AMENDED VERSION: CU Green Labs Newsletter

The initial email contains some errors in the Janet Fox Q&A. This email contains the appropriate corrections to that story. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

CU Green Labs Newsletter

University of Colorado Boulder

May 2016

In This Issue

Cornell University Hibernates Unused Fume Hoods

EBIO Shuts Down Electron Microscope

Q & A With Janet Fox

National Highlight:

Cornell University Hibernates Unused Fume Hoods

The Cornell University campus is home to over 1,700 fume hoods. The majority of these are variable air volume (VAV). However, a number of constant air volume (CAV) and high-performance hoods are also present. Fume hoods are often the most energy intensive equipment in laboratories, each typically costing the university $1000s per year in energy costs.

Roughly ten years ago, the energy conservation program within the Energy and Sustainability Department recognized the potential for energy and, consequentially, monetary savings that would result from "hibernating," or temporarily turning off, unused fume hoods on campus. They initiated the process for controls upgrades by using grant funding.

The task proved to be substantial for such a historic campus, whose buildings vary in age and design. The three types of fume hoods are part of different types of ventilation systems that reflect the changing technology and design methodologies over the decades. Maintaining an accurate inventory of hoods that are hibernated proved to be difficult.

The position of Laboratory Ventilation Specialist, currently occupied by Ellen Sweet, was created within the department of Environmental Health and Safety who recently created a method of initiating the process of hibernating a fume hood by using the same assets management system as the university uses for repair requests. This has helped to organize the process.

According to Sweet, this assets management system was able to organize the hibernation process in such a way that labs could fill out a ticket request, similar to a repair request form, to have a fume hood mechanically shut down or, for those fume hoods presently shut down, reactivated within 48 hours.

She stresses the fact that, due to variation among the models of fume hoods at Cornell, it is pertinent that there be a small handful of specialized individuals for responding to hibernation requests. This process ensures uniformity in the procedure.

At any given point in time, 70 to 80 fume hoods are in hibernation. Under the assumption that each fume hood utilizes 400 cubic feet per minute (cfm) of air and each cfm corresponds to $6 in energy to process, Cornell is able to save $168,000 annually, a conservative estimate.

On newer campuses, with more uniform facilities, this energy-saving initiative could be implemented with relative ease in comparison to Cornell's fume hood program, according to Sweet. She believes that the most important aspect of such a program is to recognize the needs of the researchers and ensure that they are working under safe conditions at all times.

Do you know of a lab or individual taking action to promote energy, water or material conservation in the lab? Contact the CU Green Labs Program today to share your story with us!

CU Green Labs Website
greenlabs@colorado.edu

(303)-735-5612

The CU Green Labs Program has been equally funded by CU Facilities Management and the Environmental Center since 2009.

Lab Action Highlight: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Turns Off Electron Microscope Between Uses for Large Energy, Water Savings

In 2005, the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EBIO) purchased a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Rather than using light to image a specimen, it uses a beam of electrons to produce an image. The advantages of a SEM are increased depth of field, contrast, resolution on the order of tens of nanometers, and magnification of details on samples that are on the millimeter scale. The SEM is primarily used by David Stock's lab, whose research focuses on the genes responsible for the evolution of teeth and scales in fishes. In addition to its research applications, the instrument is also used for teaching purposes.

A SEM is a large electricity consumer and has an attached chiller to prevent the SEM vacuum pumps from overheating. A constant stream of water is required to cool the chiller's compressor when the SEM is turned on. For the first several years of its lifetime, the SEM was left on 24 hours a day, i.e., a stream of single use tap water was also running 24 hours a day. Further, electricity was being used even when the SEM was not needed for imaging. In fact, it is standard practice to leave SEM units on continuously to maintain the vacuum conditions required for their operation.

However, the SEM was only being used every few weeks at best. Sometimes months would pass between uses. According to Green Labs, an EBIO lab member noticed an excellent opportunity for energy and water savings via turning off the SEM between uses. Green Labs reached out to the manufacturer of the device (JEOL) and determined that turning it of between uses would not be harmful to this particular SEM model and chiller.

As a result, the SEM has been turned off between uses for the past several years. Every two weeks, the SEM must be turned on by a lab member to ensure that vacuum conditions in the chamber of the instrument are not compromised. It is estimated that this action has resulted in electricity savings of 28,000 kWh/yr (approximately the same as three US houses) and water savings of 180,000 gallons/year.

Q & A With Janet Fox From Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology

Janet Fox is a Professional Research Assistant in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology (MCDB). Fox, a cell biologist, manages the Winey Lab and supervises its Undergraduate Research Assistants.

Green Labs: How did you become involved with the Green Labs Program?

Janet Fox: Kathy Ramirez-Aguilar was visiting different labs and she came by and introduced herself. She explained that she was starting the Green Labs Program and I was pretty excited about it, so I volunteered to be the lab liaison for the Winey Lab.

GL: What actions have you implemented within MCDB to promote conservation?

JF: Part of it is just raising awareness. There is a culture in labs where things have been done a certain way for so long that no one ever questions it or reevaluates it, it just happens. So when Kathy talked about putting timers on certain equipment I thought 'Oh, that's a great idea' because, otherwise, stuff just stays on all night unnecessarily. This was one simple way to save energy, without impacting our lab.

Also, this program gave us an opportunity to take a good look at equipment usage in the lab. Do we really need all that fridge space? Can we consolidate? Can we clean out things that aren't used any more? Can we turn a fridge off?

We were able to turn off a fridge by throwing out old items and consolidating other things to save space.

Some members of Green Labs came by and metered our lab equipment, demonstrating that some of the equipment in the lab was very energy inefficient. We were unaware of how much energy the heating/cooling incubators consumed. With the help of Green Labs we replaced two of them with a larger, very energy efficient heating only incubator.

Some things we've done, that are also cost effective things, are to reuse glass test tubes, reuse plastic, conical tubes for non-sterile applications, and to sterilize and reuse plastic plates with wells.

GL: What sort of efforts would you like to see the Winey Lab or MCDB as a department take on in the future?

JF: We create a lot of plastic waste in the form of single use pipet tips, tissue culture plastic ware, and other non-reusable plastics. It would be great to be able to recycle those materials.

GL: What do you believe would be a good starting point for labs interested in creating a more environmentally friendly lab?

JF: Part of it is just making yourself aware. At least on this campus, Kathy is a great resource, a great source of knowledge and is just always so positive. She has an 'everything is possible' kind of attitude, which is so great. Start with things that are low-impact in terms of the day-to-day activities of the lab, like putting timers on equipment and raising the temperature on the ultra low temperature (ULT) freezers.