Dartmouth's Power Surge

Dartmouth used 44 million kilowatt-hours of electricity last year. That's enough to power more than 7,300 New Hampshire homesfor the same period of time, the city of Washington, D.C., for an entire night or the average clothes dryer non-stop for more than a thousand years. In the process, the College burned about 4 million gallons of oil (releasing about 91 million pounds of carbon dioxide into the environment). The 44-million kilowatt-hour figure, 21 percent higher than it was six years ago, is expected to increase an additional 9 percent over the next year, due mostly to new construction. "Certainly, we get a moderate increase every year, as students work longer hours, use more appliances and their computers more often, and the hours of operation of buildings increase to accommodate that activity," says John Gratiot, director of Facility Operations & Management. "But most of this increase comes from the Berry Library construction project and other smaller projects around campus."