Surprising energy fact: a single ordinary laboratory fume hood uses as much electricity as three typical American households. A building full of labs can use as much energy as a small town.
Energy-intensive hoods
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Energy intensive or not, it is better than breathing stong acids and carcinogens.
Soaring oil climbs past $96 mark
Oil prices have continued their unremitting climb, passing the $96 a barrel mark after figures showed a surprise fall in US crude reserves.
US light crude rose as high as $96.24 in Asian trading on Thursday morning before falling back to $96.05.
The presence of fume hoods doesn’t necessarily imply that people aren’t breathing in nasty things, just that much of the nasty things are being redistributed from inside the room to outside the building where the fume hoods emit. In addition, universities are exempt from the rules which require organisations to publish information about what they are emitting into the air, so that those in the vicinity do not know what they’re being exposed to.
Sarah,
Are there any sort of mandatory filtration systems for air being expelled from university fumehoods?
I don’t know the answer to that but I’ll try to remember to ask people who might know.
Couldn’t they shut down the airflow through the hoods when they are closed? Or at least reduce it a lot?