Wednesday, April 6, 2005
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If everything goes KUnited’s way, campus will become a healthier place.
One of the main issues on KUnited’s platform is to purchase energy from renewable sources for all student-funded buildings through a green-tag system, which produces clean and healthy energy, instead of energy produced with fossil fuels.
The green tag is simply a paper certificate an energy company gives after the purchase of energy. The certificate says how much energy has been purchased and for what purpose.
The only student-funded building on campus now is the Student Recreation Fitness Center, but the new Multicultural Resource Center would also fall under that category.
Green tags relay energy from windmills to other locations to provide energy that is not harmful to the environment. The energy gets relayed by purchasing energy from a company and reserving it for a certain building, Jason Boots, Plano, Texas, junior said. One such company is Pristine Power, the company that made the initial green-tag presentation to Student Senate.
Boots, who has been working with green tags for Senate, said that the company that would supply the energy has a power grid, and the one closest to campus would be used for the Student Recreation Fitness Center.
Nick Sterner, presidential candidate for KUnited, said right now the program is in the research phase, and KUnited is trying to gather as much information about renewable energy and green tags as possible.
There was supposed to be a proposal for a $1 fee to fund green tags at the Senate meeting tonight. Jeff Dunlap, student body vice president, withdrew the bill from Senate, and said there had to be more research done before a fee was proposed to the student body.
Sterner agreed with Dunlap and was involved in the decision to withdraw the bill. Sterner said there was a task force that was just formally put together to look into bringing green tags to campus.
“Right now, the task force is talking to different companies about prices,” Sterner said. “They are also looking into what type of power, either wind or solar, that the campus would use.”
Sterner, Shawnee junior, said green tags could be either wind powered, solar powered or hydrogen powered. If it is decided not to build windmills in the Flint Hills area, then Sterner said a likely choice would be to go to solar-powered green tags.
There has not been a decision about how renewable energy would be paid for. Dunlap said he thought a change to student fees would be necessary to fund it.
Sterner said that it was too early to determine how much the project would cost, and that there might be enough money in either the Senate’s surplus funds or reserve funds to pay for it.
There are two options that Senate could pursue to bring green tags to campus. Sterner said they could either do a pilot, which is a one-year trial program or fund the project long-term.
Either way, the first priority, Sterner said, is to bring renewable energy to the Student Recreation Fitness Center.
“We want to do everything we can to fund the buildings that students already pay for,” Sterner said.
Eventually, Sterner said KUnited would look into bringing green tags to the new Multicultural Resource Center.
Sterner thinks this is one of the bigger issues on the KUnited platform, and thinks it could benefit students.
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