Ecologue

The OSU Solar Vehicle Team is a group of OSU students, staff, and faculty working together to design, build, and race solar-powered vehicles. The organization is dedicated to providing hands-on experience with solar-electric vehicles, interdisciplinary learning in engineering and business, and education and outreach in sustainability by direct interactions with the community and industry. The […]

The OSU Sustainability Office is currently surveying campus to replace electric storage water heaters with heat pump water heaters (HPWHs) to cut down our energy usage. A few of the existing electric storage models use nearly 5000 kWh per year. The most efficient electric storage water heaters have an Energy Factor (EF) of 0.95 due […]

The 3.2 volt 180 amp-hour (Ah) Lithium Ion battery has an outstanding life cycle of 2000 (number of times the battery can withstand being completely charged and then discharged).  There are 16 high capacity battery packs,  each containing 3 individual batteries connected in parallel to reach 540Ah.  Each pack can deliver 540 amps for an hour or […]

As a part of the OSU Sustainability Office, we are working hard to ensure that steam pipes are properly insulated throughout campus.  A few of the mechanical rooms we have installed insulation include Wiegand, Kerr, Dearborn, Hovland, and the Women’s Building.  The most recent mechanical room that needed insulation was East Greenhouse. East Greenhouse had […]

Cherry City Electric will begin installing the long awaited electric vehicle (EV) charging stations on campus today. The chargers will be connected to Ecotality’s Blink Network, where the charging station status can be checked from a computer or smartphone. Anybody will be able to charge their cars at Blink charging stations and membership is not […]

Summer is upon us!  The wildflowers are blooming and the (native) grasses are getting taller.  As seasons change so does the way we use energy and water.  Even though OSU strives to become a more efficient user of energy and water we still have a large footprint overall.  In the winter, OSU uses lots of […]

The long-standing Earth Week celebration at OSU is a week of fun and educational activities geared toward raising environmental awareness and engagement, taking place April 21-28 this year. Whether you are interested in bringing out your wild side at Earth Ball 2012, getting your hands into the dirt at the annual Hoo Haa at the […]

The two-month-long energy conservation effort Campuses take Charge has officially kicked off at OSU as of April 2nd. The campaign encourages students to try new energy-saving actions for a month, and to log their conservation data after they are finished. The campaign is sponsored by Energize Corvallis, the OSU Sustainability Office, and the Student Sustainability Initiative. To join, […]

LEDs in the Valley Library. The OSU Sustainability Office will be funding and replacing halogen track lights in the Valley Library with LEDs. LEDs are much more efficient than halogens and last much longer. The replacement the building’s track lights alone will save over $3,000 a year in energy savings. The old halogen lights are also not suitable […]

The Harvesting Clean Energy (HCE) conference is the Northwest’s premiere event bringing together the agriculture and energy industries to advance opportunities for rural communities to produce clean energy, boost struggling rural economies, and help the region and nation meet the energy challenges of the coming decade. Now in its 12th year, Harvesting Clean Energy consistently […]