Awards Given | Environmental Center | University of Colorado Boulder
Category: Laboratory Achievement
Since January 2010, the Bierbaum Lab has been turning off 5 diffusion pumps at night and on the weekend for large electricity and water savings. In general, lab diffusion pumps are left on 24/7 and cannot be turned off at night and on the weekends. But because the Bierbaum Lab closes off their vacuum chamber from their pumps each night, it made this idea feasible. At first Facilities Management installed timers and valves to allow the lab to turn the electricity and water off/on as needed. But later the lab decided to turn the electricity to the pumps off manually for larger savings and just use the timers to turn the water off since that required a 2 hour delay. Even after two problems were encountered, the lab was willing to work through the issues so they could continue to turn the pumps off. Because diffusion pumps have large energy and water-cooling needs, the amount of electricity and water savings resulting from the effort of this lab is significant. Since 2010, it is estimated that the lab's efforts have saved 6 million gallons of water (the same as 9 Olympic size pools) and 350,000 kWh of electricity (the same that 8 inefficient Ultra Low Temperature Freezers would use in the same period of time).
http://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/greenlabs/green-lab-awards/awards-given