Please let us know what you think MIT should do to improve our Energy Footprint

You’ve probably seen the signs around campus, “Help MIT save energy. Please use the revolving door.” But does it really make any difference? Absolutely. On average 8x as much air is exchanged when a swing door is opened as opposed to a revolving door. That's 8x as much new air that needs to be heated or cooled and that's why using the revolving door is a great way to reduce energy requirements on campus.

The bicycle-powered laptop ws designed and built in course 1.102 and implemented in the Wang Fitness Center adjacent to the Stata Center. Your pedal strokes drive a generator, which charges a 12 Volt battery, which runs the laptop. We have removed the laptop battery so if you stop pedaling and there is not enough residual charge in the battery, then the laptop will turn off. The laptop runs as a regular Athena Workstations, so users are able to access their files, e-mail, the internet, just as they would on any other workstation.

Fume hoods are a significant contributor to energy consumption in laboratory spaces. Hoods use high-powered fans to exhaust conditioned laboratory air, and can consume the energy of over three homes. An open fume hood is essentially an open door with a big fan pushing the air outdoors. Lab spaces are required to have a high air exchange rate, but in general the air pushed through fume hoods far exceeds these minimum requirements.

Biodiesel@MIT is a student-led group working to bring biodiesel, an alternative fuel with emissions and efficiency benefits, to MIT's ccampus.

Biodiesel is plant-based and can either be made from vegetable oils or by recycling used vegetable oil (UVO) from restaurant fryers. UVO conversion consists of processing the oil with methanol and lye in order to create a fuel that is usable in diesel engines. It is then typically combined with petrodiesel for use in transportation and heating.

Cost effectively improving building efficiency can have a profound impact on the challenge of global energy and climate change. In the United States, buildings account for 72% of electricity consumption, 39% of the total energy use, and 38% of greenhouse gas emissions (USGBC, 2008).

Project Objective

• Toolkit for environmental audits of MIT departments
• Assessing
• leadership and policy
• metrics for GHG, inputs, outputs

Progress to Date

• Pilot GHG audit of one department
• List of possible metrics

Overview

To support the new  greeningMIT initiative, the following series of pages are meant to inform and empower your efforts toward taking action for a more sustainable campus.