Spotlight on Green Schools
Schools are focusing more and more heavily on cutting back on the energy they use and trying to reduce their impact on the environment. The articles on these pages spotlight individual campus energy conservation programs, energy initiatives, solar installations, energy-related technology, HVAC, research, grants, policy, and other topics related to green campuses.
China's Northeastern University, the City of Shenyang, and IBM are collaborating in a research institute aimed at turning Shenyang, an industrial hub in northeast China with a concentration of heavy industry manufacturing, into a "smart city." Shenyang aims to be the country's model city for environment protection and development.
The University of Michigan has committed to a 10,000-seat licensing agreement with BigFix to automate desktop power management as part of its efforts to adopt eco-friendly IT practices.
Winona State University in Minnesota, with about 8,100 students, has signed on for the Zipcar service in an effort to offer its campus community an alternative to owning a car.
Red Hat has released the fourth update of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) platform, which the company is calling the foundation of its virtualization portfolio.
The University of Mississippi is looking to reduce power consumption in its campus buildings, and, as a component of the effort, it's going to be making its progress public in real time through popular social media outlets.
Microsoft released the latest version of its free standalone server virtualization solution Friday.
How one university is creating cost-effective growth models for data center and resource expansion that are also environmentally and community-friendly.
The majority of colleges and universities that have energy management strategies in place are experiencing cost savings as a result of their efforts. But, according to new research released this week, IT executives are de-emphasizing energy efficiency as a priority in their departments.
Bentley University in Waltham, MA has chosen software from PeopleCube and Steelcase to manage group study rooms in its library.
This fall students from 20 colleges and universities will haul homes to Washington, DC to participate in the United States Department of Energy's 2009 Solar Decathlon. Institutions from the United States, Canada, Spain, and Germany will show off the structures as part of a competition that tests their students' ability to design energy-efficient, solar-powered homes.
Arizona State University (ASU) has retrofitted six parking structures at its Tempe campus with new light-emitting diode (LED) fixtures. The university said it expects that the change, which uses hardware from Lighting Science, will save up to $127,000 annually in energy and maintenance costs.
Where building owners once settled for whatever was placed in front of them--with little or no regard as to how those materials or systems would affect the environment--a revolution is underway, driven by closer attention to issues like global warming, renewable energy sources, and high fuel costs.
North Carolina State University in Raleigh has garnered a $1.3 million grant from the United States Department of Energy to work on improving the batteries used in hybrid vehicles.
North Carolina State University has released its first greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory--about 14 months after initially signing onto the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment.
Oregon Health Science University recently sought the help of the World Energy Exchange, run by World Energy Solutions, in figuring out the optimal purchase of natural gas.
