Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Stay Tight Everyone

Hey to all new members and returning members. We hope your summer went well. We've sure learned a lot this summer, and we're ready to share all of our experiences with each other. This semester has already become packed with many trips. This Friday, September 17th will be our third annual RES shindig at Dave Kennel's house in Eureka, IL. Anyone interested please contact Pat Sullivan at prsulli@ilstu.edu.

Sorry for such a quick post, but we're getting everything back into motion for the coming months. We'll be posting updates on future events shortly.

Thanks and we look forward seeing all of the old and new faces this year.

Renewable Energy Society

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

The Green Energy Machine

It has been a while since last posting. Apologies. We have been very busy here at school with final projects and getting ready for graduation. Today is the clean energy career fair at the Bone Student Center from 7pm-9pm. There will be a few speakers, and it will open up even more networking opportunities for students at the university. This Friday we are taking a field trip to an ethanol plant in Hennepin, IL, which should be interesting. We are also ordering everything needed for the Green Energy Machine, which we hope to build before festivities begin for Earth Week here at ISU. Our members came through, and we will be getting the best equipment at the best price for this project.

On top of these extra curricular activities, our members have been working hard in their classes. Whether it be working for the Town of Normal, Marriott, the Reznick Group, or setting up a solar forum, we are all working very hard to achieve our degrees. This year has been packed full of great experiences. What a way to begin the decade.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

A Fee Well Worth It

Student elections are just around the corner. On March 30, 2010 students will be electing new officials for the following school year. This campus wide election will affect current and future ISU students. Dorian Moore, ISU's Secretary of Sustainability, is rightfully pushing for the adoption of a sustainability fee that could be put into action as soon as fall semester this year. This fee would be used to benefit the student body as well as the rest of the school by promoting a greener movement on campus. Reggie Ride would be funded. Campus wide efficiency projects could be funded with the money. Even projects such as replacing impermeable sidewalks with new permeable concrete to prevent flooding and icing could be funded. This fee is very versatile and relatively cheap in comparison to other tuition charges.

After giving a survey last semester, it was determined that students were most willing to pay a fee of around $5 for this fee. The proposed fee will be $.34 per credit hour. This means if a student is taking fifteen credit hours in a semester, they will pay $5.10 that semester. This would be a minor percentage of a student's semester dues, and like we mentioned before, it would promote a greener, cleaner, more efficient campus.

On March 18, Dorian will be hosting a forum at the Bone Student Center to promote this fee. The room is in arrangement now, and specifics will be coming shortly. More information and support on the sustainability fee can be found on Facebook by searching for "Support Sustainability Efforts at ISU!".


Volunteers for the renewable energy demo cart are as follows:

Solar - Erica Buster
Wind - Dan Buckley
Biofuels - Rob Martin
Cart - Seth Rients
Electronics - Seth Rients
Concentrated Solar Power - Mike Delfs

Monday, February 15, 2010

Catching Up

RETECH 2010 was a trip well worth it in many ways. Despite almost being caught in one of the east coast's worst snow storms to date, we persevered and were able to meet with many influential speakers and guests. The days were long, the pay was low, and everyone performed well with little sleep. Our volunteer duties involved setting up the conference, greeting attendees, manning an information booth, and sitting in lectures to provide speakers with any assistance they may need. Two RES members even represented North American Clean Energy, a magazine based out of Canada. This experience opened up great networking opportunities for students in both the technology sequence and in the public policy sequence. Plan on more conference trips in the future. For more detailed information on the conference please email res.ilstu@gmail.com.

Our meeting last week was humble but productive. We met with the student adviser to the residence halls here at ISU. We are working together to develop a teaching aid that would promote more awareness of renewable energy technologies to students all over the campus. We would like it to be some sort of hybrid device showing how both wind and solar power work. Two designs we are trying to develop from are the Green Energy Machine and the Solar Stik. This teaching aid would be used during student events such as our campus wide Earth Day celebration. It could also be taken to local high schools and community meetings to show the public the benefits of renewable energy technologies. This is a joint venture between the Renewable Energy Society and the student residence halls.

Another topic touched on at the meeting last week was 'movies.' Which movie(s) should we show this semester? Where should we show them? To whom should we show them to? A couple popular titles were Crude and The Fuel Film. Crude will hopefully be shown in the next couple weeks. We will try to arrange a showing at the Normal Theater or University Cinemas. As for The Fuel Film, we would like to show it on Earth Day, possibly in Edwards Hall here at ISU. Edwards Hall is home to an ample-sized auditorium that would be great for a few hundred students to utilize, and most likely it would not cost the students anything to attend here.

Lastly, we are working with the other green RSO's to host a dinner on April 21st here at ISU. This would be an Earth Day pep rally, essentially. It will help motivate everyone for the following day's activities. More on this dinner is to be announced within the next couple of weeks. As of now, it is still in the planning stage.

One more quick note. A group of RES members will be meeting with Randy Winter in the next two weeks to determine what needs to go into the development of the permanent RES website. More information on this will also be better available in the next couple of weeks.

Thanks, and until next time, enjoy your week and stay clean.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

A Convergence Long Past Due

These few days prior to RETECH 2010 have been fast-paced to say the least. We are proud to announce that we have been granted financial funding through the opportunity fund. Without this aid from the school, a trip of this size to Washington D.C. may not have been possible. Thanks goes out to the Dean of Students as well as to the members of RES that helped in determining the budget. The Renewable Energy Society will be arriving in D.C. Tuesday morning. Upon arrival, we will be attending a volunteer meeting to receive our position assignments and get acquainted with the conference center. Nine blogging positions have opened up at the conference on a first come, first serve basis, and one has been granted to our group. It will be our duty to cover the speakers on geothermal power, hydro and ocean power, and advanced vehicles and batteries. These blogs will be linked to Twitter and Facebook. Exact addresses will be available in the next couple of days, so keep posted.

Last Thursday, the Renewable Energy Society got together with ISU's solar car race team, Team Mercury. While standing in the "Bond-like" basement lab of ISU's Science Laboratory Building, the two groups on opposite sides of the room, it seemed as though the Society and Team Mercury were a match made in heaven. Each of our groups have qualities and attributes that the other can build off of. We have members with a great knowledge of solar power, and they have the means of building a fully functional car. With this connection, we hope to help form a race-winning team. The solar car team is open to any and all students to work on. It is worked on forty hours a week for two semesters all the way until the race from Texas to Illinois begins mid-summer. If you would like more information on working on the solar car, feel free to email Dan Buckley at cdbuckl@ilstu.edu. This solar car project has the potential to bring much needed publicity to our new and growing student organization. Not only will it bring us good publicity, but it will also strengthen our reputation with the university. It is a wonder why this match was not been made before.

Stay tuned for an update over the next couple of days. There is sure to be more information on both next week's conference and the solar car race team.

RES

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Learning to Fly

Everyone has to crawl before they can walk and walk before they can run, but how does one learn to fly? Well, the Renewable Energy Society has finally gotten its wings. As of yesterday, January 27th, 2010, the Renewable Energy Society has become an official registered student organization. With this official title comes official responsibility. We must not only prove to our superiors and to the public, but to ourselves, that we have what it takes to change this world and make it a cleaner, more sustainable place to live. This semester we will be working with other RSO's here at Illinois State University to gain and spread more knowledge of the ever-growing topic of alternative energy. We will be hosting debates, informational forums and films, giving a high school presentation, and we will even be taking trips to a few great renewable energy conferences throughout the United States.

There were a few very important meetings yesterday. First was the RSO induction meeting. Procedures and regulations of registered student organizations were discussed, and last night we had our first official meeting. There were a couple new faces, and many returning members. It's good to see the returning faces and even better to see that there are newcomers interested in the Society. Yesterday afternoon was the hearing concerning the opportunity fund. This meeting was held in the Dean of Students office, and the main goal was to gain financial aid for the upcoming volunteer trip to RETECH 2010. Keep your fingers crossed that we get some help! This finally brings us to the big topic at hand this week, RETECH 2010.

The Renewable Energy Technology Conference and Exhibition, otherwise called RETECH 2010, will be held from February 3-5 in Washington D.C. The Renewable Energy Society is proud to announce that it has quite a few members that will attending this conference as volunteers. They are even allowing a couple of our members to run an informational booth for North American Clean Energy. Congrats to the two of you! If all goes as planned, RES members will be driving two brand new, Redbird Red, Toyota Priuses to the conference. This trip will be a great networking opportunity, and there are sure to be many more like it in the future.

So, on a final note, the Renewable Energy Society has just begun the proverbial first day of the rest of its life. We members of the Society would like to thank everyone who has supported us in the past and who will hopefully keep supporting us into the future. Renewable energy is here to stay and so are we.