means, directly-burned natural gas and a tiny bit of solar.

UC generates some of its own electricity, but probably buys most from the local utility, Duke Energy. In its co-generation plant, UC has the potential to generate more electricity on campus, but reportedly is not using it. This is reportedly because the natural gas burned in the co-gen plant, while cleaner than the coal-produced electricity available locally, is more expensive.

Some natural gas, also probably obtained from Duke, is most likely burned directly to produce heat for cooking, laboratory experiments, and possibly other purposes.

There is also a (likely) small amount of energy produced on campus from solar power, in the solar house on the lawn between McMicken and Tangeman Halls. At least some of the solar energy is used to directly heat water, while some may be used to produce electricity.

The first task of my research will be to bring some certainty, rather than all the "probably, maybe, may, most likely" qualifiers above.

The next task will be to find the amounts used of all the above sources. Once I've determined that, it's a matter of brief research and simple arithmetic to determine the greenhouse gases produced by UC's energy sources.

I should also be able to give some good estimates of alternatives to reduce the GHG emissions, just from the source perspective. GHG reductions possible from using the co-gen plant instead of powerline electricity would be an easy calculation, and are probably already calculated somewhere. Solar electricity production rates should also be readily available, as should some good estimate of potential installation area. Calculations for direct use of solar energy would probably be more difficult, but may be available from Solar House records. Finally, it might be interesting to see if it's possible to determine some rough estimate of available wind energy - UC's campus layout seems to be particularly good at focusing wind.