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    1. Energy Efficiency

    Boston University going Geothermal to supply new Center for Computing and Data Sciences

    Aug. 8, 2022
    Contractors are boring holes and fixing pipes so the campus can be supplied with about 300 tons of heating and cooling capacity. The installed heat pumps could deliver about 90 percent of the facility's needs
    Illustration credit Boston University
    Boston University 62f109322959a

    The new campus for Boston University's Center for Computing and Data Sciences is being built as a net carbon-free facility with geothermal energy supplying nearly all of its heating and cooling, according to reports.

    Contractors are boring holes and fixing pipes so the campus can be supplied with about 300 tons of heating and cooling capacity. The installed heat pumps could deliver about 90 percent of the facility's needs.

    The BU Center for Computing and Data Sciences project is due to be completed this year. KPMB was the architectual contractor for the new build.

    "The center will be state of the art in every way: striking architecture, advanced resources, environmental sensitivity, and interior spaces designed to facilitate collaboration," reads the university's website about the CCDS. "Rising above Central Campus, the 19-story structure will house our mathematics, statistics, and computer science programs, as well as the renowned Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering."

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    A recent study involving BU, Harvard, Oregon State researchers and the nonprofit Home Energy Efficiency Team found that building energy consumption is best met by technologies such as ground source heat pumps. Electrified heating may be less efficient and unable to meet cold winter challenges, the report reads.

    Another of Massachusetts’ higher education facilities, Smith College, broke ground earlier this year on a new geothermal campus project. The school says the geothermal system will cut its carbon emissions by 90 percent and help the campus go carbon-neutral by 2030.

    The Smith College geothermal complex will replace the school’s aging, fossil-fueled steam heating system. 

    Federal statistics indicate that buildings consume close to 40 percent of total energy in the U.S. and emit close to 14 percent of greenhouse gas emissions nationally, according to reports.

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    (Rod Walton, senior editor for EnergyTech, is a 14-year veteran of covering the energy industry both as a newspaper and trade journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]).

    Follow us on Twitter @EnergyTechNews_ and @rodwaltonelp   

    About the Author

    Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor | Senior Editor

    For EnergyTech editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].

    Rod Walton has spent 15 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

    He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.

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