Hank Haines: Why can’t we turn off the lights in public buildings? on The Murfreesboro Post

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Hank Haines: Why can’t we turn off the lights in public buildings?

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By: HANK HAINES, Post Columnist

Posted: Sunday, March 15, 2009 8:59 am

It’s a big room: 1,000 square feet, in a quasi-public building. I was there one recent afternoon when the empty room was bathed in light. Ordinarily no one would be in this room for days. These lights would burn hours for no purpose.

In a small connecting office all the lights were on. Then in a large closet: lights on. Turned them off. And a smaller closet? Lights on and no visible light switch.

Then there’s one of my favorite places in all the world: Patterson Community Center. It’s where I go to watch 115-pound Spandexed women lift more iron than I can. Pumping iron is work. Watching is pure pleasure.

The employees at Patterson are delightful.

So much for the good news.

The not so good is that Patterson Center is a temple of lights. During the morning, both racket ball courts are lit and almost unoccupied for hours. (Though a day after this was written the court lights were off.)

On the south side of the track, there is a light every few feet. A ribbon of windows illuminates the track on the south and west sides. In daytime light abounds and is all that is needed.

All over this wonderful building are lights, many of them fronting huge glass windows.

Maybe the city gets its power free, but if it doesn’t some electronic controls would pay for themselves.

During summer months, I take early morning walks through the MTSU campus. As the sun lights things up so do campus burning of lights. Now one can’t argue that a college campus attracts some strange types and they are fewer on well-lit places. That’s good, for the nighttime.

Still, the lights burn in the Chemistry Building halls 24/7/365 . . . evidently. A faculty member said he was told it keeps vandals away. And it’s true of tigers, too.

There have been no vandals or tigers in there for decades.

Outdoor campus lights last summer burned at 7 a.m.

And these are just low points of our profligacy, which not only elevates expenses but also plays a role in pollution. The light bulb we burn is energized by coal power. And get this: clean coal is a joke like ethanol, both put forward by one of the nation’s most ignorant presidents.

We’re living like it was 1954, but the Beaver and Eddie Haskell have been laid off out in California. Their resumes have been submitted to a clutch of fast food joints.

This is a new world.

An organization calling itself Energy Systems Group signs power saving agreements with colleges (and industrial/commercial ventures). Sounds like they have something to offer.

In one state university ESG’s contract stipulates that it will reduce annual energy consumption by 36 percent. Over a 13-year-period, it guarantees that will cover the cost of weatherizing buildings and installing more efficient energy devices.

The company installs more efficient lighting, heating and cooling and water conservation systems.

The school’s pool will be heated by solar power. Dimming devices will control degree of lights in unoccupied rooms. All, lowering costs and pollution.

Tagged under VOICES

Member Opinions:

By: Hippie1427 on 3/19/09
I agree. I wish more companies would take this strategy to heart. It seems like an awful waste to keep buildings which have closed for the night well lit inside. And take a drive along 840 towards Lebanon at night and you will find large warehouses that have been built, and are lit on the outside with very very bright security lights, even though the buildings are not yet in use. A security system or even a security guard would probably be cheaper than all the electricity they are wasting. This issue goes beyond public buildings and extends even into our own homes, where people leave porch lights on every night, or my neighbor who never apparenly turns her garage light off.