In Pursuit of Sustainable Energy

By Abby Nall
and
Renee Mercuri
In Pursuit of Sustainable Energy

Lights went out. Subway trains stopped in their tracks. Cell phones were silent in purses and pockets as exhausted workers maneuvered their way home, without the benefit of traffic lights, to check on their families. It was August 14, 2003, and in just nine seconds, one of the largest electricity blackouts in North American history had wiped out power across the northeastern United States and Ontario, Canada, leaving some in the dark for more than a week.

But long after the lights were shining again, the subways were humming, and cell phones were ringing in every office and on every street corner, the more profound implications of this historic failure began to sink in as officials looked at the upgrades and new technologies that would be needed to offset an increasingly overburdened electrical energy system.

The threat of future blackouts has not diminished as electricity demands continue to rise. And this year, another hot energy issue has affected vacation plans and pocketbooks across the nation. As gasoline prices have risen to an all-time high spurring political debates from the office watercooler to the floor of Congress a growing number of Americans are paying more attention to the economic, environmental, and political dangers of dependency on fossil fuels.

LAYING THE GROUNDWORK
These concerns have led policymakers to look more closely at sustainable energy sources, energy that can be produced economically and without adversely affecting the environment or well-being of future generations as an alternative to fossil fuels. Sustainable energy advocates emphasize the need to limit the use of non-renewable sources of energy and use more renewable sources, such as the sun, wind, and waves.

IIT’s research leadership in the field of sustainable energy dates back three decades.

At that time, IIT was already an established national center of energy and power research, a field it entered in the 1950s after the university became affiliated with the Institute of Gas Technology (IGT, today known as the Gas Technology Institute after its merger with the Gas Research Institute in 2000). This allowed students and employees with IGT scholarships to complete degrees at IIT and connected IIT to cutting-edge energy research. Over the following decades, IIT developed additional energy research partnerships with organizations such as Argonne National Laboratory, the Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation.

Many of IIT’s energy-related efforts have been led by Henry Linden, Max McGraw Professor of Energy and Power Engineering and Management. Linden has worn many professional hats ranging from president of several energy research organizations to advisor to the Kennedy and Ford administrations on energy issues to distinguished professor to interim IIT president. Linden has developed a reputation over the past six decades as a leader in the global scientific community for his work in sustainable global energy systems, climate change, and industrial ecology.

Linden believes in the potential of energy to affect positive global change. “All advances in human, social well-being since the Industrial Revolution are a result of the substitution of commercial energy forms for human and animal labor,” Linden says. “This has led to the abolition of serfdom, slavery, child labor, and the subjugation of women.” He adds, “You can see how the cultural and social effects of energy abundance have benefited the human race.”

This quest to help ensure that the energy supply remains abundant and environmentally friendly led Linden to develop a sustainable energy paradigm based on the interdependent relationships between energy, the environment, and economics. This ‘E3’ paradigm has laid the groundwork for IIT’s most recent research efforts.

In Pursuit of Sustainable Energy

IT TAKES A SUSTAINABLE VILLAGE
To fully address the E3 issue, in fall 2004 IIT brought together core strengths in engineering, science, design, architecture, business, law, and psychology under the umbrella of the Energy and Sustainability Institute (ESI). The institute’s objective is to improve the quality of life while preserving natural resources and the environment for future generations.

Co-founded by Max McGraw Professor of Energy, Environment, and Economics and IIT Armour College of Engineering Dean Hamid Arastoopour, who is currently serving as ESI’s acting director, the institute is addressing issues in energy and sustainable development in partnership with government, industry, other universities, and the community. Arastoopour believes that only this type of collaborative approach will yield an effective, lasting energy system. “If we want to do anything comprehensive, we have to reach out and have a partnership,” says Arastoopour, “not only with other universities but also with national labs and industry.”

The institute’s sustainability initiatives are focused on two primary goals: one, to develop and apply conservation principles to decrease energy consumption and increase the efficiency of current energy sources; and two, to transition to less carbon-intensive energy supplies and move to hydrogen derived from wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources.

In conjunction with this energy research, the institute is addressing power reliability and security issues, including electric grid modeling. Led by Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Mohammad Shahidehpour, IIT’s Grid Collapse Vulnerability Project aims to identify grid collapse vulnerabilities as the first stage in a comprehensive risk-reduction strategy for the electric power infrastructure helping to ensure that widespread failures like the blackout that struck North America in 2003 do not happen again. “Current electric grid models for the U.S. are lacking either in geographical scope or technical detail,” says Shahidehpour. “Before we can propose effective strategies to improve the system, we must first identify its most severe vulnerabilities.”

