Friday, August 29, 2008

Energy saving alternatives

The Vice Chancellor, in an attempt to appear green, asks Frank, an architect, about modernizing the Old Administration Building.
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VC: We've got this old building on campus, nice old classic. Georgian. But the high ceilings, tall windows, devil of a thing to heat in winter.

Frank. Uh. The old admin block.

VC: So what I was think was, what if we dropped the ceiling from fifteen feet to ten? And put in aluminium windows.

Frank: It'll cost. Building like that, you're talking three or four mill.

VC. Hmm.

Frank: I say, don't do it. You'll end up wrecking a perfectly good building. Here's a deal. Raise a million from some alumni. Put up a 1 megawatt wind-generator on some farmer's land. Give the farmer's kids free tuition. Sell the electricity to the national grid. That's more than enough to pay for the energy costs for the old admin building. And you'll have some cash left over.

_________
Voiceover

Economizing doesn't always mean paying more to downsize.

Frank is forthright about how to approach this problem. Don't do this. Do that instead.
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