Ben & Jerry’s “Sounds Cool” Freezer
Penn State research
During the recent heat wave in L.A., in which the local radio stations neglected to report 11,000 homes in various cities were without power for hours, I decided to look into alternative cooling technologies online.
The goal was to find examples that use solar heat directly or consume much less power instead of overburdening the electric grid.
I found a few candidate designs and link to them in the resulting Resilient Freedom blog post, “Hot Temperature Shuts Down L.A. Power.”
One story I just read is old news but interesting. It seems Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company paid for research into freezers that don’t use CFCs, including a thermoacoustic design by Pennsylvania State University. It was written up in the New York Times, “Thermoacoustic Freezer, The.”
Another example I neglected to mention was the lithium-bromide absorption solar cooling system installed at the Audubon nature center at Debs Park in Los Angeles. According to the Audubon website, “Audubon Center at Debs Park: a truly green building“:
“The 5,023 square-foot building is the first in the city of Los Angeles to be entirely powered by on-site solar systems – functioning entirely “off the grid.” The building also uses significantly less water than a conventional building of its size.”
Now that’s getting serious about the issue!
