1. Project Title: Fume Hood Energy Awareness Stickers
2. Primary Applicant: Dr. Fort (Assistant Professor and Chemistry Club Advisor)
3. Secondary Applicant: Kristin Braden, Ryan Smith, Danielle Francen, Hongliu Wang, Jackie Kapla (Chemistry Club Executive Board)
4. Other Proposal Support: Chemistry Department
5. Overview and Purpose of the Project:
The Chemistry Club at the University of St. Thomas has recognized that fume hoods are an essential but energy intensive tool.While fume hoods in chemistry labs provide students with the safety required to do fascinating experiments, leaving a hood open just seven inches requires the same energy as a 1000 square foot Minnesota home. To make students aware of the energy cost in leaving a fume hood open and ultimately reduce the university’s energy usage, we are proposing to have the sustainability fund cover the cost of printing informational stickers for the 100 fume hoods found in the Chemistry, Biology, Physics, and Geology Departments.
6. How the project will be implemented:
The University of St. Thomas Chemistry Club has designed a sticker to be placed on the fume hoods in OSS and OWS (please see attached). The Service Center has estimated the cost of 100 stickers to be $100. As the Chemistry Club, we will place these stickers on the fume hoods to hopefully make students and faculty more aware of the energy cost in keeping them open.
7. Budget
ThePrinting Service Center at St. Thomas has estimated the cost of 100 energy awareness stickers to be $100.
8. Include defined metrics for a clearly measurable outcome and a schedule of appropriate progress reports to the CSF through the duration of the project:
Keeping the 100 hoods in OWS and OSS open seven inches for one hour would require the same energy usage as five houses for 24 hours (Midwest Mechanical Solutions). It is crucial that we make students and faculty more aware of this energy cost. After implementation of these energy awareness stickers, we will speak with faculty on a monthly basis to ensure that students are keeping hoods closed when they are not in use, and keeping them down at an appropriate level when they are. This information will be reported to the CSF.
9. If your project will offset greenhouse gases and reduce the campus carbon footprint, describe thoroughly how this will happen.
This project will hopefully make students more aware of the extreme energy cost in leaving a fume hood open, in turn, reducing the amount of energy used by our university and therefore, reducing the campus carbon footprint.
10. Describe if and how students will be involved and/or the educational value to our community:
Initially, students will be involved in placing these stickers on the fume hoods. However, our overall goal is to provide awareness to the community of students and faculty members who are using the fume hoods in OWS and OSS. If we can make the users more aware of the shocking energy cost, we can hopefully reduce the incredible amount of energy that is wasted from keeping fume hoods open at unnecessary times. Furthermore, keeping hoods down, especially during use, is a safety precaution. If students and faculty are more aware of their carbon footprint, specifically from fume hood use, they will hopefully begin to be more aware of their overall carbon footprint in their every day lives.
11. Highlight innovations and the potential for the project to be scalable across our campuses:
With the implementation of these energy awareness stickers, we will lower the energy costs for the University of St. Thomas.
12. Potential long-term savings:
As previously mentioned, keeping a fume hood open just seven inches requires the same amount of energy as a 1000 square foot Minnesota household (Midwest Mechanical Solutions). During a typical week during the semester, 12 organic chemistry labs meet. This type of chemistry tends to have the most continuous hood use during a lab period. One organic chemistry lab lasts 4 hours and 9 hoods are in use during this time. This amounts to 432 hours of hood use in just one week. If the hood is left open during this entire time, which is unnecessary due to wait periods for chemical reactions, reflux and drying periods, etc., our university would spend use energy equal to that of the energy required for 432 hours of energy for a home. This is equivalent to the energy usage of 18 houses for 24 hours. Being that there are 10 weeks of organic chemistry lab, the total energy cost would amount to 4320 hours, or 180 days worth of energy for a home. While organic chemistry labs are the main users of fume hoods, there are 91 more hoods in OWS and OSS that are not included in the previously described energy usage. With the implementation of energy awareness stickers, we can make the users more aware of the shocking energy cost, and hopefully reduce the incredible amount of energy that is wasted from keeping fume hoods open at unnecessary times.
Energy Awareness Sticker Design:
Hi Suzanne,
I submitted an application for the CSF on Friday, but I just wanted to make sure that you had the information for our budget. I had to send you an updated quote from the Service Center on Friday, because the previous budget that I had sent you on Thursday was for regular stickers. We will need static cling stickers for the fume hoods so that they are not destroyed from humidity and chemical use in the hood. Below is the email from the Service Center.
Thank you again,
Kristin Braden
Begin forwarded message:
From: Ryan Smith <
Date: October 12, 2013 10:14:06 AM CDT
To: "Kristin J. Braden" <
Subject: Fwd: Printing Quote
Begin forwarded message:
From: Service Center - Prepress <
Date: October 11, 2013 at 11:24:40 AM CDT
To: "Smith, Ryan J." <
Subject:Re: Printing Quote
Clear static cling = $100.60
On 10/11/13 10:50 AM, "Smith, Ryan J." <> wrote:Thank you. Could you give me the quote for the clear window stickers?
On Oct 11, 2013, at 10:01 AM, Service Center - Prepress
> wrote:That would be for paper sticky back labels
On 10/11/13 9:35 AM, "Smith, Ryan J." <> wrote:Is that for paper stickers or window decals? Thanks.
Ryan
On Oct 10, 2013, at 1:05 PM, Service Center - Prepress
> wrote:
100 full color = $50.00
100 black ink = $22.25
Leann
On 10/10/13 12:57 PM, "Smith, Ryan J." <> wrote:
Hello,
Could you give me an estimate for the cost of printing 100,
7.25"-4.00"stickers of the following format? A quote in black and white would
Alsobe great. Thank you.
Ryan