Green Options » refrigeration

Refrigeration

Vanessa Brown — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:12:36 +0000

What counts for 25% of most households’ electricity consumption? Your refrigerator. So, of course, you are going to want to make sure you are running it the most efficient way that you can!

1. Be Organized–You waste time and energy with keeping the door open while trying to find something in your messy fridge. I have to admit that I am horrible with this, which is why I tidy up my fridge one day a week. If I didn’t, it would be scary! Up to 30% of the cool air in the fridge escapes every time you open the door, which is quite a bit! Be quick when you get something out!

Einstein Refrigerator Making a Comeback?

Max Lindberg — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 06:04:46 +0000

Albert Einstein is probably most remembered by the public for his General Theory of Relativity, but how many remember his 1930 invention of a refrigerator that used no electricity? I wasn’t there when it was introduced, but I knew several people who had one, and they weren’t all that happy with it, primarily because it wasn’t that efficient.

The idea was great, it operated without electricity, using ammonia, butane and water. The principle being that water boils at a much lower temperature at high altitudes where air pressure is lower than it does when you’re at sea level, where air pressure is higher.

Malcom McCulloch, an electrical engineer at Oxford University in the U.K., is leading a team in a three year project to produce appliances that can be used in places without electricity. Or, for that matter, places with electricity, why not?. That’s when McCulloch latched on to Einstein’s fridge idea.

Einstein’s concept, shown in the image above, works thusly. At one side is the evaporator, a flask that contains butane. “If you introduce a new vapor above the butane, the liquid boiling temperature decreases and, as it boils off, it takes energy from the surroundings to do so,’ says McCulloch. ‘That’s what makes it cold.”

Refrigeration Goes Solar To Help The World

Michael dEstries — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 22:10:12 +0000

A company called Solar Chill has developed an award-winning refrigerator that runs completely off of solar energy. The idea behind the appliance is that perishable goods can now be transferred from location to location without spoiling. One such application of this tech would be the transfer of vaccines, which must be kept cool at all times.

This technology is especially useful to humanitarian groups which must travel in regions with limited gird connectivity or no grid at all. The prototypes have been successfully field tested over an 18 month period, in Senegal, Indonesia and Cuba. Solar Chill is now ready to deploy the technology and is awaiting for the World Health Organization to back approval.

The fridges improve on existing solar-vaccine cooling technology by bypassing the use of conventional lead batteries and not using any ozone depleting or potent global warming substances. You can find out more information — and photos — by visiting their website below.

Link: Solar Chill via Unplugged living