Report: NIC heating, cooling system to cut environmental impact in half

By using wastewater to heat and cool its buildings, Nebraska Innovation Campus (http://innovate.unl.edu) will give off only about half as much greenhouse gas as comparable commercial buildings, a new study has found. The findings demonstrate NIC’s emphasis on sustainability and social responsibility, said Dan Duncan, the campus’ executive director. “It’s part of the environment we’re trying to create, the culture we’re trying to create,” he said.“We want to show that this is a different place.” Instead of energy-gobbling boilers and cooling towers, the research campus at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln uses a stream of effluent from a nearby wastewater treatment plant to deliver heat in the winter and to dissipate it in the summer. Engineers who designed the Centralized Renewable Energy System, or CRES, calculate it will nearly eliminate the need for natural gas for winter heating and will reduce electricity consumption for summer cooling by 25 percent. Adam Liska, associate professor of biological systems engineering, and Matan Gill, a sustainability expert and managing principal of EpochLAB LLC in Lincoln, recently conducted a life cycle analysis of NIC’s environmental impact. Liska is an expert in life cycle analysis,which considers both direct on-site activities and off-site factors such as electricity generation in calculating a project’s environmental impact. To view the report, go to http://go.unl.edu/tjuv (http://go.unl.edu/tjuv)