President Thomas F. Rosenbaum has endorsed recommendations by the Caltech Sustainability Advisory Council to decarbonize the Institute’s purchase and production of electricity.
Under a plan approved by Rosenbaum earlier this fall, Caltech intends to source largely carbon-free electricity. Simultaneously, a detailed engineering study will evaluate a potential transition from natural gas to electricity to power the campus heating system. That transition and the carbon-free-power purchase could reduce by more than 85 percent the greenhouse gas emissions produced on campus and in the electricity Caltech buys.
“These meaningful plans are possible because of advances in renewable energy research and years of preparation on campus,” says Caltech Provost, and council co-chair, David Tirrell. “The council’s work and its recommendations are important steps that translate Caltech’s commitment to sustainability into practice.”
“The beauty of this system is that it would harvest the waste heat from the campus,” he says, adding that this is proven technology that has been deployed on other higher education campuses.
“At the same time that some parts of campus want heat, other parts also want cooling,” Yeh says. “You solve the heating and the cooling problem by moving heat instead of generating it. That the cogeneration plant generates carbon is not news, but to see the council take a formal stance on this is good.”
Continue Reading