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posted by martyb on Thursday August 20 2020, @10:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the take-my-money dept.

This 'Cold Tube' can beat the summer heat without relying on air conditioning:

"Air conditioners work by cooling down and dehumidifying the air around us—an expensive and not particularly environmentally friendly proposition," explains project co-lead Adam Rysanek, assistant professor of environmental systems at UBC's school of architecture and landscape architecture, whose work focuses on future energy systems and green buildings. "The Cold Tube works by absorbing the heat directly emitted by radiation from a person without having to cool the air passing over their skin. This achieves a significant amount of energy savings."

The Cold Tube is a system of rectangular wall or ceiling panels that are kept cold by chilled water circulating within them. Since heat naturally moves by radiation from a hotter surface to a colder surface, when a person stands beside or under the panel, their body heat radiates towards the colder panel. This creates a sensation of cooling like cold air flowing over the body even if the air temperature is quite high.

Although these types of cooling panels have been used in the building industry for several decades, what makes the Cold Tube unique is that it does not need to be combined with a dehumidification system. Just as a cold glass of lemonade would condense water on a hot summer day, cooling down walls and ceilings in buildings would also condense water without first drying out the air around the panels. The researchers behind the Cold Tube conceived of an airtight, humidity-repelling membrane to encase the chilled panels to prevent condensation from forming while still allowing radiation to travel through.

A new cooling system for your home?


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2020, @11:20AM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2020, @11:20AM (#1039310)

    Even if this worked, dehumidification is a very important benefit of A/C. It's not something you can do without.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 20 2020, @12:24PM (7 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday August 20 2020, @12:24PM (#1039317)

    dehumidification is a very important benefit of A/C. It's not something you can do without.

    As always, the world is a big - diverse - place. Around here, hell no: dehumidification is 80% of the reason to run an A/C system, and if you chill without dehumidifying water condenses water out of the on the cold stuff, then mold grows.

    However, there's a lot more desert in the continental U.S. than there is semi-drained swampland like around here. The swampland population explosion started shortly after dehumidifying air conditioners became affordable. With more efficient solar power, this cooling tech could be the ticket to comfortable housing in the deserts.

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    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2020, @01:50PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2020, @01:50PM (#1039352)

      The swampland population explosion started shortly after Donald J. Trump came to power.

      FTFY. He sure knows how to hire the slimy ones!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2020, @03:24PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2020, @03:24PM (#1039390)

      So if you live in a humid environment then dehumidification might be desirable but expensive due to the high heat released when water vapor is condensed. If you live in a dry area dehumidification is not important but there little cost to the AC because there is little humidity in the air to condense in the first place.

      If anything you can use a swamp cooler in a humid environment to add humidity and cool things down. How does this tech compare to that? Maybe you can use this tech along with a swamp cooler assuming this thing can make the air even colder than the swamp cooler and is more efficient than an air conditioner in a dry environment. One would have to look at the physics behind that but I am too lazy.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2020, @03:26PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2020, @03:26PM (#1039392)

        Err ... but there is little cost *

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2020, @04:13PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2020, @04:13PM (#1039417)

        Err... if anything you can use a swamp cooler in a dry environment *

    • (Score: 2) by istartedi on Thursday August 20 2020, @05:46PM

      by istartedi (123) on Thursday August 20 2020, @05:46PM (#1039469) Journal

      The most affordable tech for cooling in the desert is evaporative, aka "swamp cooler". It works by forcing air through pads that are being soaked by recirculating water. It can be remarkably effective as long as the humidity is low. The water use is acceptable--I'm not sure how much water it uses on a hot day, but I don't think it's a significant increase to my water bill.

      Swamp coolers fail when it's humid, providing very little relief. That does happen in arid parts of the US, such as the monsoons in AZ, and our recent tropical thunderstorm/fire disaster here in CA. It's just a few days out of the year, or sometimes none for us so we just grin and bear it. A few people around here have installed traditional AC compressor cycles because while they use more electricity, they're much lower maintenance and pull double-duty as heat pumps in the winter.

      So it's basically a bifurcated market you might say--cheaply installed coolers that sometimes don't work very well and require frequent maintenance, and the high dollar system that heats and cools reliably with low maintenance.

      I hadn't even thought about what the panels would do on a humid day. The condensation might come down on you like indoor rain. Don't install it over your PC.

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    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday August 21 2020, @08:28AM (1 child)

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday August 21 2020, @08:28AM (#1039817) Homepage
      Can you clarify your argument please, as when I see:

      > > dehumidification is a very important benefit of A/C.

      responded to with:

      > hell no: dehumidification is 80% of the reason to run an A/C system

      I see a contradiction. That looks more like a "hell yes", not a "hell no"?
      --
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      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday August 21 2020, @02:00PM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday August 21 2020, @02:00PM (#1039872)

        dehumidification is a very important benefit of A/C. It's not something you can do without.

        Around here, hell no: )))you wouldn't want a system that doesn't dehumidify,((( dehumidification is 80% of the reason...

        I fear for the future of the printed word... when I was in school, most printed words were triple checked by an editorial team before going to press, often vetted for appropriate understanding in multiple intended audiences. Today, even "trusted news sources" are seemingly written off the cuff by, usually reasonably educated but otherwise, hurried people who can't be bothered to even re-read their own output to see if it makes sense to them. Then we can talk about Cheeto tweets...

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  • (Score: 2) by srobert on Thursday August 20 2020, @02:10PM

    by srobert (4803) on Thursday August 20 2020, @02:10PM (#1039368)

    Depends where you are. Where I am, duhumidification isn't so important. In fact if the high temperature is below about 100 F, I don't even turn on the AC. I just run a swamp cooler instead which cools air by adding moisture to it. Judging from my bill that costs a small fraction compared to the AC. Unfortunately, daily highs have been about 115 F everyday for the past week or two, but it's a dry heat.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2020, @04:53PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2020, @04:53PM (#1039433)

    That depends where you live. Perhaps in the deep South where humidity regularly approaches 100%, but not in areas like Arizona where the air has virtually no moisture at all. In areas like that, it can be helpful to use a swamp cooler just to add back the moisture that you need.

    It's also worth realizing that the cooling from an air conditioner is a byproduct, not the point. They were invented to condition the air by removing excess humidity. The fact that they also cooled the air in the process was just gravy.