Acadia Roher

hannon Arvizu, a Columbia sociology graduate student housed in a University Apartment, saw her rent rise $40 this year because of energy costs. This is not the cost of her own energy usage. How much she pays has nothing to do with how much power she uses. In any case, no one is keeping track. That, she says, is the problem.

Columbia is moving slowly toward a more efficient energy policy, but it is hampered at every step by the lack of complete and accurate information about its consumption. Detailed records have not been kept for many years. In the past, energy has been cheap, and so there was no system to record the information. Columbia’s campus also has many old buildings that are not separately metered, so there is no good way to track where energy is being used.

This has been especially frustrating for student activists like Arvizu. Students in several environmental groups recently planned a campus energy awareness campaign, but their repeated requests for numbers on consumption from Columbia’s Finance Department were met with silence. Even Nilda Mesa, director of the Environmental Stewardship Department, can’t get an answer; she said the process is “like pulling teeth.” Her department desperately needs information on current energy consumption to begin creating a greener energy policy.

In the meantime they rely on rough estimates, according to which the Morningside campus consumes about 120 million kilowatt-hours each year. If all that energy could be made renewable, the benefit would be enormous. Based on a comparison to the average generation mix in New York done by the New York Public Service Commission, buying 120 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy in a year is “equivalent to not releasing 18,720,000 pounds of carbon dioxide”— “1,624,320,000 miles not driven or 128,160,000 trees planted.”

Nilda Mesa says the University is looking at an energy package in which alternative, renewable sources will play a part, but will not replace all energy. The most arduous task ahead will be piecing together a comprehensive policy that addresses the energy issues of the University, including aged buildings, outdated equipment, new construction projects, and the varied needs of the academic community.

Since Mesa’s initiation in September, several projects to monitor and reduce energy consumption have gotten underway. Recently, double-paned windows were installed in the Barnard dorm at 600 116th Street. The Columbia University Facilities Department has begun taking baseline power readings from the four campus buildings that do have separate meters. Additionally, an energy audit of the separately metered University Apartments is underway, with recommendations due in January

While Columbia’s green energy campaign is just beginning, other universities are already far ahead. NYU recently announced it would replace 100 percent of the fossil fuel energy it uses with wind energy. Last fall, Yale University challenged students to conserve energy by committing to purchase enough renewable energy to supply one third of the power consumed by its residential colleges in exchange for a five-percent drop in energy use from students.

These campaigns work by purchasing renewable energy certificates. By buying RECs, schools pay power companies to subsidize the slightly higher cost of feeding alternative energy into the national energy grid. The actual electricity flowing through Columbia’s wires is not necessarily from alternative energy sources, but the pool of fossil fuel energy powering the entire grid is diluted.

The added cost is not very high. NYU, which now pays close to $50 million for about as much energy as Columbia, expects to pay about $1 million, or two percent, extra for a total switch to wind energy. Or, as Arvizu puts it, “That’s the equivalent of tuition for four graduate students.” Columbia’s bill would look similar. Part of the reason alternative energy is relatively cheap, however, is that fossil fuels have gotten more expensive. They may not stay that way; a genuine commitment to greener energy cannot depend on convenience, but must switch energy sources with a broader goal of sustainability.

Although several small victories are being quietly won in favor of a more sustainable future for Columbia, they are largely unpublicized. Students have been neither informed of nor involved in these new changes. Columbia needs an approach to responsible energy consumption in which all members of the community participate and keep informed. The administration needs to publicly gather all the information it can and actively buy more green energy, while students, staff, and faculty should reduce their consumption levels. Real, lasting change will require cooperation at all levels of the University.