A typical lab uses 3-5 times the energy of a typical office, per square metre. Since there are many labs at Uppsala University, naturally it is important to reduce the energy consumption in our labs in order to minimise the University’s carbon footprint.
Other labs are better
“Elsewhere in the world, there are labs that are more efficient with resources and consume less energy than we do,” says Brian McCarthy, researcher in Synthetic Molecular Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry – Ångström Laboratory. “Those of us who are researching solar fuels should also be at the forefront when it comes to saving energy,” he adds.
The project was started in May 2019. At that time, it was Brian McCarthy and a post-doc from France, Emilie Mathieu, who were responsible for the project. Now the baton has been passed on and Brian McCarthy and Anna Beiler, researchers in Synthetic Molecular Chemistry, are pursuing the project together. They have a monthly meeting with the five labs in the Department that are part of the project.
“I hope that this can inspire post-docs, doctoral students and other interested parties to question and improve procedures and how we do things. After all, they are the ones who are working in the labs and have fresh eyes,” says Sascha Ott, professor in Synthetic Molecular Chemistry.
“Hopefully, they will take these ideas and ways of working with them when they move and spread them all over the world,” says Brian McCarthy.
Education and infrastructure
In brief, one could say that they have been working on two tracks in parallel in the project: one track involves education and making it easy to do the right thing; and the other involves moving to more resource-efficient technology.
Air cooling instead of water cooling
Although some equipment might not use a lot of energy per minute, it adds up when the equipment is on 24 hours a day, every day of the week. In their labs, a lot of energy goes to heating, cooling, and drying chemical elements and compounds as well as storage in fridges and freezers.
Traditionally, they have often used water cooling, where water is taken from the tap and after being used for cooling, it is discharged into the drain. Instead of cooling with water, they have switched to cooling with air, which reduces water consumption, and also reduces the risk of flooding damage that can occur if the water cooling system breaks down for any reason.
Air cooling did not involve major investments in equipment; it was more a matter of learning to do things differently.
“It turned out that those of us who use the lab don’t have any training or experience in using air cooling. So we needed to train ourselves,” says Anna Beiler.
Many people in one lab
The laboratories in the University are environments that many people pass through. There is a high turnover because doctoral students, post-docs, and visiting researchers only stay for a limited time and then move on.
“In a lab, there’s a lot to keep track of with safety and the research itself. So we need to provide more and better information and make it easy to do the right thing for those who use the lab,” says Anna Beiler. “And if you sense that others in the lab care about these small savings that can be made, that can hopefully be a nudge in the right direction,” says Anna Beiler.
“Each small step might feel small in the big picture, such as turning off the lights in the lab when you leave. But it creates an awareness,” says Sascha Ott.
Fume cupboards require a lot of heating
Part of the project has been about the fume cupboards in the labs. Fume cupboards have their own ventilation to minimise work environment risks when working with substances that should not be inhaled. Which is why fume cupboards consume a lot of energy, especially when left open while they are on. A fume cupboard left open consumes energy equivalent to 3.5 households and in Synthetic Molecular Chemistry alone there are around 30 fume cupboards.
“A fume cupboard takes air from the outside and here in Sweden it often has to be heated to room temperature first and that costs a lot in energy,” says Sascha Ott.
In order to reduce the energy consumption of fume cupboards, there was an investigation into how well the fume cupboards were working, if anything was broken or blocked.
“Then it’s mostly been about training everyone in how to use the fume cupboards optimally,” says Anna Beiler.
Meters for monitoring needed
It is currently difficult to measure the effects of the efforts being made because there are no heating, electricity, or water meters per lab. These meters are per building or campus and, of course, that makes it difficult to monitor changes in a lab; any improvements will be masked by the big consumption figures for the whole building or campus. This is an issue they have raised with the landlord Akademiska Hus so that hopefully this can be changed in the future.
“If we were able to measure energy and resource consumption per lab, it would serve as inspiration and we could compare labs and perhaps start a bit of a competition,” says Anna Beiler.
Want to start a network
The researchers are documenting all the measures they are taking on the web to inspire others and make it easy for them to get started.
“We shouldn’t reinvent the wheel unnecessarily. We should be utilising each other’s knowledge to achieve a more sustainable lab in the best way and faster,” says Brian McCarthy.
During the interview, they often return to the fact that they would really like to start a network within the University to make more labs more sustainable more quickly.
“We would love to be able to establish a network with other labs. The University has many labs and, although these labs differ, there is much in common,” says Anna Beiler.
“Yes, it would be great if we could bring more people together around this. Seeing that we are not alone in fighting for the same things generates engagement and energy,” adds Sascha Ott. “If we can get together in a university-wide network, we would also have greater opportunities to pursue the big issues we have in common that are difficult to pursue as a single lab.