Through the years of changes in leadership and thousands of students, the University of Idaho has made changes to meet a goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

The history of climate and UI

In 2010 UI released the Climate Action Plan, a 50-page document which outlined the steps UI would need to follow to be carbon neutral by 2030.

UI signed three agreements before releasing this plan: The American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment in 2007, the Chicago Climate Exchange commitment in 2007 and the Talloires Declaration in 2005.

In Spring 2009, the UI Sustainability Committee also set 2030 as the date for

carbon neutrality and set intermittent goals of 25% neutral by 2012, 50% by 2016, and 82% by 2023.

On Feb. 25, 2020, UI’s Sustainability Center sent out an email announcing they had decreased their greenhouse gas emissions by 30% from 2005.

2019 Greenhouse Gas Inventory

Marc Compton, a facilities mechanical system engineer, put together the 2019 Greenhouse Gas Inventory report with help from the Sustainability Center on campus.

Compton said he is part of the Utilities and Engineering Services department on campus. The department oversees the District Energy Plant, commonly referred to as the Steam Plant.

The report only covers UI’s Moscow campus, Compton said.

They only included the Moscow campus in the report because he doesn’t receive electric bills from the other UI campuses, Compton said.

According to the email, the top five largest emissions sources on campus
are electricity consumption at 51.4%, stationary fuel use (fuels like natural gas) at 15.3%, animals or fertilizer at 7.9%, directly financed travel at 7.6% and food consumption at 6.4%.

What are we measuring?

All emissions on UI’s campus can be placed in one of three scopes, Compton said.

Scope one is direct emissions and includes combustion of fossil fuels, emissions from refrigeration equipment and agriculture emissions.

Of the top five largest emissions sources, two of them are counted in this scope — stationary fuel use and animals.

Stationary fuels, according to the report, include using fuels for activities such as heating buildings, research and cooking.

The Steam Plant produces enough steam to supply 61 buildings on campus with energy. The Steam Plant uses both wood chips and natural gas, according to the inventory report.

The report also said the Steam Plant is the largest consumer of natural gas on campus, followed by buildings not connected to the steam distribution network and campus farms.

The amount of natural gas consumed is dependent on the weather and it fluctuates. The overall consumption has changed little over the years, according to the report.

The tons of ECO2 in scope one in 2005 were 7,859. The lowest point was in 2018 when it was 6,338 tons of ECO2, according to the report.

In 2019, the report said the tons of ECO2 was 6,953. One reason this number increased because the number of animals on campus increased.

“For the most part … a lot of it came from agriculture on campus. The population of cows has gone up,” Compton said.

According to the report, a beef cow produces slightly more than 1,500 kilograms of ECO2 per head.

ECO2 is not a measurement for CO2. It is a comparative measurement of other greenhouse gas emissions in relation to CO2.

The measurement, ECO2, is how many total greenhouse gasses besides CO2 were emitted by a source, Compton said.

“A kilogram of CO2 for example has a much smaller impact than a kilogram
of (methane). By doing a little math, each gas can be compared equally and summed together into a unit called ECO2. Think of it as turning an apples to oranges situation into an apples to apples one,” Compton said.

Dairy cows produce a little over 5,500 kilograms ECO2 per cow, according to the report.

There is a small growth in scope one emissions because UI cattle herds are growing. However, there have been decreases in other scopes to make up for this growth, Compton said.

Scope two, indirect emissions, includes emissions from sources not owned or operated by UI but are directly linked to campus energy consumption, Compton said.

According to the report, UI has decreased its electricity consumption by 26% since 2005. The third and final scope is other emissions. This scope accounts for emissions not in either scope one or scope two. This includes commuting, UI financed travel, food and solid waste.

Food, Compton said, was new to this report.

“We needed to get information from them on how many … pounds of food we’re buying and what kinds of food,” Compton said.

The report has two pie charts for food. The first is for food consumption by weight, the second is emissions by type.

Food data became available in fiscal year 2019. Total emissions from food is 1,766 tons of CO2, according to the report.

“It’s kind of tricky every year to measure emissions every year because as time goes on, we’re finding better ways of measuring things. And so, we’re counting more things than we used to in the beginning,” Compton said.

Next steps

There are a few projects Facilities Services, the university, and student groups like the Sustainability Center are currently working on.

Compton said there are plans to add turbines to the Steam Plant, which would use the steam being generated by the plant to produce power.

Another project in the works is installing solar panels on top of the Integrated Research and Innovation Center (IRIC).

The Sustainability Center at UI started a crowdfunding campaign to raise some of the money required to install nearly 400 panels.

These panels, once operational, would produce 145 kilowatts of renewable energy.

“We’re making reductions. Emissions are down 30% since 2005, and we’re taking steps in the right direction,” Compton said.

Kali Nelson can be reached at [email protected]