Researchers develop air conditioning that's 90 percent more efficient, bone chilling
By Laura June 
posted June 20th 2010 11:25AM
posted June 20th 2010 11:25AM
posted June 20th 2010 11:25AM
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Living in Hong Kong this is defiantly tech i want to get my hands on. GET IT OUT OF THE LAB ASAP!!!
"could be up to" = Not ever going to be even close.
Steve Jobs will be fanning me if I don't get my iPhone 4 on Thursday.
I am all for cheaper electric bills, but... Are you still buying into the global warming scam? It is all but proven a hoax to generate money and better control the masses. Look it up.
I am not saying we should be careless with the environment, but lets do it because it is just a nice thing to do, not because of some fictional doom and gloom stories designed to scare us into surrendering more freedoms, and more money to the government.
It appears this author has intended to promote an ideology that many do not agree with. I understood Engadget to promote tech news more that opinion. This article clearly crosses that line.
The title for example is misleading. "Researchers develop air conditioning that's 90 percent more efficient, bone chilling"
If Laura bothered to do an actual report on the reference article, it is clear that this is evaporative cooling with reduced humidity. It is not air conditioning nor will this technology cool your home to the same levels of existing air conditioners (non-evap coolers).
"Everybody loves maxing out in the sweet chill of their air conditioning in the hot summer months, but it's inefficient, expensive, and extremely unfriendly to the environment."
The article starts with an attack on something many of us love and appreciate. Very nice and liberal like.
"The good news today, however, is that researchers have developed an air conditioning system that could be up to 90 percent more efficient than standard setups."
The article then promotes something that is not comparable as an alternative. It is evaporative cooling, which we all no does not work like or produce cooling like standard AC units.
Here is a news flash Laura. AC units use more energy than Evap Coolers because they produce a better result.
"making it far easier to cool already dry climates."
How about some real reporting. How will this tech work in Florida?
"Additionally, DEVap uses salt solutions in place of environmentally naughty refrigerants, CFCs, and HCFCs -- the main contributors to global warming."
Yet another stab at existing technology many of us love and appreciate. With a little global warming on top of it.
"The tech is still in the lab, so until then you'll just have to keep fanning yourself off (or having your friend do that for you). "
Yes Laura, I am sure when you enter the stores you shop at, you request they turn of the AC because you like pushing around shopping carts and fanning yourself off at the same time. Liberals can sometime be the most hippocrytical people.
This article is so riddle with ideology it is sickening. My experience is a liberal will to try and fool people into their way of thinking. I am no democrat or republican, it just pisses me off when people mis-represent an idea.
Here is the deal, if you want to promote extreme environmentalism, that is ok with me (this is America after all), just give it to me straight and tell me the truth. I am ok with anyone thinking we should all be living in huts and cooking our food over a burning wood pile. I, however, don't believe I should be forced to do it.
@Cobalt B
Except that burning over a wood fire is less efficient because the heat is not concentrated into one area for cooking... One of the sources of pollution in third world countries is cooking with wood fires.
Efficiency is very important because our current resources are finite and still cause pollution regardless if you believe that it causes global warming or not. I personally would like to be able to maintain a similar level of comfort in the future, so if we slowly start adjusting now to using better forms of energy and improving efficiency, it won't hurt at all. It's a little more complicated than the guy who shops only organic saying you're doing things wrong. It's not about what we're doing, it's about improving how we are doing the same thing.
@fourthletter you are right about one thing, keeping it to yourself!! We would be in better shape without the the European politics!
If you haven't noticed the euro is collapsing, countries are defaulting and people are rioting in the streets. Where did I miss the success of European politics?
@DTJ If that was indeed the case then it will never come to light considering that a major part of the whole "Global Warming' push is based on other financial and political reasons which far outweigh the environmental concerns commonly associated with it.
Consider this; it is year 2010. We landed a man on the moon in the 1960's and we are just now begin to see electric and hybrid vehicles begin to be manufactured and pushed toward consumers in a manner that makes them a financially viable alternative.
What they give us is what we get; when they want us to get it.
We landed a man on the moon in the 1960's and we are just now starting to see widespread electric car technology being developed and pushed for consumers in 20
This is super cool!
Will these work well in humid areas, or only dry places like the west coast?
"Additionally, DEVap uses salt solutions in place of environmentally naughty refrigerants, CFCs, and HCFCs -- the main contributors to global warming."
You must not have received the memo. The hoax formally known as "Global Warming" will now be known as "Global Climate Change".
Also, CFC's are supposed to be destroying the ozone layer, not making the world hotter. But then that's a different hoax altogether.
@charles hamilton In The Morning!!
@charles hamilton
facepalm...ozone destruction isn't a hoax. Do you understand chemical reactions or do you just think science is out to steal your wallet?
@LetsHaveWaffles
Show me proof the ozone has depleted in the last 30 years. It hasn't. Like the climate, it fluctuates normally. Man has little to no effect on either, both are just a vehicle in which to transfer wealth. Do you think Al Gore would be so interested in global warming if he wasn't getting rich off of it?
A much better way to save money and power would be:
Don't live in a desert
Don't try to grow a lawn in a desert
@fourthletter
Um, wrong and wrong.
"Don't live in a desert"
Interesting, when the crux of this new technology is to dry the air so it's more like what you'd find in a desert! The most energy efficient cooling on the market today is only an option in the desert. Cooling your home on an 80 degree day in Miami is much more expensive than it would be on an 80 degree day in a desert.
