In one Midwestern town, students are taking initiatives to improve sustainability and reduce energy consumption at their school.

Carleton College is a small private school of about 1,900 students located in Northfield, Minn. Part of Carleton’s institutional mission is “to be a model of environmental stewardship by incorporating ideals of sustainability into the operations of the college and the daily lives of individuals.”

Rob Lamppa, director of energy management and senior project manager at Carleton, talked about the environmental accomplishments of his college at the Advancing Renewables in the Midwest conference Tuesday afternoon in the Scheman Building.

“I think, as an educational institution and as individuals, we have a number of responsibilities – especially as the leaders of educational institutions,” Lamppa said. “We are educating the next generation of leaders.

“If we can arm them with the knowledge of sustainability and energy reduction, we can have them develop our . opportunities as we move forward and also help to work in regard to greenhouse gas emissions.”

Lamppa explained how the student government at Carleton was essential to beginning the college’s biggest sustainability project, the installation of a wind turbine. Completed in 2004, the project made Carleton the nation’s first college to own and operate a commercial wind turbine.

The project began when the Carleton Student Association Senate went before the school administration requesting that up to 10 per cent of the university’s electrical usage be replaced with electricity drawn from a renewable source. Both groups agreed that wind energy was the best option.

Thus began the arduous process of raising a wind turbine. Lamppa said the first step was conducting studies to test whether the chosen site received enough wind to generate enough power.

The next act was reaching an agreement with the local utility company on how to connect to the power grid and on payment rates for the generated electricity. To seal the deal, the university had to obtain permits from the local government and negotiate with the farmer on whose land the turbine was to be built.

The construction process began with a foundation of approximately 100 square yards of concrete. The delivery of the construction crane and the turbine itself took a total of 23 semi-truck loads.

The project took two years from visualization to completion and cost over $1.8 million – however, Lamppa said the project cost today would be as high as $3 million, due to inflation and the increasing cost of metals.

Since its completion in September 2004, the turbine has generated an average of 4.73 million kilowatt-hours per year – the equivalent of 32 percent of the university’s annual electrical usage. Lamppa said the turbine could power about 500 homes.

Carleton is one of more than 500 colleges and universities nationwide to sign up for the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. The ACUPCC asks universities to develop plans to eventually become climate-neutral – means negating their emissions of greenhouse gases.

Lamppa said becoming climate-neutral is a tall order – only one university has claimed to have achieved the feat – but large universities such as Iowa State have other options available to them.

One example is the National Wildlife Federation’s program, which urges major institutions such as universities to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by two percent annually.

“Rather than saying, ‘We are definitely going to be climate-neutral by date X,’ you just try every year to just reduce 2 percent and you just start chipping away,” Lamppa said. “You’re still doing the same thing without having to put that stake in the ground.”