UC Irvine opens world’s largest all-electric hospital next to a wildlife sanctuary
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Caring for hospital patients is energy-intensive. Controlling temperatures, running life-saving equipment, even firing up the commercial kitchens, requires energy. And lots of it.
Those life-saving buildings are heavy users of carbon-based fuels and, as a result, climate-change contributors.
UC Irvine set out to do something about this a half dozen years ago when it began planning the world’s largest all-electric hospital, which opens Wednesday next to the San Joaquin Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary, according to the report by my colleague Ingrid Lobet, our deputy editor of climate, environment, health and science.
Instead of relying on natural gas, the hospital uses electric heat pumps and electric water heaters — a 20-foot row of 100-gallon units, in fact — to supply power. There’s also an all-electric kitchen to feed patients, staff and visitors.
Sections of the structure itself are made from climate-friendly materials, including low-carbon concrete.
The 144-bed facility should also reduce noise pollution because the gas-powered plants required to run hospitals are generally noisier than humming electric units.
And, of course, there is a major concession to fossil fuels, albeit one that seems necessary: the hospital’s backup generators run on diesel.
If power goes out, patients could, of course, suffer the consequences, and, as a hospital official explains in Lobet’s story, “it’s not something that you want to mess around with.”
Indeed.
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KEEP IN TOUCH
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