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.