A fridge that is more tolerant of power interruptions | Hacker News Reader

A fridge that is more tolerant of power interruptions

fastcoexist.com

29 pointsjmadsen23 comments

The headline [This Fridge Doesn't Need Electricity To Stay Cool] seems like linkbait. It's a fridge that uses ice to keep cool - my grandmother had that technology and it was called an icebox.

One fridge that really does cool without electricity is the "absorption refrigerator", which burns propane and uses the heat to cool. I find the process pretty much incomprehensible, but it uses a mixture of ammonia, water, and hydrogen gas. The heat separates the ammonia from the water, it is condensed, and then when the ammonia evaporates it absorbs heat from the fridge. They are useful for recreational vehicles without electricity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator

And on the topic of random refrigeration facts, if you've seen air conditioners or chillers specified in units of tons, that doesn't refer to the weight of the equipment. It refers to the number of tons of ice per day required to provide the equivalent cooling. Measuring power in tons (1 ton = 3.5KW) strikes me as very strange.

The title of the article lead me to expect a Fridge that doesn't use electricity. Instead it should have been something more akin to "A Fridge that can keep food cool for up to 35 days after a power outage".

I wonder how many days of cool you loose each time you open the fridge to pour a glass of milk.

The design is rather novel though and I'd love to see it in my home one day if they shrink it a bit.

Says right in the article that you can recharge it with ice instead of electricity.

Which is so very stupid. Really? You're going to have someone deliver ice?

Instead use an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigeration and deliver fuel - it will be much much lighter for the runtime.

Rural places still use commercial units based on this method - you heat part of the fridge in the fire in the morning while cooking breakfast and it will keep it cold the rest of the day.

As the article states, ice can be delivered along with the vaccines that it is meant to keep cool. So ice delivery is perhaps not so very stupid as it sounds in this case.

It can also be recharged if the power comes on for a short while.

No, it's stupid. Instead of delivering ice with the vaccine deliver a can of gasoline or propane - or even some wood. Much much much lighter for the amount of cold.

Storing cold is valuable though, but delivering ice is not.

1. It's much easier to deliver a small quantity of stable and energy-dense fuel, versus delivering a larger bulky mass thermally-below-equilibrium ice that'll be gradually heating up the whole time.

2. Enough ice for transport doesn't mean enough ice for longer-term storage.

To clarify: This is a machine that is more tolerant of power interruptions by storing cold, as ice.

We changed the title (linkbait, as many have pointed out) to use your suggestion. Thanks.

I'm not in anyway associated with the company, product or people. I simply thought it would be interesting for the HN crowd to read about.

There are a couple of possibilities that I can see:

1) The inventor, the investors, and the Gates Foundation people who gave them $100,000 are all too dumb to know about propane refrigerators

2) There's more to this than the quick fluff piece goes into.

If you're one of the people who wonders "Why don't they do X?" instead of, "Those idiots - they should be doing X", I'd invite you to contact them with your questions at their site http://www.surechill.com/ or via Twitter @Sure_Chill

They ARE a commercial company, so I won't say more than that.

I wonder why they don't use propane powered refrigerators. They use very little propane and a single 20 lb tank would last much longer than 35 days. I'm guessing it would be smaller and lighter than these too.

propane will eventually run out. this is potentially "set it up once and never fuss with it".

It doesn't seem like portability was a major concern. Hopefully if this catches on, other improvements in size, weight and purposes will come about. This one seems to be for a very specific purpose.

How is this "set it up and never fuss" if the ice has to be replaced every 35 days? I would think delivering a small propane tank would be much easier than delivering ice.

The ice will replenish itself if an electric source and can be found later. (for example, the ones with solar panels, or once it reaches a remote field hospital with a generator)

I think you are imagining it being used differently than what they have in mind

Ice replenishing by using electricity is a completely different topic than delivering ice.

As others have mentioned in the thread, RV refrigerators can run on a combination of electricity or propane. While this has a longer non-powered endurance period, I would think that a multi-fuel refridgerator would be more appropriate for remote vaccination campaigns. Mount refrigerator on vehicle, use electricity ("shore power") when at depo/distribution center, burn propane while in transit, and then either continue to use propane on-site or switch to solar-powered electricity (or village electricity, if available).

Vaccines and certain other medical supplies are very sensitive to temperature variations and storage conditions. I've had some modest earlier experience with medical refrigerated storage systems, and a key requirement is maintaining the specified temperature.

Propane refrigerators are an option and are found fairly frequently in environments where a consistent and uninterrupted electricity supply is difficult to maintain, particularly in RVs and boats, also in remote cabins.

Electrically powered refrigerators are generally more powerful, however, and if you can use some of the cooling capacity to create a thermal storage (or sink) mass in the form of ice to survive power interruptions, that might prove more useful.

Clickbait headline definitely overstates the case. Site should be penalized for that.

There is also pot in pot refrigerator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-in-pot_refrigerator) based on evaporative cooling, which does not use electricity. Although it will not work well in humid places, it is still a much cheaper option.

I want a combo refrigerator and water heater. And maybe air conditioner too.

My local utility is strongly encouraging adoption of heat pump water heaters like the Geospring.

http://www.geappliances.com/heat-pump-hot-water-heater/

Neat. But why stop there?

Modern refrigerators are pretty cheap to operate. Getting your AC from a heat pump would probably be a bigger win.

There are other products which don't require electricity at all: MittiCool - http://www.mitticool.in/product_detail.php?product_id=4

As long as you keep putting ice in it, it stays cool? What will they think of next? :-) Seriously, it's actually a fairly elegant way to keep vaccines stable over a long period in an environment with no (or unstable) power.

In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vxHkAQRQUQ

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