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?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday August 21 2020, @08:28AM (1 child)
> > 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"?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday August 21 2020, @02:00PM
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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