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November 27, 2007, 12:56 PM ET
Shop Talk: Power Struggle at Appalachian State, Geothermal at California U., and More
Who has the power?: A site for a new College of Education building at Appalachian State University has folks in Boone, N.C., stirred up. According to local reports, the site is zoned for residential use, and town officials are worried about how the building would affect traffic in the area. Patrick Heavner, an official with the local planning commission, said that the argument was really about something deeper: “The issue here is not zoning, it’s not the College of Education, it’s an issue of power struggle: who has the power.”
Fewer lumps of coal: The University of Wisconsin at Madison will reduce its use of coal in a heating plant by 15 percent in response to a U.S. District Court ruling that the university was violating the Clean Air Act. The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club. According to The Capital Times, a newspaper in Madison, the reduction is equal to about 30,000 tons of coal, enough to fill 225 rail cars. Replacing that coal with renewable energy will cost the university $1-million to $3-million a year.
Tearing down, down, down: Officials at California University of Pennsylvania decided that renovating its 40-year-old dormitories was too expensive and tore them down to build new residence halls. The buildings will be heated and cooled through geothermal heat pumps, a technology that relies on stable underground temperatures. It is seeing increased use at colleges and universities across the country. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the project cost $121-million from a bond generated by a student nonprofit organization.
Moving into the library: Long-planned renovations are in store for the Newark campus of Ohio State University and Central Ohio Technical College. A story in the Newark Advocate said some academic departments at Ohio State will move into the library, freeing up 30,000 square feet of space in two halls that will undergo renovations. That space will be used for student-support services, classrooms, and offices after the work.
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