"Don't try to grow a lawn in a desert"
And this saves energy how? Saving water is a worthwhile endeavor, but it's not going to make any difference whatsoever in your monthly electric bill, nor any meaningful reduction in electricity used by the civil infrastructure. Nor is my water bill nearly as expensive as my power bill, even here in the desert.
I usually just ignore posts with flawed logic, but so many of your posts are nothing more than critical rants with no real substance. I couldn't resist responding. Maybe next time you can find something accurate to say that actually adds to the discussion.
This is nice, but it says it works best in dry conditions, so how will this help up humid maryland?
You had me at efficiency. You lost me at global warming. Good try, though.
So basically if you own a research company all you need to do to attract investors is draw up a rough design for a replacement appliance that will save "up to 90% power" then send your napkin drawing to as many technology* blogs as possible, probably near the weekend, and when the world starts thinking the second messiah as arrived pass out your share sale scheme = RESULT
*well "gadgets" since they miss the obvious part about CFCs killing the ozone NOT causing global warming.
ship some over to me in HK when they're finished. Darn hot over here!
There's a big difference between "90% efficient" and "90% MORE efficient".
Let's say the efficiency is at 1% now with modern, standard AC's. A 90% MORE efficient setup would merely result in a grand total of 1.9% efficiency. *whispers*Extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeme!!!!
@mm Well, you sir are correct, but only in one sense of the word, and in this case it's really the smallest sense.
One other way to think about it, with your same 1% would be to add 90%, though not technically the way any mathematician would think about it or phrase it, it'd still be correct. And in this case, it happens to be more correct than your twice as efficient comment (1 -> 1.9%).
Because, indeed, this actually uses 90% less power than current top of the line units, so really, we have a none of the above situation unless ACs are on the order of 1% efficiency and we bring them upto 90-91% efficiency (either by taking the 90% absolute or adding 90% to have 90% more than 1%).
The moral??? Read the source link and you wouldn't have to read all of the fluff that I put in here since you decided to get kicks off a comment without adding anything relevant when all you had to do was skim the source.
It's about time! Please get it out ASAP and make it durable. All my air-cons break down far too often. I turn it on every night and auite a few afternoons to cool the room down, here just a few feet north of the equator (Singapore). However, the air here is humid and warm... hot would be a better word.
+1
Evap technology will not work in South Florida.
You can hang a wet towel outside for 3 days and it's still wet as we have 80% humity with our 90f (32c)
@tonyp12 Solution: don't live in Florida
I am more anxious for this new tech to come out, than probably anything else Engadget has written about.
Dry heat... blah blah blah... it's friggen HOT in Las Vegas. To be able to run effective air conditioning with reckless abandon, while not worrying about the cost, is lustworthy of the highest order.
Anyone else thoroughly confused by this line: "uses liquid desiccants to make dry air using heat and evaporative coolers take dry air and make cold air"? Because something with it just seems off to me…
Notice the phrase "could be" ?
Another vaporware.
Thats awesome, cant wait for the day when this is standard. I cant believe Engadget is behind this media-driven global warming crap. Were having record breaking winters here in Texas every year.
Enough with the BS global warming, so evidently you were not paying attention to the real news, just before the BS Copenhagen global warming scam, it came out that the so called scientists had been lying about global warming, the earth has been cooling since at least 1995. The Carbon TAX is a Scam, CAP AND TRADE is a Scam, you cannot tax for C02 when it has nothing to do with Climate Change, there has always been Climate Change and C02 has nothing to do with it, the sun and weather are the 99.9 + percent factor in the temperature of the earth. They are trying to TAX cattle farmers for C02 exhaled from there animals and next they will try to TAX all of us humans for exhaling C02, the atmosphere has always had C02, at least since life formed and evolved. Plants thrive on CO2 and they transform CO2 into 3 times as much oxygen, do some research people and stop being so gullible.
Yet another off topic post by engadget. A few more of these "green" posts and I will be going elsewhere for my gadget news
If I understand the article correctly...
The unit only works in Dry climates Florida and Texas will still be a sweat zone. Great for the antiperspirant companies. sigh !!!
There is no such thing as "global warming"
@AaronX
"The new tech, called DEVap, uses liquid desiccants to make dry air using heat and evaporative coolers take dry air and make cold air"
It dries the air, then sends it to the evaporative system, so it would work in the same areas where evaporative wouldn't normally be viable, and use significantly less energy than refrigerative AC. Not to mention that even in areas where evaporative AC is viable it isn't always usable year round, humid days make the AC nearly useless, whereas this one would still work.
This will be good when Obama's cap-and-trade goes through that will cause electricity rates to "necessarily skyrocket".
I think there are more companies doing the same thing. It looks a lot like the technology Statiq Cooling (http://www.statiqcooling.com/) is using. At least for a layman like me. ;-) And the good thing is that they are even selling the product. So not just a lab situation.
Anyone ever hear of a swamp box?
Well, apparently, neither did the "researchers".
No need to wait for this to come out of the lab. There is a perfectly good and capable system available for commercial use that has a fast return on investment and can also utilize renewable energy. This is DuCool. Visit their website at www.ducool.com and contact LIGPA at www.LIGPA.com for your US installations.
There is already a very efficient, non-cfc A/C out there. http://www.coolerado.com/ this exists now, check it out.
Quite a few comments say to get this out of the Lab. No need to wait for this to come out of the lab. There is a perfectly good and capable system available for commercial use that has a fast return on investment and can also utilize renewable energy. This is DuCool. Visit their website at www.ducool.com and contact LIGPA at www.LIGPA.com for your US installations.
Wow hi technology
http://dehumidifier-reviews.co.cc/