The 10:10 Campaign (see link on www.laboratorymedicine.nhs.uk) is going for a 10% CO2 reduction in 2010. How far could labs go towards such a target?
As a result of initial investigations by Martin Myers it’s been estimated that a typical UK lab will have a electricity consumption equivalent to about 1,000,000 Kgs of CO2. One potential target to reduce that is to address the consumption of electricity by PCs. As a rough calculation a 100 watt computer will generate about 376 kg CO2 per year if left on 24/7. If we have 200 computers in a Pathology service then this will be 75,000kg CO2 per year. If 75% are turned off at night and weekends then this (i.e. 50 on permanently, 150 turned off at night and weekends) will generate about 40,000Kg CO2 savings per year. That’s 4% towards a 10% total. At a conservative 10p per kWh that’s about £10k pa at domestic rates.
Questions:
How to recover the saving?
- Behaviour change? – staff incentives - audits
- Automated PC standby software? (see http://co2saver.snap.com/)
Any other ideas and has anyone done it already?
I’ve attached a crude xls calculator which does some of the calculations for a typical lab using some simple assumptions. Anyone feel like improving / testing it?
Rick Jones
------ACB discussion List Information--------
This is an open discussion list for the academic and clinical community working in clinical biochemistry.
Please note, archived messages are public and can be viewed via the internet. Views expressed are those of the individual and they are responsible for all message content.
ACB Web Site
http://www.acb.org.uk
Green Laboratories Work
http://www.laboratorymedicine.nhs.uk
List Archives
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/ACB-CLIN-CHEM-GEN.html
List Instructions (How to leave etc.)
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/
|