Student Showcases Stanford’s Process Steam Decarbonization Strategy

I2SL’s Circular Economy for Labs Community of Practice (CoP) hosted the first I2SL Student Showcase to spotlight the work students are doing to promote sustainable laboratory practices at campuses, companies, or other organizations. Seventeen students gave brief, virtual presentations over Zoom on April 17 about how they are making laboratories more energy-efficient, resource-efficient, or environmentally sustainable. The showcase was also a friendly competition to win a scholarship to attend the I2SL Annual Conference. The winning presentation, Decarbonizing Process Steam at Stanford University, will be expanded upon by Stanford Ph.D. student Rachel Porter during a green labs in action session at the 2026 Annual Conference in Boston!

Rachel began investigating Stanford’s use of process steam as a way to address the university’s emissions reduction goals, since process steam makes up about 11 percent of their labs’ Scope 1 and 2 emissions. Process steam is used at Stanford for lab applications such as glass washing and sterilization, but it can also be used for heating, cooking, and humidification. Part of Rachel’s work was to identify equipment using steam in each lab building on campus, look up product specifications, and calculate expected steam usage. She then compared the calculations with the actual metered data to see if there were any anomalies and opportunities for more efficient use of steam in labs.  

For example, in the Beckman Center, a lab building with nine glass wash systems and 11 autoclaves, two meters in the lab building measure steam usage. For the first meter, Rachel calculated expected steam usage of 150 pounds per hour based on an average of three cycles per day. The actual steam usage measured by the meter was slightly above the expected rate but was not significant. However, a second meter that measured the use on only a few pieces of equipment indicated steam usage of 200 pounds per hour. It was determined that a faulty steam trap was causing immense loss of steam, accounting for 97 percent of the annual use on that meter. The steam loss had been going on for years, resulting in an estimated $160,000 in steam losses and 27 households’ worth of carbon dioxide emissions.

To prevent additional steam waste, Stanford has started implementing automated data analysis to identify steam losses and malfunctions. Using the meter data, Rachel has identified that glass wash systems and autoclaves constitute most of the steam use on campus. Faster detection of maintenance issues could save hundreds of thousands of dollars and avoid hundreds of metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions.

Want to learn what other students are doing to promote sustainable labs? Watch the recording of the Student Showcase; or better yet, come to the Annual Conference to meet Rachel and discuss her efforts to support steam decarbonization!