Energy Use

I recently read in the Misc that all of the dorms except for Main are competing during the month of April for the bragging rights on being the greenest dorm in Vassar. In the article, it was mentioned that Vassar spends somewhere in the neighborhood of $16,000 every month in energy costs to keep the dorms up and running. There was also a dorm-by-dorm breakdown in energy use as a factor of the fraction of the 16K going towards the dorm's upkeep. Overall, the article meant to raise concerns about how 16K is a hefty amount for VC to drop every month.

Here's what I think: 16K/month is basically nothing in energy costs. Honestly, when you think about how many people live in each dorm, a fee of 1-2K per dorm is pocket change. In my high school, for example, power costs reached a regular of $3,000 A DAY on the cold winter days (and that's just for a high school). That's not to say that we shouldn't strive to be as efficient with our energy use as possible. It's just that the figures provided don't seem that shocking.

I also don't like the whole idea of cutting down in energy use so that Vassar doesn't have to spend that much money. No offense Vassar College, but you're swimming in pools of cash and you know it. I don't really care about how much of your endowment you give up on energy. I care about efficiency. You evidently don't, keeping the lights on constantly in the most unnecessary places (like inside some of the class buildings in the middle of the night), letting the tray collector run on auto for the entire day, etc.

-Crito