Renewables Boost UC San Diego's Green Credentials

SAN DIEGO, California, April 3, 2008 (ENS) - The University of California-San Diego will soon generate 10 to 15 percent of its annual electrical needs with alternative generating capacity. New projects include large photovoltaic arrays, fuel cells powered by waste methane, and an innovative wind energy power swap.

UC San Diego signed a contract in March to build one megawatt of photovoltaic, PV, solar energy production. The solar arrays will be constructed atop campus buildings and parking structures. UC San Diego expects to install up to another one megawatt of PV capacity within the next year.

The university is preparing to purchase up to three megawatts of electrical power produced by Southern California wind farms.

UC San Diego will produce 2.4 megawatts from fuel cells powered by renewable methane and by using the methane at its cogeneration plant, which supplies 88 percent of the campus's electricity.

The methane fuel will be transported to the campus from the Point Loma sewage treatment plant, where it is produced but currently lost by flaring - just burning away into the atmosphere.

Once in place, the approximately 7.4 megawatts of renewable energy capacity will make UC San Diego a leader in renewable energy solutions among U.S. universities.

The distinctive Geisel Library at UC San Diego. (Photo credit unknown)

"These remarkable achievements in renewable energy demonstrate UC San Diego's local impact, national influence and global reach in one of the most important issues of our time - environmental sustainability," said UC San Diego Chancellor Marye Anne Fox.

"Universities are among the leaders of innovation in green research and practices," she said, "and UC San Diego stands out among academic institutions."

UC San Diego has negotiated agreements with investors that allow them to install PV systems on campus rooftops, and the university will purchase the energy produced at a negotiated price.

The fuel cell electricity generators will be built and operated with a similar third-party funding arrangement.

Fox has formed a campus-wide Sustainability Initiative to bring together the intellectual resources of the campus around the challenges of sustainability. Renewable energy creation is but one of many campuswide initiatives that comprise UC San Diego's commitment to environmental sustainability.

At UC San Deigo the Center for Atmospheric Sciences conducts fundamental investigations of the atmosphere related to climate and climate change.

This year UC San Diego celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Keeling Curve, the first measurement of greenhouse gas build up in the atmosphere.

The Keeling Curve is a graph showing the variation in concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1958. It is based on continuous measurements taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii under the supervision of Charles David Keeling.

Keeling's measurements showed the first significant evidence of rapidly increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Many scientists credit Keeling's graph with first bringing the world's attention to the effects that human activity were having on the Earth's atmosphere and climate.

Charles Keeling died in 2005. Supervision of the measuring project was taken over by his son, Ralph Keeling, a climate science professor at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

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