The Barometer Online

Issue date: 2/18/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Luke Wenker Amanda Vold, a senior in health promotions and human behavior, exercises on an elliptical machine that generates renewable energy at Dixon Rec. Center.

OSU recently became one of the first universities in the country to harness the energy of its students to make renewable power to cycle back through the grid.

Dixon Recreation Center is now the home of 22 retrofitted elliptical machines which will use the energy of the students or faculty exercising on them to generate more power, which will then be used by the recreation center.

Brandon Trelstad, the university's sustainability coordinator, was quoted by The Associated Press, saying that this new system will produce 3,500 kilowatt hours of electricity in a year.

As a campus dedicated to sustainability, in 2007, OSU students voted and passed a measure to pay $8.50 per each student per term to seek renewable energy sources.

Since then, about three-quarters of OSU's campus electricity has come from renewable sources, according to The Associated Press.

The technology, made possible by a Florida firm, has been entirely student fee-funded.

While the elliptical machines have been up and running for almost a week in their new renewable energy fashion, the official unveiling will take place today from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. at the Dixon Recreation Center.

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