As part of Virginia's goal to reduce its energy use, companies, nonprofits, local governments, colleges and other organizations are working together to promote energy conservation and help residents lower their electric bills. Virginia Energy Sense hopes by 2020 to reduce the 2006 energy consumption rate by 10 percent.
Old Dominion University has several initiatives under way designed to help students and the broader community understand how much energy they use and how they can help make Virginia more sustainable for the next generation. Among them:
ODU's Sustainable Development Institute, which researches and disseminates information on environmental issues, has introduced a multi-disciplinary energy cluster led by Sandeep Kumar, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, which pulls together energy researchers from across the College of Engineering to offer undergraduate and graduate education and research in energy.
The cluster is a way for students, people from the industry and others to access ODU's energy engineering expertise. It offers an interdisciplinary graduate-level Energy Certificate program, a minor in Energy Engineering (starting spring 2016), and a Biofuels Summer Apprentice Program for high school students.
At the institute, we have conducted greenhouse gas emission inventories for Chesapeake and Norfolk using tools developed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives. We studied estimated emissions from three different sectors: industrial, commercial and residential. The outcome was a baseline estimate of carbon footprints for both cities, and reducing energy use will likely result in a reduction in greenhouse gas associated with energy production as well.
Mujde Erten-Unal is associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of Old Dominion University's Sustainable Development Institute. This editorial originally appearted in The Virginian-Pilot.