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Politics & Government

City's energy use equals 50 tankers of oil

The Department of Community Services interns calculate Summit's carbon footprint.

This summer, three college students discovered that in 2008 the City of Summit released enough carbon dioxide to equal 50 tankers of oil.

“That’s the same amount as burning approximately 21 railroad cars full of coal,” said Ayse Unver, one of three Department of Community Services interns. “You would need 900 acres of forest to reabsorb the carbon dioxide emissions from 2008 alone.”

Unver, along with fellow interns Adelle Mollina and Jennifer Butler, found these results by calculating the town’s carbon footprint, a measurement of greenhouse gas emissions caused by an individual, organization, event or product.

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The project was jumpstarted by the three Summit High School graduates to earn 10 points towards the city’s certification to become a sustainable community. The certification is sponsored by Sustainable Jersey, a program started by a team of non-profit organizations dedicated to improving New Jersey’s environmental status, according to its Web site.

Retrieving the data alone took two months, and started with a trip to the finance department at Summit City Hall, Unver said. There the interns went through boxes of invoices pertaining to electricity and fuel to find exactly how much energy was used throughout the year. Then they plugged each number into a spreadsheet provided by Sustainable Jersey to come up with the final number. The results were surprising.

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The municipality released about 4,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2008 alone, according to the interns’ presentation at the Aug. 4 city council meeting.

They also found that 65 percent of the emissions were from electricity, 21 percent came from city-owned vehicles, and the remaining 14 percent from natural gases, heating oil and diesel fuels.

The interns also presented a list of recommendations for the city to reduce its carbon footprint throughout the next few years. Using smart power strips, timed light mechanisms and replacing older cars with hybrids were among the suggestions. Department heads were impressed by the students’ work and the extent of their findings.

“It’s phenomenal what we don’t know,” said Marian Glenn, director of the city’s Environmental Commission. “(The interns) didn’t kid around.” 

The Environmental Commission, led by several volunteers, has spent the past two years creating a plan for the city—emulating one that was passed down from the state to Summit and other municipalities. While they have worked on different projects this year, Glenn said that the carbon footprint project was a prerequisite to the next step: an energy audit.

The Environmental Commission plans to sift through the data used to calculate the carbon footprint to find wasted energy, Glenn said. Then they will take appropriate action to help municipal buildings and departments eliminate the excess. They are looking into cost-effective ways to make that happen, such as adding solar panels to each building.

“Solar panels reduce energy use and definitely pay for themselves,” said Glenn. “Investors can pay for the panels and then sell electricity back to the town for a lower cost.”

After the audit the city plans to find additional ways to reduce its carbon footprint, but they’ll have to do it without the hard work of their interns—who are returning to college this fall. Unver is starting her senior year at Vassar College, Mollina attends Brown University and Butler studies at Howard University.

Unver and her colleagues also developed a 30-page document for others to reference when conducting the next carbon footprint. While the other interns were not available for comment, Unver said that patience, volunteers and the willingness to dive head first into research were what made the project a success. 

Although it was hard work, “it was absolutely worth it,” she said.

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