I brought up this initiative at the the December Bike Board meeting.
The Climate Action Team is working on their final version at their (nearly?) final meeting, which they will present to City Council. Does anyone have recommendations they would like included?
Please study and comment on attached document.
-Jonathan
-------- Original Message --------
| Subject: | Re: Morgantown Climate Action Plan |
|---|---|
| Date: | 2019-01-11 13:07 |
| From: | James Kotcon <jkotcon@wvu.edu> |
| To: | James Kotcon <jkotcon@wvu.edu> |
A (nearly?) final meeting of the Climate Action Team will be held Monday, Jan. 14 at 6 PM in Room G-138 South Ag Sciences (conference room). My goal is to finalize a list of recommendations to City Council to present at the Committee of the Whole meting Jan. 29.
The attached document is where we are so far. I have copied a lot of stuff people sent me, but have not integrated it yet. The list on Page 2 is the most relevant. Please make recommendations as to which of these are priorities for the coming budget year, which are longer term, and which are actions that the City can incentivize and are worth doing for the residential/commercial sector, but may not be something City Council can directly impose.
Feel free to expand the invitation to anyone else who might be interested. Hope to see you there, if not, send me comments.
Jim Kotcon
The next meeting for the Climate Action Team in Monday, Nov. 26 at 5:45 PM. I did not get a room at the Library, so we will hold that in our conference room, G-138 South Agr. Sciences building, on the Evansdale campus. It is accessible a 5-minutes walk from the Engineering PRT station. Parking is free after 5 PM.
The main agenda item is to refine and report progress on our list of proposed recommendations tot he City to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The attachment from Joe Kanofsky provides some valuable parameters for calculating emissions reductions.
See thread below for more info.
The ideas we discussed last week include:
1) Implement IAC energy efficiency recommendations.
2) Install LED street lights. (As Joe indicates below, this is probably not a money-saver, but it would more than meet the 28 % target for greenhouse gas reductions from that source.)
3) Provide incentives to malls and large parking areas on private/commercial sites to install LED lighting.
4) Acquire more efficient and cleaner City buses for MountainLine
5) Expand bus routes to reduce auto traffic.
6) Install Park-and-Ride lots to encourage commuters to use bus services.
7) Integrate bikes with buses and rail trail (this needs some clarification)
8) Install solar panels on City facilities. (My Baseline calculation indicates that to displace 28 % of the City's Municipal electric consumption would require 1986 MWh of solar generation. Assuming a capacity factor of 25 %, we would need approximately 900 kW of solar panels. Assuming $2.75 per watt, this would be approximately $2.5 million. The payback time on this is about 40 years, so this is not free.)
9 Have the City provide incentives for green building standards.
10) Convert the City fleet to fuel efficient or electric vehicles.
11) Provide education to City residents and in schools on ways to reduce carbon emissions.
12) Identify cleaner alternatives for small engines (leaf blowers, lawn mowers, etc.)
More ideas are welcome, and we will need to prioritize these, as well as develop specific implementation recommendations. We also should think about how to quantify emission reductions to provide realistic estimates.
Hope you can join us.
Jim Kotcon
Jim:
My thoughts on reducing GHG emissions.
Reducing GHG emissions is achieved by reducing energy use produced by fossil energy (coal, oil, natural gas). At NETL I am responsible for tracking GHG emissions by calculating the CO2 emissions from our electric and natural gas usage using the tables provided in the Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Tracking in Portfolio Manager document dated August 31, 2009. I have attached this document along with some sample calculations. To achieve the 26% reduction in CO2 will require reducing energy usage in the city buildings. We have some projects identified from Alex's audit work which I am not sure if all of these were implemented that we could achieve the 26% reduction. The LED street lighting we have been investigating may not save the city money but will contribute to reducing the CO2e by reducing the energy usage. We can calculate the projected CO2 reduction based on Alex's energy use reduction for her listed projects and for the LED lighting which Abby's report would have the projected energy savings per fixture. That would give us some idea of how achievable the 26% goal would be so that we could try to identify additional projects if that goal could not be met with Alex's project and the LED lighting. I have attached the Portfolio Manager paper with the kgCO2e/MBTU conversion factors for electric and natural gas. There are also additional conversion factors for indirect GHG emissions. I hope this information helps you with your climate action plan.
From: James Kotcon <jkotcon@wvu.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 7, 2018 7:33 PM
To: James Kotcon <jkotcon@wvu.edu>
Subject: Morgantown Climate Action Plan
As you may recall, Morgantown City Council adopted the US Mayors Climate Agreement last year, pledging to meet the terms of the Paris Climate Agreement by reducing the City's greenhouse gas emissions by 26 % by 2026. Council asked the Morgantown Green Team to develop a Climate Action Plan, detailing how to achieve that goal. After several false starts, I want to get that back on track. We will meet Monday, Nov. 12, at 5:30 PM at the Morgantown Public Library in the Second Floor Conference Room.
My goal is to propose a reduced set of actions as a menu of something like our "Top Ten Climate Recommendations" for consideration by the City. I will need your help to generate some realistic cost data and estimates of potential reductions in emissions, with the idea that Council and the City Engineering Department can identify the easiest options to choose.
Please let me know if you can make this meeting. Alternatively, let me know if you are no longer interested and I will delete you from these messages.
Jim Kotcon
304-293-8822 (office)
304-594-3322 (home)