Science and sustainability

A recent article in Environmental Science and Technology identifies scientific facilities as high energy users.

University sustainability, as rightly pointed out by Sky elsewhere in myResearchSpace ("A Sustainable Campus"), commonly focuses on 'green' or ecological issues . Dr Mills makes the point that "much can be done to enhance sustainability within the scientific enterprise itself". The diagram at left, from Mills' article, suggests that the practice of science can result in comparatively high energy usage.

The main contributors to high energy use are identified as laboratories, computing, and clean environments.

Mills goes so fas as to suggest that sustainability, or at least energy usage, issues should be amongst the criteria against which research grants are assessed (pity the poor folks in space research).

It would definitely be interesting to analyse the energy use of earth science projects. Many (especially involving remote area or ocean travel, drilling or remote sensing) could come in fairly high.

Image from pubs.acs.org