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Alex Ecotopia

A Grinnellatopia

The sun rises slowly over the white limestone of East Campus, casting shadows across the green grass of Mac field. The wind slowly picks up, a cool fall breeze, coming in from the west, blowing off the misty dew off the sprouting vegetables crops. Slowly, students, many still in their spongebob 3000 pajamas, with faces twisted in anguish from lost battles with alarm clocks, stumble from the doors of the dorms, and like zombies shuffle to the dining hall. Inside, they are treated to a surprise, pancakes with freshly picked local apples, with real maple syrup, imported from a small maple cooperative farm from Northern Iowa, that uses half its profits to promote reforestation efforts. After breakfast, some students head to class, other’s, those involved in a special year-long agricultural project, hop on brightly painted yellow campus bikes, and head-over over to the college garden west of park street, to work alongside their advisers, local farmers. Their task for the morning is to harvest broccoli and carrots, to be used for dinner at the community meal, sponsored every Tuesday by the college. Meanwhile back on campus, the sun has reached high enough in the sky that its hitting the solar panels installed on the southern facing roofs of south campus and the academic buildings. Central batteries unit installed around campus begin charging up, building up energy reserves for a future cloudy day, or cloudy week for that matter. Up north of campus, next to the soccer finds, wind turbines whirl noiselessly, producing more than enough energy to power the entire town, and sending the remaining energy back over the grid to power other towns nearby.

Back on campus, the school president arrives to work in his electric car with a frame made from recycled plastics and metals. His busy day will start with a meeting with architects, building a replacement academic building for ARH. The new building will be oriented towards the south, taking full advantage of passive solar energy, while also using semi-translucent screens, to disperse the harsh glare of sunlight across the classrooms evenly Inside, in every classroom are light sensors, dimming and brightening the lights as needed. On the ceiling is an infrared sensor that shuts the lights off when no one is inside the classroom. In the computer lab, sits energy sensors that allow the student IT workers to check if unattended computers are drawing phantom loads, and turn them off as needed. In addition, every computer uses an energy efficient LCD monitor that shuts itself off when not in use. At one-computer sits a first-year student, who after checking his email, checks his calendar to plan his day. The year you ask. … 2009.

Well why not? The technology is all already here, it is just a matter of moving towards it.