Leaving your air conditioner on full blast all day might soon come with a little less guilt, thanks to an alloy developed by the University of Maryland. The “thermally elastic” material could allow air conditioners to run 175 per cent more efficiently.
The new metal serves as a solid coolant, as opposed to the traditional (and environmentally nasty) liquid coolants found in commercial and residential air conditioners. If implemented, the new super-efficient system could reduce US carbon emissions by 250 million metric tons per year and keep liquid refrigeration agents out of landfills and backyards. The next step for the project is making use of $US500,000 in federal stimulus cash to advance the working prototype into commercial production. [University of Maryland via Inhabitat]
matt
Tuesday, July 20, 2010 at 10:47 AMsee, this is the type of stuff our Government should be spending money on R&Ding
just throw all the money you can at the CSIRO ect.
boc
Tuesday, July 20, 2010 at 4:37 PMThat’s right. Intellectual property is the new currency.
Batiu-Drami
Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 12:41 PMHow do you make something 175% more efficient? Is it using 175% less power? Does that mean it generates power?
boc
Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 3:45 PMIsn’t efficiency a measure of conversion?
Less input for the same output would mean better efficiency.
More output from the same input would mean better efficiency.
Less input for more output would mean better efficiency.
Of course you need a baseline to compare against in the first place.