Tuesday, April 3, 2012 I

TechNews

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UTSAV GANDHI

5

Sustainability Forum stresses conserving limited resources

By Elizabeth Mauban &
Brock Auerbach—Lynn
TECHNEWS WRITERS

The last Sustainability Forum
of the academic year was held on Friday
March 30, 2012; and focused on the safety
and availability of food, water and enere
gy , as well as how all three are connected

The forum which was cosponsored
by the Wanger Institute for Sustainable Energy
Research (WISER) and the Office of Campus
Energy and Sustainability (OCES) was modere
ated by Environmental Engineering Professor
Paul Andersonwho set the table by stressing the
importance ofconservingourlimited resourcesi

Hamid Arastoopour, IIT Profese
sor and Director of WISER, spoke first and
mentioned four key priorities for our re,
sources , economy, health, sustainability, and
security As population continues to grow, so
does consumption, which in turn depletes our
limited resources As food, energy and water
are interconnected; an increased consump
tion of one resource necessitates an increase
in the others, thus amplifying our problem

Arastoopour highlighted this prob,
lem through the lens of eating meat As people
achieve higher incomes, they tend to eat more
meat as it is a more expensive food and thus
act as secondary consumers , ie , eating cows

which in turn eat plantsi On average only 10%
of the energy is passed up the food chain and
thus humans lose 90% of the energy by eating
meat as opposed to going vegetarian Pound for
pound, meat also uses substantially more water
than vegetables do, thus contributing to water
shortages Arastoopour transitioned this into
the idea that “waterepoor” countries should
import goods which require substantial vol,
umes of water to produce and viceeversai This
virtual water trading will be critical as water
problems become more prevalent in the future

While there are no quick and easy
solutions to the foodewatereenergy nexus,
Arastoopour believes that it needs to be
handled both globally and locally due to the
variety of resources, politics, and lifestyles
in the world The link between economy,
security, health, and climate change needs
to be understood and policy, technology,
and economy need to be more interlinked

lavad Abbasian, Professor of
Chemical Engineering focused specifically
on the watereenergy connection. Agricule
ture, industry and residential locations need
both water and energy and each resource
is critical in being able to deliver the other

He suggested that water sources
and usage need to be partitioned For ex,
ample, he suggested that the water which
we use to flush our toilets or cool indus

trial processes does not need to be as puri
fied as drinking water It takes energy to
clean water and different levels of clean,
ing are appropriate based on the endeusage
Power plants which generate elece

tricity are big users of water and represent a
good opportunity for conservation Abbasian
suggested several ideas to implement cooling
systems which can recycle and purify water as
well as systems that use waste water as cooling
water These systems can reduce the total en,
ergy and water use for the process but require
water to be slightly more expensive than the
current price in order to be financially feasible
However, it showed that there are a

lot of creative ways to reduce energy and water
usage by focusing on the system as a whole and
innovative ways of doing current processes
Lacey Guillen, Scientist and Manager of Prof
ficiency Testing and Method Validation at the
Institute for Food Safety and Health, (IFSH)
at IIT’s MolTet Campus spoke about how
the food industry can reduce energy as well
The IFSH program is supported

by the FDA and effectively bridges the gap
between food companies and the FDA They
have departments for safety and technol
ogy, nutrition, processing, and specialty pro,
grams They have been working with Stuart
School of Business on market research and
commercialization of packaging sustainabile

ity New technologies such as ultrasound,
cold plasma, and ultraviolet processing use
less energy than traditional food processing
and could be staples of a more sustainable,
less energy intensive food system of the future

Even with the focus on water con,
servation, all speakers were opposed to the
privatization of water Instead they sug
gested eating better and educating peo
ple about food and where it comes from

Arastoopour suggested that people
need to consider where their food is grown
and understand the implications entailing
the sustainability of this vital system On a
question about why renewable energy is not
as widespread in the United States as it is in
Europe, Abbasian mentioned that cheaper
energy is the norm here and paying more
for green energy is a matter that is both cul
tural and corporate He also suggested that
the United States needs a sound and forward
looking energy policy, giving the example of
how Germany developed into a world class
wind power generator by setting that as a na
tional priority and working towards it , de
spite the fact that it is not the windiest place

Keep an eye out for April’s meeting
which will discuss IIT’s Energy Policy going
forward as well as looking back at IIT’s progress
towards reaching its 2020 Sustainability goalsi

 

Photo by Elizabeth Manban

 

||T student serves community by volunteering

By Dan Zweig
TECHNEWS WRITER

Greek organizations nationwide
are dedicated to service and philanthropy
and improving their immediate communie
tiesr On March 10th Tony Iaccino from Sigma
Phi Epsilon participated in his fourth year
of service to an outstanding organization,
Face the Future Foundation, that supports
children who cannot afford facial surgery
He fundraised for the Craniofacial Center
at the University of Illinois Medical Center
Each year guests come from around Chi,

cago and even the country to take part in the
event, from influential doctors and research,
ers to company CEOs and their families

Iaccino volunteers at the event as
an integral member of the fundraising team
He is in charge of setting up a closed network
with a host computer and six other com,
puters, adding credit card scanners to each
machine and syncing them with the host

Each guest registers his or her
card at the beginning of the night, then afe
ter the silent auction, live auction, and
other programmed events the slips are tale
lied up and the items and packages are as,
signed to the winning bidder numbersr

At the end of the night, the guests
check out and get a receipt for their pure
chasesi All of the items are donated to Face
the Future Foundation. Items include do,
nations from Prada, the Blackhawks, the
Bears, and other high end stores and compa
nies This year the highest winning package
sold for $17,000 and included a tour of Italy

Each admission ticket costs from
$5007$1,000 and each guest must be pre
registered Other donations were given
throughout the night including a genere
ous gift from the widow of the McDone
alds CEO who had previously donated over
$10,000 At the end of the night the collece

tions were tallied at $287,000 after ticket and
item/package sales. The auctioned items
alone accounted for an estimated $170,000

Iacccino demonstrates one of the
ideals of Greek life as he sacrificed his entire
weekend before Midterms to serve an organie
zationthat is dedicated to helping communities
and youth in need What is most inspirational
about him is that Iaccino is using skills that
make him an essential element of the fundraise
ing event, and can serve as a role model for IIT
students as they develop their skills and talents
at the university, showing them how they can
serve their communities and societies through
their work and philanthropies in the future