By Nina Welding and Julie Hail Flory
The University of Notre Dame will observe its second annual Energy Week Sept. 17 to 24 (Wednesday to Wednesday) with the theme “Be Enlightened,” in conjunction with “Sustainable Energy: A Notre Dame Forum,” to be held on campus Sept. 24.
Organized by members of the Student Advisory Board of the Notre Dame Energy Center, each day of Energy Week will feature energy education and awareness activities, including participation from major energy companies, a display of hybrid vehicles, carbon dioxide footprint calculators that students can use to measure their impact on climate change, information on renewable energy sources, tours of the Notre Dame power plant, and screenings of documentaries and energy-focused movies, such as “Who Killed the Electric Car?” and “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Students also can participate in a career luncheon featuring representatives from major energy companies, attend a “green” prayer service and participate in the second annual “Lights Out,” during which students, faculty and staff across campus will power down and turn the lights off for three hours on Sept. 24. Last year’s one-hour “Lights Out” resulted in a 2.7 percent reduction in electricity as measured by the Notre Dame power plant.
In addition, students will be able to select from locally grown and sustainable food items in the dining halls during Energy Week.
“We’re very proud of what the students have done and how committed they are to the issue of energy,” said Joan F. Brennecke, Keating-Crawford Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and director of the Notre Dame Energy Center. “They’ve expanded this year’s Energy Week activities while focusing even more on the impact that a single person can have, whether or not that person has engineering or scientific expertise. The more we know about energy, the more we can all play a part in finding solutions.”
More information about energy and energy research at Notre Dame is available at http://energycenter.nd.edu on the Web.
“Sustainable Energy: A Notre Dame Forum” will take place Sept. 24 from 3 to 5 p.m. in the Joyce Center on the Notre Dame campus and will explore how charting pathways to a sustainable energy future is emerging as one of the world’s great challenges. It also will examine underlying concerns, including technological, environmental, economic, political and geopolitical issues, as well as social justice and ethical considerations.
Forum panelists include Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. of Colorado, General Electric Co. chairman and chief executive officer Jeff Immelt, Sustainable South Bronx founder Majora Carter and Ernest Moniz, Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The discussion will be moderated by Anne Thompson, chief environmental affairs correspondent for NBC News and a 1979 Notre Dame graduate.
For more information about the forum, visit http://enlighten.nd.edu/ on the Web.
