Within days, the University's energy manager, Chris Powell, will present a report detailing plans to cut University emissions, Powell announced Tuesday at a meeting of the Brown University Community Council.
If approved, the plan would reduce Brown's emissions by 2020 to 4 to 18 percent below 1990 levels and by 2050 would further reduce emissions to 75 to 80 percent below 1990 levels.
Presenting the plan to the BUCC, Powell suggested the University use more natural gas in place of fuel oil in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, albeit at an added cost of $250,000 to $300,000 annually.
Powell also proposed $15 million in renovations to increase the energy efficiency of some campus buildings. He also proposed a construction project costing between $12 million and $14 million that would "optimize" Brown's central heating plant and ramp up the University's own electricity generation.
These proposed renovations would cost a total of $29 million, but the improvements would recover about 10 percent of the cost by 2021, Powell said, largely because producing electricity is cheaper than buying it off of the Providence grid. Additionally, as fuel costs are expected to increase by what Powell described as "a conservative estimate" of 7 percent each year, Powell said the benefits of using natural gas instead of oil-based electricity will add up.
"This is very heartening, that a lot of this cost comes back with a 9, 10 or 11 percent return," said Professor of Physics David Cutts, a BUCC member. He added that Brown should have considered such improvements well before energy conservation became popular.
Powell said he expected the cost of the proposed changes should not exceed $250,000 to $600,000 annually.
The plan could ultimately come before the Corporation, the University's highest governing body, if its total costs reach a certain level.
After Powell's presentation, Associate Provost Nancy Dunbar, who is leading the Banner implementation process, spoke about the new electronic registration system, which will go live for pre-registration in two weeks.
Dunbar cited students' ability to see how many other students are pre-registered for a class before the first day of shopping period as one of Banner's benefits. She added that, though some concerned students will become discouraged when they are blocked from pre-registering for a class, the new system will increase interaction between students and professors as students ask faculty members to override a course cap or course requirement.
Dunbar said students could also benefit from course previews that professors can now post through Banner.
John Gillis '07, president of the Undergraduate Council of Students, raised a concern that because courses will be capped before pre-registration and shopping period demonstrate the level of student interest, students will be discouraged from seeking out the courses most interesting to them.
"I'm going to stay in class B, where I definitely have a seat, instead of shopping class C, which is better (for me)," Gillis said, adding that the students in a class could be determined by "who's hitting the refresh button quicker."
Once Banner goes live, there will remain "major IT projects" to be pursued and innumerable updates that students will likely request such as "stronger, more intuitive" search engines and student photos on class lists, Dunbar said.
"It inevitably feels like you're taking a step backward when you put in a new system," Dunbar said. She added that it "usually takes two to three years" to fully transition to the system as new features are added and problems are resolved.
Dunbar added that transferring student academic histories to the system will also be a major project. "Twenty-three years of academic history has to be moved to the system - meaning every A, every drop, every leave of absence," she said.
