Monmouth College Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies Dr. Ken Cramer, along with some of his students, are currently working on a renewable energy and climate change project to identify ways Monmouth College could utilize renewable energy. Dr. Cramer explains how the college could potentially save money:
“We are looking into all the finances behind this. Obviously we want a return on investment that would work for the college. We want a reasonable time span to recuperate whatever the initial costs were, so we are trying to identify projects to do this in phases over ten years. The idea was that we would try and develop a plan to reach carbon neutrality so we have zero net carbon emissions within ten years. It is doable. Other small colleges like Monmouth have done it. There’s about nine or ten now that are legitimately carbon neutral across the U.S. and they keep adding year by year. We are using them as examples of what we can do and breaking it down to different types of renewables, but also conservation measures, I’m looking at transportation aspects, which is something that will be delayed quite a while.”
