Global cooling prize... Why am I skeptical?

[edy]

https://globalcoolingprize.org

...because what has been keeping air conditioning inefficient and costly up to now is lack of $3 million and nobody incentivizing and promoting improvements. 

$3 million competition backed by Sir Richard Branson to create air conditioning that is:

• have one-fifth of the climate impact of existing air-cooling tech
• operate under specific material, consumption and maintenance guidelines
• be affordable

Why does this feel a lot like that make water from thin air competition to try to solve world's drinking water problem in poor countries?  . My dad is an HVAC engineer with over 50 years experience in the field... I know the challenges and improvements that have been worked on over past few decades... this stupid "prize" smells like another pile of dog turd. Let's break the laws of thermodynamics!

[coppercone2]

be all you can be

[Nusa]

Practical and climate-friendly. Where did the contest say it had to be efficient as well? I think the laws of thermodynamics are safe enough.

[NiHaoMike]

Using an embedded system like Raspberry Pi with infrared sensors and servos or steppers can direct the cooling (or heating) to only where it's needed. The savings from that can easily be very high.

[edy]

Practical and climate-friendly. Where did the contest say it had to be efficient as well? I think the laws of thermodynamics are safe enough.

True, we don't know how they define all the parameters yet and there is a lot of "wiggle room" in the contest to meet whatever objectives they will eventually decide to make more concrete. To me climate means overall energy use per BTU cooling power but if they include materials, manufacturing, renewability, etc... they can find loopholes. Like make the thing out of bamboo, using a solar-powered or biofuel powered factory, etc. Yes there are tricks but is there really any major revolution in the technology or is this just self-aggrandization by NGO's trying to make the world a better place?

Maybe just have a refrigerator with ice-pack infused vests that people don once they enter a building and then deposit back in the fridge when they leave?

[Marco]

AFAICS modern ACs will go beyond Carnot efficiencies at low load if they improve by 5x.

[SiliconWizard]

We just have to suck up the cold out of thin air. Sounds doable with nanotechnolgy and blockchain.
 

[Cyberdragon]

They've tries this before...



 

[NiHaoMike]

Maybe just have a refrigerator with ice-pack infused vests that people don once they enter a building and then deposit back in the fridge when they leave?

Just needs a bit more R&D to become a usable device.

[Kleinstein]

AFAICS modern ACs will go beyond Carnot efficiencies at low load if they improve by 5x.

The base unit to compare to is not that good. Seems to be power factor of some 3.3 - though no exact conditions are given. Given that they don't get dehumidification this would conclude rather favorable conditions, with not so high temperature and humidity.
If in doubt one might have to spend some of the money in reducing the heat load or recovering some cool air going out.

So it might still work without breaking the laws of thermodynamics.

The simple solution might be just to move some 300 km north and no more air-conditioning is needed.

[edy]

I'm just playing devil's advocate here... But remember there are plenty of hot countries around the world with modern high tech industrialized societies and brilliant engineers who have been working on this problem for decades. Much of HVAC has become commoditized as a result of diminishing improvements. As far as the competition goes, one of the goals is to make it easy to implement in existing buildings (not require construction and large systems implementations). There are already "cooling pond" reservoirs, shading solutions, central designed systems, etc... But this competition is about a "plug and play" solution that can fit just about any situation where a drop-in window air conditioner is used, which means ultimately it needs to be powered by electricity. I ask again how they can break the laws of thermodynamics or is this using a system of creative "accounting" to offset energy or climate-change use in one place with another?

My other devil's advocate statement is these NGO's who collect millions and perhaps billions of dollars from rich donors around the world and come up with creative marketing-wank ideas to show how they are spending their money to improve the world, with only a small fraction going to those causes, while misdirecting our attention while the other hand steals it to fund these organizations and all the people involved (like charities, more money spent on actually getting more money than actual money to the cause they are supporting).

[JoeO]

Some people think that the Laws of science can be broken just like the Laws of man. 

Drive 65 miles per hour, I can break that law.  No parking, I can break that law.  The laws of thermodynamics, I can break those laws, they are not etched in stone! 

