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The ESW Circular

Engineers for a Sustainable World
Northwestern University Chapter (ESW-NU )
 January29th, 2007, Volume 2, Issue 2
In This Issue:


Solar Team's December Trip!

 

Green Cup!

 

Murphy Grant Ignites WVO

 

ESW's 15 Minutes and Counting
 

California Knows how to Conference

 

Hello Again!
This is Daniel Paschall welcoming you to our second Circular overall and our first of the new year, which means a number of things: 1. Kari and I still have a job writing for you all and have not been (knock on wood) kicked off our post. 2. Somehow we've already slipped a month into the winter quarter and finally, the most important point, 3. I'm going to give you latest developments in ESW!

 

Starting with some solar Panamanian panels...

Solar Team's December Trip!

The Panama Solar Team was hard at work this past winter break.  A team of William Fan, Suelyn Yu, Christopher Vega, and Bethany Summersgill took an excursion to Santo Domingo and Santa Librada, a recent addition to ESW's contacts with Panamanian communities.  In Santo Domingo the team installed a computer into the solar system already set up by ESW on previous trips.  William Fan called the computer a "powerful tool for education, organization, and awareness-building about the world around [Santo Domingo]".

In Santa Librada, the team installed two entirely new solar systems, which power the lights of the community's school and church.  This allows the community to hold meetings after dark.  It also improves the conditions in which visiting doctors and religious leaders can work when they come to stay in the Santa Librada.

The team came away with far more than just solar panel connections though.  Fan said, "further communication with these communities have given us a significantly deeper understanding of their way of life and allowed us to reaffirm our own philosophy on sustainability."
Green Cup!

The cold winds are in full force over the permafrost of Northwestern, which means the time has come once again for the campus-wide, no lights, no heat, no showering, pure masochistic slug fest known as Green Cup.  And this year, it's stretched out into six whole weeks!

All right, maybe you don't have to sit in a cold dorm room of darkness, stinking away for six weeks to save energy (although I'm pretty sure you'd destroy the competition).  You can AT LEAST incorporate a few earth-conscious, simple actions into your daily routine, like turning off the lights and putting your computer to sleep when you leave the room,  or showering for no more than five minutes (challenge my record of 2:53).

This SEED-sponsored event begins on Martin Luther King Day, Monday, January 21st and continues for the rest of your life.  The point tallying ends on March 3rd, however.

 Murphy Grant Ignites WVO
 
Thanks to the hard work of our waste vegetable crew, ESW won a Walter P. Murphy Society grant for $5,000 to be used in taking the next steps on the waste vegetable oil project.  Since winter quarter of last year when ESW began working on this project, the WVO team has taken great strides towards getting the campus shuttles running on waste vegetable oil and now, with the help of the grant, they look to complete the the pilot filtration system. 

Some of the money will also go towards teaching others about the project as the educational outreach aspect of WVO.  This includes the community of Evanston and the very people who will finally get to benefit from taking that guilty second helping of french fries, the students.

So where do you come in?  Your help is needed in varying aspects of the project so contact Aaron Greco and he'll help you get involved.
ESW's 15 Minutes and Counting

In the past month ESW has landed itself on the pages of the Evanston Roundtable, U. Magazine, and even the Chicago Tribune.  The limelight has been shed on ESW's Waste Vegetable Oil project and the efforts they are making to close the circle between waste and fuel.  Featured within were our own Liz Voeller, Ritu Gopal, and Stoyan Smoukov.

Evanston Roundtable: "First Fries, Then Shuttle Buses":
http://www.evanstonroundtable.com/green/green.html
U. Magazine: "Campus Clips":
http://www.colleges.com/Umagazine/2007fall/images/32.pdf
Chicago Tribune: "Northwestern students make push to fuel shuttle buses with used cooking oil":
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-nugreen_24dec24,0,2437493.story
California Knows how to Conference

ESW-NU ventures to the very hilly, very non-Midwest venue of San Francisco for the annual ESW-National conference on February 8th and 9th.  The conference, which is being held in the Masonic Center on Nob Hill, promises to cover the following themes: Education for a Sustainable World, International Development, Climate Change and Practical Action, and Leadership and Career Development through various speakers, breakout sessions, and workshops.

ESW's own Ankur Asthana and Aaron Greco are scheduled to present at the conference.  Also, a great thanks goes out to Tom Gonzales and Suelyn Yu, who will each be housing the members making the trip (send postcards people).
Well that's about it for this issue.  Thanks for stopping by and reading a microcosm of ESW's ever-expanding world.  If you have any stories or cool sustainable stuff that needs attention, please send it our way to Kari or me.  Until next time (which will be faster than this one took that's for sure), because what goes around, comes around... and then goes around again.

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