The First Facility Management Blog

Earlier this year, I traveled with several other journalists to attend a high tech event in Germany. While I was on that trip, I met a brilliant man named Brian Chee from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. In his capacity with the University, Chee not only builds and tests innovative power management solutions for server rooms and data centers, he also writes about the results and shares his findings freely with anyone who can benefit.

Currently, Chee is looking for facility professionals who would like to monitor their organizations’ energy usage through a free, Web based tool. The only requirement is that participating facilities must have networkable power meters.

Chee explains that the goal of the project is to “build a Web based system for displaying both live and historical power utilization. It’s my hope that the project will be adopted throughout the university, including 10 campuses and 30 research institutes. I will eventually be donating the source code to the public domain (open source).”

Chee is using power monitoring devices from a Portland, OR-based company called Obvius, but he is looking for partners using any type of networkable power meters. Sample tables and graphs for the project can be found at the following link.

Anyone interested in participating in this project should contact Chee directly. Here is his contact information:
Brian Chee
University of Hawai’i at Manoa
School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology (SOEST)
2525 Correa Road, HIG 500
Honolulu, HI 96822
Tel: 808-956-5797
E-mail: chee@hawaii.edu

Halco Lighting Technologies recently announced the conclusion to its participation in the national 2007/ 2008 ENERGY STAR Change a Light, Change the World campaign. On October 9, 2007 Halco joined ENERGY STAR and a progressively greener community’s effort to change, one light—one energy saving step—at a time with its supporting pledge. The campaign, sponsored by The Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, and Department of Housing and Urban Development, kicked off on October 3, 2007 and officially came to a close on October 1, 2008.   

Halco is announced a total savings of 9,859,848 kWh and the prevention of 14,300,276 pounds of green-house gas emissions as a result of its collected pledges. Among the campaign drivers in the state of Georgia, Halco acquired the third largest number of individual pledges. The company was also pleased to report that it was in the top percentile among other leading light bulb manufactures.

Along its campaign trail, Halco participated in the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech’s Earth Day festivities and actions along with teaming up with Oglethorpe and Kennesaw University with spreading the awareness. Halco acknowledged the Jewish Council of Public Affairs, Jewish Family and Child Services, Smoke Rise Baptist Church, Best of Atlanta, and several representatives and distributors for their combined efforts in Halco’s 2007/2008 Change a Light, Change the World Campaign endeavors.

 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing revisions to certain regulatory requirements for hazardous waste shipments between countries to ensure that recovery is done in an environmentally sound and economically efficient manner. These changes would make the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act’s (RCRA) hazardous waste transboundary shipment regulations more consistent with those of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Hazardous waste is often shipped between countries for recovery. EPA has established an extensive set of regulations under RCRA governing the shipment of hazardous waste within the United States. Additionally, the United States participates in a number of bilateral waste agreements between countries and in the multilateral waste agreement controlling the shipment of hazardous waste for recovery between OECD Member countries.

Specifically, this rule proposes to revise:

• The existing RCRA regulation regarding the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes for recovery among countries belonging to the OECD to conform to legally required revisions made by the OECD
• The RCRA regulations for spent lead-acid batteries to add export notification and consent requirements
• The hazardous waste import requirements
• The address to which export exception reports are to be sent

Comments will be accepted for 60 days following publication in the Federal Register, which is expected by tomorrow, October 3, 2008.

More information is available at www.epa.gov/epawaste/hazard/international/oecd-slab-rule.htm.