Carbon impact across these categories: Collecting Various Sustainability Metrics of Observatory Operations on Maunakea Blaise C. Kuo Tiong a, Steven E. Bauman a, Romilly Benedict b, John Wesley Draughn c, and Quinn Probasco c a Canada France Hawaii Telescope Corporation, Kamuela, HI, USA, b AP Environmental Science, Honoka’a High School, Honoka’a, HI, USA, c Sustainable Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA VEHICLE FLEET BUILDING ENERGY INTRODUCTION For calculating the equivalent carbon emissions impact, energy use was gathered from monthly electric bills of CFHT’s building facilities in Kamuela and on the summit. The carbon emissions factor of 0.800 metric tons CO2/MWh was calculated from RetScreen 4 software, taking into account the energy mix for electricity in the state of Hawaii.5 To evaluate the impact of an observatory’s operations, we use carbon footprints as a metric that can be calculated across categories. Examined in this study are CFHT’s vehicle fleet operations, building energy use, data center operations and employee air travel. 58.88 metric tons CO2/yr Fig. 1 - A Toyota Sienna in CFHT’s fleet For calculating the annual carbon emissions impact of the fleet, we collected the fuel efficiency of the vehicles, the total miles driven from fleet management software called Collective Fleet and the combustion emissions estimate of gasoline from the Environmental Protection Agency, which is 8.887 grams CO2/gallon.3 4 Hawaiians pay the highest prices for energy in the country. $0.37/kWh for electricity on the Big Island in 2015 and $0.80 to $1.05 per gallon of gasoline over the US average. 1 2 DATA CENTER CHFT’s data center impact is included in building energy totals, but can be separately measured with existing monitoring systems. Data center use at the summit was collected from the facility’s 30kVa UPS. In Kamuela, it can be estimated by using a multiplier of 2.5, corresponding to the greater number of servers at the site. 858.24 metric tons CO2/yr Fig. 3 - CFHT’s Kamuela facility, with a 99,975 watts AC solar panel installation. The system offsets 79.72 tons CO2/yr. Server room cooling efficiency measures have also led to an estimated 28.21 tons CO2/yr reduction. AIR TRAVEL To calculate employee air travel impact, flight segments were tabulated for travel in 2015 from the travel booking software Concur. A carbon calculator from the International Civil Aviation Organisation was used to gather the carbon footprint from corresponding flight segments. Fig. 2 - Kamuela Server Room TOTAL CO2 EMISSIONS 90.26 metric tons CO2/yr Carbon impact across these categories: 1,067.21 metric tons CO2/yr Segments flown - 562 Distance travelled - 1,882,531 km Number of travelers - 58 Acres of trees needed to offset travel - 3 REFERENCES 1. Hawaii State Energy Office, “Hawaii Energy Facts and Figures,” (2015). 2. hawaii247.com, “Big Island Gas Prices”. 3. EPA, “Greenhouse Gas Emissions from a Typical Passenger Vehicle.” 4. Fuely, www.fuely.com. 5. RETScreen, Natural Resources Canada. 150.09 metric tons CO2/yr Canada France Hawaii Telescope Corporation (2016)