[NiHaoMike]

I'm just playing devil's advocate here... But remember there are plenty of hot countries around the world with modern high tech industrialized societies and brilliant engineers who have been working on this problem for decades. Much of HVAC has become commoditized as a result of diminishing improvements. As far as the competition goes, one of the goals is to make it easy to implement in existing buildings (not require construction and large systems implementations). There are already "cooling pond" reservoirs, shading solutions, central designed systems, etc... But this competition is about a "plug and play" solution that can fit just about any situation where a drop-in window air conditioner is used, which means ultimately it needs to be powered by electricity. I ask again how they can break the laws of thermodynamics or is this using a system of creative "accounting" to offset energy or climate-change use in one place with another?

The idea of directing heating and cooling to only where it's needed is often overlooked, while the technology to enable it (most crucially, infrared sensors and embedded systems) has become vastly cheaper in the last decade.

[coppercone2]

here is a new one, magnetic refrigerators that use Gd. Don't complain about maxwells cold equations, problem solve

machine shown as well as talks of element


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_refrigeration

details in video form

[nctnico]

Using an embedded system like Raspberry Pi with infrared sensors and servos or steppers can direct the cooling (or heating) to only where it's needed. The savings from that can easily be very high.

It won't work because rooms in a home aren't isolated units. Besides that large temperature differences in a home lead to problems with moisture and it is uncomfortable.

[cdev]

Your vest needs a prepaid electricity and water meter too.
 
Otherwise people would free-ride.

Maybe just have a refrigerator with ice-pack infused vests that people don once they enter a building and then deposit back in the fridge when they leave?

Just needs a bit more R&D to become a usable device.

[NiHaoMike]

It won't work because rooms in a home aren't isolated units. Besides that large temperature differences in a home lead to problems with moisture and it is uncomfortable.

It has already been done in new HVAC systems. There's a significant savings by, for example, having the space be at 90F but the indoor unit delivers 75F air pointed where the people are.

[Marco]

Okay, actually reading the contest it's not so much about improving ACs per se (at least not relative to the state of the art, the cut throat priced one they chose as base unit is pretty inefficient).

There's a volume limit, but not a dimension limit ... so basically all the entries will add as much flexible PV (low volume) as they can. You are also allowed to use radiative cooling and installation costs don't seem to factor in, so including Skycool might help. You can also reduce the Climate impact simply by reducing the global warming potential of the refrigerant too, so you don't even need to get 5x less power consumption. The really tough problem is the humidity target, but not quite breaking the second law of thermodynamics hard.

RMI which inspired this contest actually has a much better explanation where they see these gains coming from. The contest site mentions RMI, but if there's an easy to find link in there I didn't see it.

Question is, will consumers even be willing to pay the 2x up front costs for savings down the line? (And to save the environment I guess ) I kinda doubt it, government would have to make them.

[MrMobodies]

I am also skeptical on how they will handle legionella.

[NiHaoMike]

The really tough problem is the humidity target, but not quite breaking the second law of thermodynamics hard.

Use some other process for dehumidification, such as a desiccant wheel or calcium chloride cycle regenerated by a solar thermal collector.

[cdev]

Some people think that the Laws of science can be broken just like the Laws of man. 

Drive 65 miles per hour, I can break that law.  No parking, I can break that law.  The laws of thermodynamics, I can break those laws, they are not etched in stone!

[electrodacus]

The amount of energy needed for cooling is very insignificant anywhere in the world.
See the data below base on IEA data. The page is on my presentation about solar PV heating (cooling also possible in same way but not needed for my house).
Cooling is just about 3% on average so there are many other places where impact will be much higher like space heating

[Marco]

Most of the Earth's population is in hotter climates than those named, so if we want their standards of living improve it can quickly become relevant.

[MrMobodies]

Some people think that the Laws of science can be broken just like the Laws of man. 

Drive 65 miles per hour, I can break that law.  No parking, I can break that law.  The laws of thermodynamics, I can break those laws, they are not etched in stone!

Sounded a bit like one of Hillary Clinton's outburst.

They need to build more trees considering the recent wildfires in California.

[electrodacus]

Most of the Earth's population is in hotter climates than those named, so if we want their standards of living improve it can quickly become relevant.

The larger chart represent the average of much more countries than what you see in my presentation and is about 3%
US seems to be at 6% still an order of magnitude less than energy used for heating.