At the CSU Energy Institute, we are proud to share a major milestone in our global impact. On May 4th, the Carbon Ticker in the lobby of the Powerhouse ticked over to 200 million tonnes of CO₂ saved. This achievement is a testament to our research, technology and scale-up efforts.

The total estimated savings are equivalent to:

• Driving around the globe 64,258,379 times
• The energy use of all the homes in Colorado for 12 years
• 53 Coal fired power plants for one year

More specifically, the counter estimates the equivalent of CO₂ savings based upon research linked to the Powerhouse Energy Campus. Projects at the Powerhouse examine a variety of greenhouse emissions, of which CO₂ is just one type. The Carbon Ticker takes these other greenhouse emission savings into account as well.

The Powerhouse Energy Campus started as the Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory in 2002. Since the early days, public building tours were an important part of the outreach, helping showcase the world-class research to members of the community, local leaders, and potential CSU students. The tour, quite literally, leads participants past the physical product of previous and current research projects such as the Tuk Tuk and EnviroFit cookstoves.

However, it was difficult to visually demonstrate the cumulative impact of these and other projects. The Carbon Ticker was the solution. Brooke Ballenger, Research Associate, helped with the original calculations and programming, going back to the founding of the Engines and Energy Conversion Lab. Installation took place October of 2023 by Kirk Evans, Director of Engineering, and Jason Quinn, Operating Director.

Currently, the ticker increases about 39 tonnes per minute. That’s roughly equivalent to driving the Pan-American Highway (the longest road in the world) 5 times every minute of every day. While we take a moment to reflect on these accomplishments, we know the work is far from over. We now have the ambitious goal to be the first university to engineer a road map for saving a gigaton in carbon emissions by 2050, which is the annual carbon emission from every car on the road in the US.