SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Richard Branson (who asked for UK taxpayer money to repair his private island after hurricane Irma) Has set a climate change challenge:
As the world continues to warm, you can expect more and more folks to be turning to air conditioners to keep their living environments cool and comfortable. And in that sense, this energy-intensive technology will do plenty to exacerbate the very problem it is designed to solve. The Global Cooling Prize is a competition to help stop runaway climate change, by dangling US$3 million in prize money for the development of more energy-efficient cooling solutions.
The Global Cooling Prize is backed by the Indian government among other partners, with Richard Branson taking on the ambassadorial duties.
$3M could keep this site running for some time -- go team SoylentNews!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday December 04 2018, @03:58AM (4 children)
At the retail price of copper, you may just as well propose huge diamond crystals for the purpose - at least they have a large thermal conductivity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Tuesday December 04 2018, @07:33AM (3 children)
Only $9/kilo. That's ~$1/m, 2.5mm (10AWG) or $3/m for 35mm pipe.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday December 04 2018, @08:37AM (2 children)
Linky please? Here's what I can find locally [bunnings.com.au] retail prices.
---
The original context specifies "no liquid cooling".
A big pipe without a circulating liquid inside is almost dead as to thermal transfer. Heat diffusion is proportional with the surface and invers proportional with the length the heat needs to travel.
Now, you can arrange to absorb (release) heat from inside (to outside/in the ground) by increasing the exposed surface - just use a longer pipe for exposure.
Trouble is when you consider the transport between hot and cold exposed areas - this will go through an area as large as the cross-section of the pipe wall. At 1mm wall thickness, 35mm inner diameter, the area is π×(R2-r2)=166 mm2.
Assuming 20cm of pipe between inside/outside (a thinish floor) and the temperature differential is between 32C (inside) to 2C (almost frozen soil), the heat transfer between the two ends through the copper pipe is ~10W [thermtest.com].
Now, if you want passive (no liquid cooling), you'll want bars of copper, not pipes. At 35mm radius for a bar, the minimal heat transfer surface blows up to a 3850 mm2, which increases the dissipated heat to a "whooping" 300W.
The initial investment for "passive cooling using sunken copper bars" for a reasonable home size is left as an exercise for the reader.
For supplementary points, the reader is invited to describe a solution that works during winter, when one would be happy not to lose the heat in warming the underground.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 04 2018, @01:19PM (1 child)
Actually, your link is not that crazy price. Somewhat of a markup, but it costs about AUS$30 for that 3.1kg of pipe. The price is $50. So, you have about 70% markup for manufacturing and distribution for the that pipe from raw metal.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday December 04 2018, @01:39PM
This doesn't make it cheap tho.
I tried to find a copper round 42mm diameter for machining in a hobby project. I gave up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford