Friday’s Student Life reported that solar panels are being installed on the top of Olin Library this semester, designed to provide 0.00625 percent (1/16,000th) of Washington University’s power, at a cost of about $16,000. The University’s Committee on Environmental Quality admits that the goal of the panels is not practical but symbolic: to increase awareness about and give momentum to alternative sources of energy. I stand wholeheartedly for green energy, but this project is a serious waste of money for virtually no payoff, and furthermore, hides more important issues of energy and material waste on campus.
Spread out among all graduates and undergraduates at the University, we will be paying about $1.60 each. That’s not a lot of money. You might be able to buy a banana from Bear’s Den with that. But it’s not the actual monetary value that matters – it’s the fact that the University has sunk any amount of money into a project that promotes a useless form of green energy for campus. Don’t get me wrong – solar power is great. Though expensive, it is waste-free and (theoretically) inexhaustible. Like I said, it’s not the expense that matters to me. Even if the panels were to provide a large part of our campus’ energy needs, I’d still think it would be bad idea. Why? Because it would be more than offset by a larger and more important problem: the University’s unchecked pace of wasteful building demolition and construction.
The University uses, at peak, 18,000 kilowatts of instantaneous power. That’s a lot of energy. But it doesn’t take into account the giant sums of energy used when constructing and deconstructing dorms. In my four years here, two dorms have been demolished (Eliot and Koenig) and three new dorms have been built (Forsyth House, Eliot House and the new Koenig). That’s five major construction projects, not including the enormous Sam Fox Art Center that’s being built and the relatively new Whitaker Biomedical Building.
How much energy do you think it takes to build a dorm? Two dorms? Five dorms? Seven buildings? The number can only be astronomical. Think about the processing of the TNT to demolish a building like the old high-rise Eliot, plus the wreckers, bulldozers, dumptrucks and loaders required to break up and remove the rubble. (And where does the rubble go? It doesn’t just disappear.) Then there are all the dozers/trucks/loaders to dig a foundation. What do those machines run on? Diesel. And it’s safe to say that your average bulldozer isn’t quite as efficient as your average car. How about the constant stream of concrete trucks to pour the foundation? And what is concrete? Mostly water. Probably more than you would shower with. Then there’s the wood for the frames, which has to be cut and processed with more energy. Add in the literal tons of drywall, insulation, roofing, reinforced steel, paint, carpet, furniture and plumbing. It all has to be manufactured somewhere, using – you guessed it – energy.
What was wrong with Koenig? The only people who care about new dorms are prospective freshmen (or, more accurately, prospective freshmen’s parents), who are, alas, the only people our University truly seems to care about. Once they’ve got us in the door, once they’ve got our money, it’s only four years before they’re ready to boot us out the door. Naive high schoolers and their parents like to see new dorms. But the majority of students on our campus will tell you, especially those that lived in old dorms, that the old dorms were cozier, sturdier and more social than new ones. Oh, I almost forgot – they’re quieter. I don’t want to know that next door you’re practicing gymnastic sex positions or watching porn.
There seems to be no end in sight to the University’s unquenchable thirst for construction. Soon we’ll gut Mallinckrodt, build a new student center and dig a giant underground parking garage. There are also too many old dorms sitting around, waiting to turn off prospective freshmen, so no doubt those will go soon, too.
Building $16,000 solar panels on top of the library isn’t a bad idea, really. But to pretend it portends a green future for our campus is silly. Until we realize how viciously we consume energy and materials here on campus, these solar panels will serve as a tombstone, not a monument.
Jeff is a senior in Arts & Sciences and a Forum editor. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].