Back to the idea of saving energy! The semester is almost over, meaning there is a slight amount of time to breathe and think and take care of little lab chores that have been bugging me. I was reminded of this particular lab chore - cleaning out one of our -20° freezers - by a refrigerator problem at home. We have an in-door water dispenser, and suddenly about two weeks ago it started misbehaving. Every time we open the door, it squirts out ~10mL of water! The current solution is taping a Barberito’s cup to the door, a bit wabi-sabi of me I know. But, I’ve looked underneath, I’ve tried manipulating the cables and lines to the door, I just can’t fix it myself. So, we wait for the repairman, and keep a cup taped to the door that gets emptied into a plant once a day.

It has been bugging me (slightly) for a while that we have two half-full -20° freezers in the equipment hall. We have another one in the lab for primary usage; these are for projects that are active but don’t need everyday access, and then the -80° for longer-term storage of reagents and DNA. That seems a bit of overkill or splitting hairs on the needs of each freezer, and I know that the older freezer could get to temperature within a few hours if we need it again. For now, I’m going to turn it off and save another percentage of lab energy. The greenest lab in the Genetics Department may be a minor distinction, but I’m shooting for it!

Tags: green lab