{"id":575,"date":"2010-03-18T08:16:55","date_gmt":"2010-03-18T14:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=575"},"modified":"2010-03-19T12:32:38","modified_gmt":"2010-03-19T18:32:38","slug":"green-may-be-the-new-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=575","title":{"rendered":"Green may be the new gold"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two University of Colorado at Colorado Springs students have found their calling thanks to federal stimulus funds and a professor\u2019s resolve to offer courses in the increasingly lucrative field of energy engineering.<\/p>\n

UCCS was among three area higher education institutions tapped by the City of Colorado Springs and Colorado Springs Utilities to take part in an energy efficiency study of local businesses. The $548,000 Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant pays student interns to perform the audits and businesses to retrofit and implement the recommendations.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
Electricity meters at the Cameron Butcher building in downtown Colorado Springs. Cameron Butcher, a commercial real estate group, is one of 12 businesses participating in the audit program to determine how to use resources efficiently.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The semester-long internship has flicked on the career switch for mechanical engineering seniors Ted Geneva and William Rees.<\/p>\n

Geneva and Rees, along with peers from UCCS, the Colorado College, and Pikes Peak Community College, have been poking around heating and cool ducts, examining records, and conducting cost analyses for a dozen Colorado Springs businesses since January.<\/p>\n

They are making some remarkable discoveries.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have learned that the vast majority of structures in Colorado Springs are over-lit and under-insulated,\u201d said Geneva, a senior set to graduate in 2011.<\/p>\n

Even more illuminating, he said, is how fired up he has become by the work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find myself waking up at 8 a.m. for some site visits and feeling fine about it,\u201d Geneva says. \u201cI’ve never been a morning person and I can wake up early for this job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Timing also has been key for Rees. He, like Geneva, was urged last fall by his engineering instructor, Julie Albertson, to apply for the internship. The encouragement came at a critical juncture.<\/p>\n

\u201cI needed to obtain actual engineering experience,\u201d said Rees, who graduates in December. He added that if this opening hadn\u2019t come along he might still be floundering. \u201cThis program has helped me narrow my goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Albertson, senior instructor, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, not coincidentally, was teaching a class, Sustainable Energy Systems, at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole concept of sustainability is important to me. It\u2019s something we need to educate our students about and it\u2019s why I created that course,\u201d Albertson said.<\/p>\n

\"Glen<\/a>
Glen Thieszen, an engineer from the Farnsworth Group, Inc., oversees UCCS engineering senior William Rees\u2019 on-the-job training during the energy auditing internship.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Albertson\u2019s Sustainable Energy Systems is designed to ground students in the engineering, scientific and political principles of global renewable energy sources such as wind, biomass, solar and geothermal.<\/p>\n

The technical elective debuted in fall 2007 with a class size of 12. When Albertson taught it a second time, last fall, enrollment doubled, to 30. Fueled by student-interest, Albertson created yet another environmental engineering elective\u2014Biomass Energy Analysis\u2014to be offered for the first time this Fall.<\/p>\n

The attraction to sustainable technology appears to be mirroring a green jobs explosion.<\/p>\n

Experts say a national energy crisis coupled with recent federal mandates that big cities obtain an increasing percentage of electricity from renewable resources is igniting the green job fields market. Small and medium-size start-ups, infused by millions of dollars from private investors and the federal government, are proliferating.<\/p>\n

Environmental engineers are in particular demand, according to the Green Research Council.<\/p>\n

Geneva says the on-the-job experience has already been invaluable: \u201cI\u2019ve honestly learned more working knowledge about energy saving measures and HVAC systems in two months working than I have ever learned from school.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is what Albertson likes to hear. A primary academic interest of hers involves developing methods to assist students in understanding the engineering world and steering them toward practical applications for their coursework.<\/p>\n

As such, Albertson jumped at the chance to assist Linda Kogan, director, Office of Sustainability, in coordinating university participation in the program.<\/p>\n

The energy audit program will end in May.<\/p>\n

So far, it\u2019s been a \u201cgreat partnership\u201d and a \u201cwin-win\u201d for businesses, students, and educators, said Gail Connors, who directs the grant administration for Springs Utilities. It\u2019s too soon to say if a similar model might be offered again.<\/p>\n

Geneva, meanwhile, is already applying his newly acquired skills to a personal project.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am in the design phase for a greenhouse for my mom\u2019s place in New Mexico,\u201d said Geneva. \u201cI\u2019m directly using calculations and knowledge I\u2019m picking up at work to build something from scratch. I’ll tell you, it feels pretty awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

–\tJane Wampler
\n– Photography by G. Conners, Springs Utilities <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two University of Colorado at Colorado Springs students have found their calling thanks to federal stimulus funds and a professor\u2019s resolve to offer courses in the increasingly lucrative field of energy engineering. UCCS was among (More)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/IMG_0170-225x300.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mBpJ-9h","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=575"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":612,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions\/612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}