Incredible Mag

Could We Save Energy and Lives With Better Air Conditioning?

<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">As the heat of the summer melts away into the cool autumn breeze&comma; air conditioning can seem more like a <span style&equals;"text-decoration&colon; underline&semi;">luxury<&sol;span> than a necessity&period;  Yet demand for cool&comma; dry air is on the increase and it’s not just because of global warming&period;  The U&period;S&period; uses approximately 185 billion kilowatt-hours of energy every year on domestic cooling&period;  That’s more than any other nation in the world&period;  Air conditioner sales worldwide have grown by around 20 percent every year&comma; with the newly prosperous China and India leading the way&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">With that in mind&comma; the question we need to be asking ourselves is&colon; How can we beat the heat without burning fossil fuels to power our air conditioners and thereby increasing the heat with global warming&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Standard air conditioning systems use refrigerants like chlorofluorocarbons to absorb the heat from our rooms to then be cooled&period;  The heat is then expelled to the outdoors&period;  This requires electrically powered pumps and compressors&period; One way to conserve energy is to replace coolant fluids and gases—which are often super-powered greenhouse gases able to trap more than 1&comma;000 times more heat than CO2—with solid materials&comma; such as bismuth telluride&period; A new device from Sheetak&comma; developed partly with ARPA-E funding&comma; uses electricity to change a thermoelectric solid to absorb heat&comma; and could lead to cheaper air-conditioners or refrigerators&period; Such refrigerators&comma; which lack moving parts and are therefore less likely to break down&comma; can be lifesavers in remote&comma; rural areas for keeping medicines cool or food fresh&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;"><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-full wp-image-696" src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;incrediblemag&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;10&sol;Could-We-Save-Energy-and-Lives-With-Better-Air-Conditioning&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Could We Save Energy and Lives With Better Air Conditioning&quest;" width&equals;"540" height&equals;"382" &sol;><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Another approach is to use specialty membranes to cool air by condensing water&period; These technologies are being developed by companies such as ADMA and Dais Analytic Corp&period; Such systems&comma; after initial funding through ARPA-E&comma; have now acquired backing from the U&period;S&period; Navy&comma; which requires efficient air-conditioners and dehumidifiers for both troops and equipment in hotspots such as Iraq and Afghanistan&period; A 30 percent improvement in efficiency means 30 percent less fuel to drag to the front&period; The Navy program aims for units that use 20 to 50 percent less fuel&period;  The cost savings are important to them&comma; but it&&num;8217&semi;s the convoys&comma; the <span style&equals;"text-decoration&colon; underline&semi;">life<&sol;span>-saving&comma; that made them get involved&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Once such membrane technologies are developed with military funding&comma; then they may become more cost-effective for the big cooling systems used in commercial buildings and eventually offices and homes&period; As a result&comma; after a two-year push&comma; ARPA-E is no longer funding air-conditioner efforts&comma; not even the more radical technical innovations that still require further research and development&comma; such as cooling with sound waves or magnets&period; However&comma; they do say it’s an important area that they’d not be surprised to come back to in the future&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">More efficient air-conditioners can provide cooling that could prove vital for people trying to adapt to more extreme heat waves in the future&comma; whether in the U&period;S&period; or India&period; In the meantime&comma; even the ARPA-E office building near Washington&comma; D&period;C&period;&comma; works hard to cool its inhabitants efficiently&comma; instead often making the building too cold&period;  They say&comma; &&num;8220&semi;We&&num;8217&semi;re the energy efficiency people and we&&num;8217&semi;ve got lights that automatically turn on and off but we struggle like any other building with heating and cooling&period;  We&&num;8217&semi;ll be very grateful when these things are available and we can retrofit easily&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">So how long will it be before these technologies are available across the board&quest;  I own a small office building with air conditioning in Northampton&period;  I’d not be without the air conditioning for the sake of my workers through the summer months&comma; but I’m an ecologically aware individual and if an alternative was available to me I’d certainly take it&period;  I contacted my local provider to discuss options with them and was pleasantly surprised to learn that whilst these technologies aren’t currently available&comma; they knew all about them&comma; were excited by them and expected them to be entering the UK Market as early as 2018&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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