The 2012 LOSS (Local Outreach to Suicide Survivors) Conference will be held May 31 - June 1, 2012 in Lincoln, Nebraska. Dr. Frank Campbell, a leading expert in Suicidology along with other experts, will share the lessons learned in years of helping survivors of suicide, how sudden traumatic loss impacts survivors and grief through the different developmental stages.
CLICK HERE TO LEARN MOREThe Nebraska Dollar and Energy Savings Loan Program was designed in 1990 to make low interest loans available to finance home, building and system energy improvements. Loans have been made to residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural customers, typically for heating, cooling, windows, siding or insulation. The Public Policy Center will work with the Raikes School of Computer Science and the Bureau of Sociological Research to examine the economic and environmental impacts of these investments by estimating their annual and cumulative energy savings, measured in dollars and energy use. These impacts are generated through a combination of job and output increases in loan supported sectors and losses in energy production sectors. The program will also impact consumer spending, such that fewer dollars will be available for household spending through the life of the loan. However, more dollars will be available once the loan is completed and energy expenditures fall.
Since energy use depends on weather, the first step in the analysis will be to break the state into weather zones. Once the zones are identified, initial samples of loans will be developed for each of the major improvement types and each of the customer classes. The University of Nebraska’s Bureau of Sociological Research (BOSR) will survey individuals from those samples to determine if their businesses, households and/or living conditions changed materially up to 12 months either before or after the improvements and if so, these structures will be filtered from the sample. Energy consumption for the filtered samples will be obtained from local utilities for the 12 months before and after each improvement and will be compared to expected energy use. The combined data will allow us to measure the energy savings associated with each investment, which will then be translated into dollar savings. A cost calculator will be developed to estimate energy savings in the future.
Key Partners
University of Nebraska-Lincoln Raikes School of Computer Science and Management
Nebraska Energy Office
University of Nebraska-Lincoln Bureau of Sociological Research (BOSR)
Funding
Federal Funding through the Nebraska Energy Office
Name: Mark DeKraai
E-mail: mdekraai@nebraska.edu
Phone: (402) 472-1496
Name: Alan Tomkins
E-mail: atomkins@nebraska.edu
Phone: (402) 472-5688
