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Eigenmann, Read ahead in IU Energy ChallengeMar 05, 2013 (Herald-Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Shutting off the sink spigot during the time you brush your teeth -- or turning off the water while you lather up in the shower. Unplugging your computer and mobile phone chargers when you're not using them. Turning off lamps and lights when you're not going to be in your room. They're all little ways that every Indiana University student can help save energy, and when hundreds of students do it, the conservation adds up. At the beginning of this month, IU students in 10 residence centers had saved 95,042 gallons of water and 8,615 kilowatt-hours of electricity in the spring 2013 Energy Challenge that began Feb. 18 and ends March 11. In the water competition, Eigenmann was leading the campus with a 22 percent reduction from its average, followed by Briscoe and Teter. In the electricity competition, Read was ahead with a 23 percent reduction in consumption, with Teter and Ashton rounding out the top three. Andrew Bushnell is helping monitor the campus competition as a utilities and conservation intern at the IU Office of Sustainability. "Personal energy usage is something most people never consider," he said in a statement from IU. "The goal of the Energy Challenge is to get people to look at how their daily choices affect energy consumption, and then to get them to modify that behavior to reduce the amount of energy they consume. We hope then that a more energy conscious attitude on campus will carry over even after the competition has ended." Access to utility information and competition standings are provided through a Campus Conservation Nationals dashboard, which is projected over the digital displays in the residence centers. The dashboard shows standings among the 10 residence centers competing and is updated three times a week for electricity and water consumption, according to IU. The IU Energy Challenge is part of Campus Conservation Nationals (CCN), the nation's largest electricity and water consumption competition for colleges and universities. According to IU Communications, more than 208,000 students at over 100 colleges and universities saved about 1.7 megawatt-hours of electricity and 1.5 million gallons of water in the 2012 competition. That's the equivalent of avoiding 2.6 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions and saving 10,300 hours worth of showers. The 2013 competition hopes to continue this success and increase the savings from last year. The winner of IU's spring Energy Challenge will be announced after spring break, which runs from March 11-17. For more information about the competition, graphics displaying emerging results and tips for conserving energy and water, visit the IU Energy Challenge website at http://energychallenge.indiana.edu/. ___ (c)2013 the Herald-Times (Bloomington, Ind.) Visit the Herald-Times (Bloomington, Ind.) at www.heraldtimesonline.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |