If you were anywhere near the Central Utility Plant in early December, you probably noticed a crane moving sections of something that looked like huge pieces of pipe into the building. Yes, on one of the coldest days of the year, the medical center installed a new chiller.
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A section of the new chiller is moved into the Central Utility Plant. |
First, let’s talk about what a chiller is. A chiller super-cools water and that water is then distributed around campus in large pipes to provide cooling. This is much more efficient than the thousands of air conditioning units it would take on a campus this size.
Our new chiller has a new, efficient and environmentally responsible refrigerant in it. This new refrigerant does not deplete the ozone if released into the atmosphere (as traditional CFC refrigerants do) and has the best toxicity rating possible. It’s also highly fire-resistant and can run at a lower pressure, making it extremely safe.
How “cool” is this refrigerant? There are only 12 chillers in the world to have it, and we have one — and the first in the United States.
This chiller is a little bigger (classified as a 3,700-ton) than our existing chillers, and this will allow us to cool the newly opened Lauritzen Outpatient Center and the UNMC Center for Drug Discovery and Lozier Center for Pharmacy Sciences and Education, as well as the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center, with capacity to spare for future buildings.
The refrigerant, along with the size of this chiller and new controls, allows us to be more efficient. Not only is the new chiller more energy efficient than the old ones, its size allows us to run it and the other chillers at a comfortable pace. It’s like driving your car on cruise control at 60 miles per hour, rather than changing speeds erratically or driving at 100 mile per hour. We save energy and all our chillers will last longer.
Getting this chiller in the Central Utility Plant was no easy feat either. It was factory tested, shipped, tested again, disassembled into four pieces, and then craned into the Central Utility Plant — which had a section of roof removed to get it in and special support structures in place to move the chiller to its permanent home inside the building.
Very cool indeed.
Very exciting to know that we are on the cutting edge of new technology in all aspects and not just medicine.
From dictionary.com: inflammable [in-flam-uh-buh l] adjective 1. capable of being set on fire; combustible; flammable. 2. easily aroused or excited, as to passion or anger; irascible: an inflammable disposition. noun 3. something inflammable. I think the use of inflammable is incorrect in this case. From context the article implies that the new refrigerant is non-flammable or incombustible, as opposed to inflammable (susceptible to ignition). Minus the incorrect word choice this made for an interesting read. Thank you UNMC, let's continue to GO GREEN!
The article has been corrected.
Very cool indeed! Another example of how UNMC leads the world!