We love green energy and sustainability. We really do. However, we’re questioning the wisdom of the Clean Energy Revolving Fund, which is now getting revamped, repackaged and renamed for a second attempt at success. Haven’t heard much on it, aside from the referendum last year for the one-time $10 fee? Yeah, neither have we — and that’s part of the problem.
CERF, as originally planned, was supposed to be a fund to purchase things like solar panels and wind turbines to supply AU with green energy. The money saved through the green energy initiatives would then be routed back into the fund to buy more green energy. Lofty ambitions? Yes. Attainable? Apparently not.
CERF needed $100,000 to get started but only ended up with $5,000 in the bank. A referendum passed to fund CERF through a mandatory fee, but it was never implemented, leaving the program short.
To give its creators and supporters credit, they’re trying to make lemons into lemonade by taking the $5,000 in funding and using it to support student groups working on green projects. However, this wasn’t the original point of CERF.
Last year there was so much effort expended in getting CERF passed that we’re a bit flabbergasted that it was so ignominiously abandoned. We hope that the future members of the Student Government will gauge the necessity and practicality of projects before wasting hours of everyone’s time.