Two projects currently taking place under the ESI umbrella are being developed by individuals who, by virtue of their age and education, may have unique potential to significantly impact the future of sustainable energy research IIT students.

In Pursuit of Sustainable Energy

Through IIT’s Interprofessional Projects (IPRO) program and with the help of a $200,000 grant from the Tellabs Foundation this year, students have researched and designed plans for building a hydrogen-fueling station to power campus vehicles and a ‘House of the Future’ a living laboratory for energy-saving technologies developed at IIT. The house is the first step toward creating a ‘Sustainable Village’ on IIT’s Main Campus powered entirely by clean energy from wind, solar, and fuel cell technologies. Students recently presented these projects to IIT administration, faculty, trustees, and community leaders at the spring 2005 IPRO Projects Day, and outlined a roadmap to sustainability for the entire IIT campus.

After seeing the student demonstrations, IIT Vice President of External Affairs David Baker who has worked closely with the city to gain support for IIT’s sustainability initiatives is confident that IIT students will have an important impact on the future of sustainable energy research. “Our students have picked up on sustainable research and carried it farther,” says Baker. “They’ve taken our vision of IIT as an interprofessional, cutting-edge place, and run with it.” Baker was particularly impressed with the Sustainable Village project, which included the students? plan for making the IIT campus 100 percent sustainable by the year 2040, saying, “How far they took that project in one semester is just unbelievable.”

In Pursuit of Sustainable Energy

ENERGIZING THE COMMUNITY
IIT’s long history of pioneering clean energy technologies is not going unnoticed by the surrounding community. A group of IIT students led by IIT Associate Research Professor Said Al-Hallaj is currently assisting the City of Chicago in establishing progressive green building codes. The team was also selected last year by the Illinois Coalition to design a Renewable Hydrogen Fueling Station for the Rockford Airport.

“People want to work with us because we have been on the cutting edge of energy research for a long time,” says Al-Hallaj, who coordinates IIT Renewable Energy Programs and also currently oversees IPROs focusing on IIT’s Renewable Hydrogen Fueling Station and Sustainable Village.

ENERGIZING THE FUTURE
Efforts such as those by the City of Chicago advisory council illustrate a key point about which energy experts Linden and Arastoopour are both quick to remind people: The future of renewable energy lies in the hands of today’s students. “We must continue to produce engineers who specialize in energy technologies and who understand the associated environmental issues and economic forces that drive technology choices,” says Arastoopour. “The challenge and the opportunity is learning how to synthesize all of these factors to create a truly sustainable and secure future for generations to come.”

AN INTERPROFESSIONAL APPROACH
The university’s sustainable energy efforts derive breadth and depth from an interprofessional approach that reaches across units and provides students with real-world opportunities to apply their knowledge.

Benefiting from five decades of faculty leadership in energy research, Armour College of Engineering students study a wide range of sustainable energy issues, including thermal management problems in electrochemical systems, hydrogen generation and storage, fuel cell improvements, wind energy, and energy-efficient transportation systems and Armour’s broadbased curriculum continues to responds to this rapidly changing field. For example, IIT’s Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering teaming up with the Gas Technology Institute in 2003 resulted in IIT offering a master’s of gas engineering degree. “This new program will educate engineers capable of addressing the technical challenges during transition to a carbon-free energy society,” says Dean Hamid Arastoopour.

Armour also continues to provide students with unique opportunities to apply their knowledge through interprofessional projects ranging from hybrid electric vehicle design to plans for a sustainable campus.

In conjunction with Armour, IIT’s Stuart Graduate School of Business and College of Architecture are also providing leadership in sustainable energy education.

Stuart Environmental Management Program Director George Nassos says that his students are excited to be moving into such a dynamic field and with good reason. Citing a March 21, 2005, article in Fortune magazine about the top jobs for the next 10 years, Nassos says, “At the top of this list are environmental engineers who can prevent problems rather than simply control those that already exist. That is exactly what we are emphasizing in the Environmental Management program with courses that include sustainability.”

IIT’s College of Architecture curriculum encourages students to consider energy sustainability issues, focusing on energy-conscious designs of buildings that are less dependent on fossil fuel-based energies. The college is currently partnering with the Energy and Sustainability Institute (ESI) on the 2005 House of the Future planning sessions. College of Architecture Dean Donna Robertson says that faculty throughout the college are bringing their knowledge of sustainable design to the classroom. “Sustainable design has been mainstreamed in our curriculum,” says Robertson. “We have at least four studios each semester investigating some approach to this issue.”


DESIGNS FOR A GREEN COMMUNITY

IIT’s College of Architecture faculty continue to pursue cutting-edge green design. For example, Adjunct Associate Professor Jeanne Gang and Visiting Assistant Professor Mark Schendel won the Ford Calumet Environmental Center design competition held in 2004 by Chicago’s Department of Environment. Architecture faculty have also served as consultants, including Architecture Professor Mahjoub Elnimeiri and a group of doctoral students who executed a post-occupancy evaluation of several City of Chicago buildings such as the Department of Energy’s Center for Green Technology to evaluate their energy strategies. The college is also encouraging international dialogue on the topic of sustainable energy design through conferences, such as last fall’s successful symposium, “2004 Sustainable Communities: Learning from the Dutch Experience.”

Stuart’s Environmental Management Program is also helping to build a greener community through the Center for Sustainable Enterprise. Co-founded by Program Director George Nassos and Adjunct Professor John Paul Kusz in 2000, this resource center provides business, academic, and both governmental and non-governmental agencies with opportunities to collaborate on business strategies to advance the ecological and economic sustainability of the greater Chicago area.


THE FUTURE OF ENERGY
IIT energy pioneer Henry Linden advocates the concurrent development and adoption of several sustainable energy sources:

  • Solar thermal and photovoltaic (i.e., solar cells) energy: Although an efficient source of sustainable energy, the primary limitation of this type of energy is intermittency (when the sun doesn’t shine, how do we fulfill our energy needs?).

  • Wind power: Currently being adopted at a large rate in northern coastal European countries as well as in the United States, wind power also presents the challenge of providing only intermittent energy and carries the threat of visual pollution and bird deaths.

  • Hydroelectric energy: This form of energy is sustainable and has no emissions, as it is generated by large bodies of water, contained by hydroelectric dams, and replenished by rivers and melting snow run-off to run turbines.

  • Low-carbon/carbon-free sources: Linden believes these sources may provide an interim solution as other technologies take time to develop and reach a point of affordability (and gain wider acceptance). Low-carbon/carbon-free sources include nuclear power, a method of coal gasification that sequesters the carbon dioxide produced in caverns or in the deep ocean, and the commercial recovery from the ocean of methane hydrates, a crystalline combination of methane, a natural gas, and water.

WHY DO WE NEED SUSTAINABLE ENERGY?
According to the National Energy Information Center, coal, oil, and natural gas provide approximately 64 percent of the world’s electrical power, and 85 percent of the world’s total energy demands including heating, transport, electricity generation, and other uses.

Burning these fossil fuels so named because they formed deep under the earth millions of years ago from the decomposition of plant and animal matter releases undesirable gases into the atmosphere:

  • Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, traps heat in the lowest part of the earth’s atmosphere. This contributes to global warming a slow increase in the average temperature of the earth, affecting ecosystems across the globe.

  • Carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxide, and hydrocarbons pollutants produced by fossil fuel combustion contribute to health problems that include headaches, respiratory infections, and pneumonia. They also lead to the formation of smog and acid rain, which affect crops and buildings.

Fossil fuels are not a renewable energy source; once we use them, they’re gone forever and the supply will eventually run out. U.S. consumption of fossil fuels has doubled since 1960.


BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE CAMPUS
As IIT faculty make their mark in the field of sustainable energy research, they are also working with administration and students to create a sustainable environment on IIT’s Main Campus, a project that is not without challenges.

“We really want to work on the university’s energy budget, saving energy costs and introducing sustainable business practices,” says David Baker. He acknowledges that doing so will not be easy or inexpensive. “Our main problem is that we have buildings that are energy drains because they were built in the 1950s when energy was cheap,” Baker explains. “At the same time they are historic landmarks, so you are under constraints when you try to retrofit them.”

Financial assistance is helping to ease a few of those constraints. Through grants from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation and a loan from the City of Chicago, all lights in buildings on IIT’s Main Campus are in the process of being replaced with energy-efficient lighting. According to Joseph Buri, IIT’s associate vice president of facilities, real estate, and construction, the retrofitting is estimated to save approximately $330,000 per year.

At the south end of campus, IIT is beginning an energy-saving facelift of a 135,000-square-foot chemistry research building originally built in the 1950s. This building, which will be part of IIT’s new technology park, is designated for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, a voluntary, consensus-based national standard for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings.

IIT students play an important role in these and future sustainability efforts, as they study campus sustainability issues through IPRO projects and help to develop viable, energy-efficient solutions.