Global temperatures
continue to rise,
threatening ecosystems and raising the risk of
severe weather events,
disease, and
food insecurity. Colleges and universities have long led the way in devising strategies to mitigate these effects. This
Earth Day, ACE is highlighting two initiatives from our members that are advancing sustainability.
CU Boulder Champions Sustainable Science
While university labs produce vital research, they can also consume a lot of energy and generate significant waste. The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) motivates scientists to reduce waste without sacrificing scientific integrity through the
CU Green Labs Program.
Kathryn Ramirez-Aguilar, Green Labs program manager and a former biochemistry researcher, founded the program in 2009.
“While I was working in labs, I began to wonder if my research was truly helping more than it was hurting because of the large resource consumption,” she told
Technology Networks.
The Green Labs program coordinates solutions and provides incentives to help scientists reduce their environmental footprints. Through the program, researchers can recycle materials that typical recycling centers can’t process, like pipette tip boxes, metal lab containers, and brown glass bottles. They also can receive recycled solvents from other labs. Green Labs provides free timers that turn off equipment automatically, free energy metering, and funding to subsidize the costs of new, more energy-efficient equipment.
CU Boulder urges researchers to share space and equipment when possible. Its
Core Facilities and Shared Instrumentation program facilitates the sharing of lab space and thousands of scientific instruments and pieces of equipment among multiple labs and departments.
In addition to the services Green Labs provides, leaders of the program run campaigns to “establish a culture of sustainability in research,”
Ramirez-Aguilar said. These efforts include placing posters on key topics in lab sustainability in areas where people tend to linger, such as in bathroom stalls and near microwaves, and running contests that reward scientists who adopt best practices for energy-intensive equipment like vented fume hoods.
Green Labs has had a significant impact on CU Boulder. So far, the program has saved more than 73 million gallons of water, 13.1 million kilowatt-hours of energy, and 500,000 pounds of waste.
OSU and UO Advance Greener Construction Methods
Oregon State University (OSU) and the University of Oregon (UO) have joined forces to develop more sustainable housing solutions. Since 2014, the
TallWood Design Institute (TDI) has united professors from OSU’s College of Forestry and College of Engineering and UO’s College of Design to research construction using mass timber.
Mass timber refers to engineered wood construction materials created by layering and bonding smaller pieces of wood. The resultant panels, posts, and beams are stronger than steel or concrete and can be larger and more precise than standard structural timber.
Last fall, the universities unveiled a
prototype two-bedroom, two-story house made with mass plywood panels, a relatively new type of mass timber that TDI helped develop. The home came together after two years of design and was assembled from large panels instead of a wooden frame.
If adopted more widely in the construction industry, mass timber could yield substantial environmental benefits.
“Wood is a renewable material,” TDI Director Iain Macdonald
told KGW. “When you compare it to the energy required to produce steel or to produce cement and concrete, it’s greatly lower.”
In addition, mass timber sequesters carbon, uses a larger share of a log’s wood than traditional lumber does, and can be made from thinner logs, which help reduce wildfire risks when removed from overgrown forests.
Mass plywood offers environmental advantages even over other forms of mass timber. Its thin panels mean less material is needed to build a structure from mass plywood. The panels also fit tightly together, minimizing drafts and maximizing mass plywood structures’ energy efficiency.
TDI now plans to refine the home design, evaluating it from numerous angles, including its durability, thermal retention, fire resistance, seismic resilience, and acoustics. Its next steps are to hire contractors to build an additional prototype, so researchers can assess construction costs, and to build a cluster of four homes in rural Oregon, so researchers can gain input on what it’s like to live in the homes.
As an emergent technology, mass timber is currently more expensive than traditional construction materials and methods, but TDI leaders are confident that a larger body of research for developers to consult and economies of scale will slash costs.
“I think the 20th century was really the age of concrete and steel,” Macdonald told
Lesprom Network. “And the 21st century is going to be the age of wood.”
Photo courtesy of Marcus Kauffman