The Path to a Proposed Energy Plan for CSB|SJU

This proposal represents the combined work of many people. Its primary authors are the senior Environmental Studies majors and minors from the ENVR 395 research seminar. Offered for the first time in 2004, this seminar was designed to provide senior environmental studies students opportunities to both engage in a substantial interdisciplinary research project and to gain some experience working under conditions approximating those commonly found outside academe. While environmental studies graduates prior to 2004 conducted independent research projects and wrote individual papers as their academic capstones, students now participate in the research seminar as a group. Under this new model, all senior environmental studies students work as a sort of consulting firm, sharing collective responsibility for a single project that is conducted on behalf of-- and is ultimately presented to --an actual client, in this case The College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University. All stages of the scoping, research, writing, editing, and production are directed by the students, who also carry responsibility for evaluating their own performance and those of their peers.

The topic of this year’s capstone project is energy. At the dawn of the 21^st century, we live in a world of limited energy supplies and seemingly limitless demand. For Americans, in particular, there appears to be little thought given to the connection between the actions of flipping a light switch or filling the gas tank on an SUV, and the environmental impacts of the corresponding energy production and consumption. Energy is always available—through the electrical grid or at the pump –and while we might complain about its impact on our pocketbooks, there seems to be little collective will to address its environmental costs. It is our belief that this situation can be significantly improved through education, thoughtful evaluation of alternatives, and openness to changing the status quo, all things that require information like that contained in this document.

Institutions the size of CSB/SJU understandably consume a great deal of energy for lighting, heating, cooling, transportation, and many other uses. At the core of this report are the assumptions that it is good to 1) know where our energy comes from, 2) know how much energy we are using, 3) know how that energy is being used,  4) do everything practicable to use less energy, and 5) ensure what we must use comes from the most sustainable sources available. All five of these assumptions are contrary to current American practices. As educational institutions is it our responsibility to demonstrate alternatives in situations such as this. Happily, this report includes many technically, socially, economically feasible ways to do just that.

It is the hope of the students involved in this project that their work will ultimately inform a change of direction in policy and practice at CSB/SJU. As their report indicates, energy systems and their operation account for the largest measure of our collective impact on the environment. By making some of the small changes around the margins suggested herein, our institutions could begin the process of systematically reducing our collective environmental impact while also furthering our educational agenda. A bolder change of direction is at the heart of this project though, including recommendations that would both yield major energy savings through conservation and suggest less destructive methods of generating what energy we must use. Should the recommendations contained in this report be adopted wholesale, CSB/SJU would clearly be embarking on a new era in environmental leadership that would draw national attention not only to our immediate actions, but also to the Benedictine values that serve as the bedrock of our institutional commitments to the welfare of other people, other forms of life, and the planet that sustains us all.

As Chairperson of the Environmental Studies Program and the instructor for the research seminar, I am delighted to present this document to the community. It represents the hard work not only of the students involved, but many others with whom they consulted for advice or research assistance. The cooperation and assistance of the staff of the two campus powerhouses, the transportation department, and their physical plant colleagues is especially deserving of recognition. I believe the result speaks for itself by providing not only an excellent overview of the pressing need to move our energy system to more sustainable foundations, but also a very clear map showing us how CSB/SJU might go there in the future.

Dr. Derek R. Larson
Environmental Studies Program Chair
The College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University
April 27, 2005