Posted on 12/13/2008 7:33:41 AM PST by arkady_renko
The University of Illinois has canceled its plans to build wind turbines on campus, citing the university's "deteriorating fiscal condition."
A contract for GE to build and deliver a 1.5-megawatt wind turbine for the South Farms was sent last week to the university from GE, but university officials did not sign it.
Chancellor Richard Herman on Thursday notified GE and student leaders of the university's decision to halt the project. .....
"In the fiscal situation we're in, we need to be looking for things that have immediate cost savings," Warner said.
One turbine would have generated about 1 percent of the campus's energy needs.
"Basically (the turbine) was more symbolic than it was adding to the energy capacity of the campus," said Jack Dempsey, executive director of Facilities and Services at the UI.
It's always cheaper to reduce consumption, he said.
"A kilowatt reduced costs nothing as opposed to a kilowatt produced more efficiently. It's always cheaper to reduce consumption. That's been our goal and the chancellor's stated goal for last two years," Dempsey said.
The wind energy project, announced in 2005, originally called for installing three turbines. Over the years, demand for wind turbines pushed prices higher, said Kent Reifsteck, director of engineering services at the university. And the project was scaled down from three turbines to one, and the budget was reduced from $5.7 million to $4.6 million.
Student who have long supported the wind turbines said they were disappointed and stunned when they heard about the project's demise.
"It's pretty awful. Everyone's really shocked right now," said Amanda Schield, president of Students for Environmental Concerns,
(Excerpt) Read more at news-gazette.com ...
The little kids on campus seem to be upset that they can't waste money to feel good - welcome to a lesson in life.
Perhaps Obama will come to the rescue and build the 1% solution at our expense with his new CCC?
The "Students for Environmental Concerns" could always hold a bake sale to raise funds for it. Of course, they could always volunteer to hike their own tuition to pay for it (as if).
“It’s pretty awful. Everyone’s really shocked right now,” said Amanda Schield, president of Students for Environmental Concerns....
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Brainwashed mindless little zombies....all part of the socialist plan.
Grow up, a-holes. Don't you have some studying to do?
Schield and other environmental leaders on campus have asked students to call or e-mail university administrators with their concerns, "but it's hard. It's finals week. Everyone is busy and stressed," she said.
"Many people fought for this for years," said Suhail Barot, UI graduate student and chair of the student sustainability committee. "If we had known about the funding shortfall ... we could have gone and looked for grants or donations, but they never gave us a chance," he said.
The university's move to pull the plug on the project shows the university is not committed to sustainability, he said.
The decision to cancel the wind energy project comes less than a year after the university signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, a statement that called for, among other things, reducing greenhouse gases and using or buying more renewable energy.
Well, as you may have noticed from the news this week, we have plenty of hot air in Illinois as well.
We bet that she thinks oil is bad and icky.
A 2 dollar per semester fee. That sounds exactly like a brain-challenged, reality challenged, lib solution to an actual situation. But then, for 2 bucks they could paint a happy face on the propeller blades!
“Basically (the turbine) was more symbolic than it was adding to the energy capacity of the campus,” said Jack Dempsey, executive director of Facilities and Services at the UI.
Well they need the money to pay for Ron Zook’s contract.
Sadly for the future of this country — blindly assuming it even HAS a future at this point — the studying they will be doing will be in textbooks written by OTHER socialists. Only a small handful will survive the indoctrination.
A big-ass, noisy symbolic thing, it would have been.
Excellent.
But...but...everyone will save billions by "going green"! Every TV commercial told me so.
"It's pretty awful. Everyone's really shocked right now," said Amanda Schield, president of Students for Environmental Concerns
It's tragic. An opportunity for people to feel better about themselves has been lost, perhaps irretrievably.
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