OSU ranked high in EPA University Green Power Challenge

The EPA recently announced the winners of the College and University Green Power Challenge. Topping the list was the University of Pennsylvania, NYU, Penn State and OSU.The EPA College and University Green Power Challenge is fundamentally a ranking system by which universities are recognized for their investments in green power generation.


"The goal is to facilitate more purchasing [of green power]," said Blaine Collison of the EPA Green Power Partnership. "Ultimately we hope that by providing a series of bright shining examples of leadership, that we would see some other schools follow suit."


All schools in the competition are classified by their athletic conferences. Within the PAC-10, only OSU, UW and Stanford participate.


"We have hoped that by grouping and ranking schools according to conference, that it would provide a way for stakeholders, students, parents, the university communities and the communities in which the schools operate to get a sense of who is doing what, who is taking leadership positions and what's possible," Collison said.


In order to qualify for the competition, a school or university must be partnered with the EPA and must purchase at least 10 million kilowatt hours of green power.


The term "green power", however, has a rather ambiguous meaning; the EPA defines green power as "any power source which has no greenhouse gas emissions and that doesn't pose large scale environmental issues," Collison said.


Nuclear and large scale hydroelectric facilities, therefore, do not count as green power.


During the 2008-2009 competition year, Oregon State purchased or invested in 66,680,400 kWh of green power. According to Brandon Trelstad, Sustainability Coordinator at OSU, "this power is from wind, bio-mass and bio-gas."


This investment is paid for by an $8.50 student fee that was passed by students in spring of 2007 as part of the Student Sustainability Initiative. That election had the highest voting rate of any election previously at OSU.


"I was so pleasantly impressed with how much students cared about his issue. This has had a ripple effect across campus . Students at OSU are very passionate about sustainability," said former ASOSU Environmental Affairs Officer Andrea Norris.


OSU has participated in the competition for the last two years, both of which resulted in fourth place ranking.


"We would love to see everybody in the PAC-10 start making purchases like Oregon State is making . there is a lot that can happen here," Collison said.




Ben Sundberg, staff writer

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