Ohio Students Create Solutions to ‘Green’ Existing Gas Stations

Newswise — Three seniors at The University of Findlay are helping a local 24-hour Marathon gas station make some changes that not only help the environment but also save the station owners money. Marathon Oil Co. approached Timothy Murphy, Ph.D., associate professor of environmental safety and occupational health management, for help in generating ideas to “green” existing stations. The project became an assignment for three students enrolled in an advanced topics course, taught by James Jaffe, J.D., in the fall of 2009. Seth Hartings, Jeff Linstedt and Kelly Walter, all seniors with varied interests in their field, were charged with generating ideas that were cost effective and could be implemented without interrupting daily operations. According to Jaffe, the trend across the country is to tear down and rebuild stations to make them “green,” however, Marathon wanted to be able to make changes to existing stations and continue daily operations. The students visited the station many times to observe and study lighting, building structure, water usage and even types of signage used at the site. After collecting data, the students worked with an engineer at Marathon who calculated energy savings and costs of all the students’ findings and suggestions. Several changes could be implemented almost immediately with little cost and quick payback. Switching to LED lights from fluorescent lighting, for example, would pay for itself in less than one year for some and up to eight years for others. Moving a thermostat away from hot ovens would be an instant savings because it would reduce energy needed for the air conditioners to cool the space. Another simple and inexpensive suggestion is to add a drain guard to storm drains on the property, which will eliminate trash and debris from clogging the drains. The students made other recommendations, as well, including building up a partial wall inside the station, between the oven and refrigerator areas. By building up the wall, the heat from the ovens will be blocked from the refrigerators, and less energy will be needed to keep the refrigerators at the proper temperature. In addition to meeting with the station owners and representatives from Marathon’s retail and engineering departments, the students also contacted suppliers to ask about using recyclable shipping materials when delivering their products. Jaffe noted that it was interesting to observe students working with real-world constraints. “They were in new situations they’d never dealt with before. It was fun to watch them develop,” he said. Each student prepared a report on his or her findings, showing the potential savings and cost for each item. The reports were compiled and presented to personnel at Marathon and also will be presented at the University’s Scholarship for Symposium and Creativity this spring. “This project merged the efforts of our students, faculty members and companies within the community to provide a service,” said Murphy.