Taking the Reins

Students are pouring in from every corner of the globe once again to fill the Hilltop back to the brim. Some come for the first time, some have seen it all before. Whichever you are, Georgetown Energy welcomes you back.

We have been busy making this campus more energy efficient, even over the muggy D.C. summer. Some of the improvements will be hard to see. Most recently, occupancy sensors have been installed in Darnall’s common rooms and bathrooms. Even though a light shutting off in an empty room isn’t exactly the most noticeable phenomenon (when a tree falls in a forest with nobody around, does it make a sound?), we hope you can share in our enthusiasm for the massive amount of energy this simple measure will save from the throes of wasted lighting this year.

Soon, you can also expect to see the infamous Leo O’Donovan Dining Hall reaping some clean watts to help power parts of campus. Over the past few years, Georgetown Energy has worked with university administration and third-party donors to plan for the installation of a 78 kilowatt solar panel array atop the building.

We have been busy in the Georgetown community, as well, providing free energy assessments to small businesses and demystifying how, exactly, a typical Georgetown citizen can quite easily “go solar”. We have not even confined ourselves to the District of Columbia, as two members recently embarked on a trip to a village in Paraguay to assist in the installation of biodigesters.

We’re just getting started, of course. There’s so much to do, and only four short years for each undergraduate here to dedicate to our campus’s environmental legacy. Remember that energy is a precious resource, and that however you treat the environment today may greatly affect the world that your children live in. Whoever you are and whatever you do, I encourage you to work hard, waste not, and make the most of this semester.