People around the country are up in arms about gas prices, but soon they will be feeling the pinch in places other than the pump. With oil being scarce and prices climbing every week, Howard University and Honeywell are taking a stand against gas consumption and its destructive impact on the environment.
Since 2007, the university has partnered with Honeywell to cut back on its carbon footprint and curb costs. According to Chris Bowens, a project manager at Honeywell, the university spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on its utilities and maintenance.
"A portion of your tuition dollars goes to paying for gas," Bowens said. The university burns oil and gas as a heat source [fuel source] and has been working with the company to improve its sustainability.
Honeywell has started a number of projects around the campus and recently installed solar panels on Burr gymnasium to heat the buildings water.
"The university currently uses [burns] gas to heat city water to create steam," Bowens said. "The steam travels through a pipe on campus and goes through a heat exchange to heat the building. By using the sun as a renewable energy source to heat the buildings water, the university reduces the amount of gas used to heat the building, thus, lowering the expenses for gas."
Honeywell has installed 21 solar domestic hot water panels on the roof of Burr gynasium.
With global warming becoming an increasing threat and experts predicting the significant reduction of existing oil deposits by the year 2040, reducing natural gas consumption has become a necessity.
"There are about six billion people on the planet, two billion of which are unplugged," Bowens said. "When those people start to come online and start using the resources that Americans currently consume at a large rate, we have to figure something out to sustain our resources because it takes millions of years to replenish them."
Oil, which is obtained by drilling underground, is formed in large pools by carbon sources that have been trapped for long periods of time and turned to oil that we refine to make natural gas today
In addition to the solar panels on Burr, Howard has gone to replace many energy consuming, outdated materials in a variety of projects.
"We replaced 12,613 lamps and bulbs on campus saving about 497,000 Watts," Bowens said.
The university also installed control systems and pipe insulation to preserve heat in the School of Business. Other sites for improvement have been Alain Locke Hall, the School of Divinity, Howard University Hospital, Howard University Law School and the Central Utility plant.
Other Honeywell projects include: replacing the boiler plant on the law campus, renovating Adams east for medical students and controlled production of chilled water for medical students.
"The goal is to look at mechanical systems and reduce consumption by 20 percent," Bowens said. "By using 20 percent less you can also save that amount and free up extra gas [fuel] from someone to utilize."
The performance contract is paying for itself through the savings that it has from using less natural gas to support the essential services of the university.
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