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Governor Uses SMU's Embrey Building
to Announce Wind Energy Initiative


A wind turbine blade was on display Monday at SMU as part of the governor's announcement of a new wind-generated energy initiative. (Homepage photo courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories)

Texas Governor Rick Perry came to Southern Methodist University's environmentally friendly J. Lindsay Embrey Building on Monday (Oct. 2, 2006) to announce a major public-private initiative to further diversify the state’s energy supply by expanding wind-generated energy.

"This is a landmark day as the State of Texas partners with private industry to make a historic investment of more than $10 billion in new wind energy infrastructure that will diversify our energy production, clean up our air and help Texas surpass our renewable energy goals,” Perry said. (Read more about the governor's announcement.)

The site of Perry's announcement was SMU's Embrey Building, the first university building in Texas built for gold-level LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. The Embrey Building houses the Mechanical Engineering Department and the Environmental and Civil Engineering Department in SMU's School of Engineering. (Read more about the Embrey Building.)

The Embrey Building is the recipient of a 2006 Excellence in Higher Education Award from Texas Construction magazine. Texas Construction annually recognizes design and construction excellent in Texas. (Read more about the award.)

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, buildings account for 39 percent of the nation’s energy consumption. Universities, with their large physical plants including lecture halls and laboratories, require a great deal of energy to operate. To reduce energy costs while also reducing the impact on the environment, SMU built the Embrey Building to meet standards for LEED certification at the gold level. The building will save the University an estimated 30 percent in energy, water, and maintenance costs annually in comparison with a non-LEED building.

The 56,700-square-foot building contains classrooms, laboratories, research facilities, and faculty offices. It includes more than 30 miles of data wiring, two distinct water systems, and the latest in high-tech research equipment. To comply with LEED standards, nearly all of the building materials came from within a 500-mile radius of SMU, and more than 75 percent of the construction waste was recycled rather than ending up in a landfill.

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