Memo to all school districts: Asking kids to meet at centralized bus stops can save you a quick $150,000 in fuel.
Energy was the topic last week at the Pattern for Progress fall conference, which examined ways municipalities and school districts can cut energy costs. Speakers said the simplest ideas are still the most cost effective and they can be enacted immediately, including asking students to meet at old-fashioned bus stops instead of the current door-to-door approach.Â
Keynote speaker Paul DeCotis, New York”™s deputy secretary for energy and chairman of the Energy Planning Board appointed by Governor Paterson last spring, told 175 participants at the SUNY New Paltz campus there are plenty of options to improve New York”™s energy profile. He stressed the upside energy efficiency could bring to municipal budgets. “This is a huge untapped resource,” DeCotis said.
He said that after the oil price shocks of the 1970s, policy makers began considering conservation and efficiency measures as a potential policy to offset the need to bring in imported power supplies. At that time use and cost savings of between a quarter and a third were considered feasible. “And guess what?” DeCotis said. “That potential is still as high today as 25 years ago.”
This is not because New York has not taken advantage of efficiency he said, adding that “considerable progress” has been made. But there is still a huge potential energy bonanza to be reaped from conservation and efficiency because technology has the potential to make further inroads into usage and costs. He cited the example of the incandescent light bulb gradually being replaced by the compact fluorescent bulbs, which use only a quarter of the electricity and last 10 times longer.
While those dramatic savings are slowly being realized as businesses and people change their light bulbs, the light emitting diode (LED) option is being perfected for consumers to use in homes and businesses. Additionally, the Energy Star appliances are offering savings that were not available when energy efficiency was in its infancy.
DeCotis decried the lack of federal leadership in meeting the challenges of energy conservation and supply and said that states have tried to take up the slack. He said New York”™s renewable portfolio standard has a goal of seeing 25 percent of state power supplies derived from efficiency or renewable sources by the year 2013. Another initiative, “15×15,” seeks to reduce the growth of New York”™s power demands by an additional 15 percent from projected levels of growth by the year 2015.
To reach these ambitious goals, he said, Governor Paterson had demanded an expedited set of recommendations from the Energy Planning Board that integrates a variety of power sources, including solar, wind, bio-mass and tidal power, as well as traditional sources. “You name it we are looking at it,” said DeCotis, adding, “We”™ve got a very aggressive time line to make a plan.” A draft of the plan is due by March 31, 2009. Â
He said that in contrast to past plans, however, the governor is demanding that policy must trump politics. “The basis for the decisions will be the public interest,” DeCotis said. “Then we can discuss how the special interests might be impacted or benefit.”
With that focus, he said, the playing field is wide open for innovative and efficient ideas to gain acceptance in the marketplace. “There is no better time to be in the energy business than now,” DeCotis said.
That theme was echoed by other speakers. The conference was co-presented by the campus based Center for Research, Regional Education and Outreach. Director Gerald Benjamin said that business and the public sector must recognize the need to do things differently. “We can no longer assume property taxes are a stable source of revenue,” he said. “We need to work together to find efficiencies in ways we didn”™t before, to turn crises into opportunity.”
Simple ideas are as welcome as grandiose schemes. Monticello Central School District Superintendent Patrick Michel outlined how his district had “recreated a sense of community by restoring the old fashioned school bus stop.” Depending on their grade level, students are now asked to walk up to half a mile to a designated school bus stop where other children also await the bus. The plan has saved the district $150,000 in fuel costs so far.
Town of Fishkill Supervisor Joan Pagones reported a long list of savings since switching town departments to a four-day work week, working longer days and reducing inefficiencies related to travel to and from job sites and daily startup of work crews.
