
Windchill Refrigerator: Cheap device to keep food cold without electricity - nkurz
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/uofc-first-place-biomimicry-1.3273816
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msandford
It's cool that they're tackling problems in the developing world, but it's
nothing revolutionary. Evaporative cooling only works in places with low
humidity, and their design requires low ground temperatures and a substantial
amount of installed infrastructure.

It might be cheap enough and practical enough for locals to install themselves
in the places where the low humidity and cooler ground temperatures would
allow it to work. But if you put this device anywhere between say 35 degrees
north and 35 degrees south it probably won't work very well because the
average ground temperature will be too high.

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zdean
Glad they're thinking of new ways of tackling this...though a much cheaper
($1/unit) and easier to make solution exists (invented in 1990s):

[http://practicalaction.org/zeer-pot-fridge](http://practicalaction.org/zeer-
pot-fridge)

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milge
This has actually been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-in-
pot_refrigerator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-in-pot_refrigerator)

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JacobJans
Amazing. These cost less than a stamp in the US. Think about that the next
time you mail a letter!

> The pots sell at 40 US cents a pair

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-in-
pot_refrigerator#cite_n...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-in-
pot_refrigerator#cite_note-Kanwaljit-7)

~~~
hugh4
Honestly it's pretty amazing that having a physical piece of paper collected,
sorted , put in a plane, and hand-delivered to someone's door thousands of
miles away is so freaking cheap. Postage stamps are crazy.

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jacquesm
In many places physical mail is extensively subsidized.

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dools
Are the 2 statistics presented in any way related? They say a quarter to a
half of the food in the world is wasted and 70% of rural Africa doesn't have
electricity but is the food waste occuring in those regions due to a lack of
electricity? There are plenty of food systems that don't rely on
refrigeration. The food waste is occuring in places with adequate
refrigeration, but because food is too cheap and people are lazy!

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sawwit
I'm currently living without any refrigeration and it actually works better
than expected, but the circumstances are admittedly somewhat beneficial for
this lifestyle in my case (I rarely cook with leftovers and there is a
supermarket nearby; I _hate_ fridge noises).

There are plenty of foods that don't need refrigeration: Bread, butter, dried
meat, porridge, tinned food, and various fruits and veggies are food for days.
Here is a good overview [0]. I usually just eat some cold porridge with honey
and fruits in the morning and then pasta or something from the freezer or at
the canteen.

[0]:
[http://www.bethandevans.com/pdf/livingwithoutrefrigeration.p...](http://www.bethandevans.com/pdf/livingwithoutrefrigeration.pdf)

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mikekchar
I'm sure it sounds strange, but I don't have heat in my house. The winter
temperatures are between 0 (at night) and 10 (the high). So my whole house is
a refrigerator :-) There were some articles on HN about heating yourself
rather than heating the space you are in (or at least minimizing the space
that you heat).

You are right, about the need for a fridge. You can live quite a nice
lifestyle without it -- even if you are into cooking. There are so many
pickles and fermented foods. Yogurt is another thing that you can make which
will allow your milk to last longer.

The one thing I will caution you about, though, is making sure you have an
emergency food supply. You can't rely on supermarkets to have enough food to
last if there is any kind of environmental disaster. I live in Japan and when
we had a big earth quake in my area (about 8 years ago), I was shocked that
the supermarket was picked clean in about 6 hours! It took them days to
restock -- and we didn't have any transportation issues at the time. Having
fresh food for a few days is fine, but make sure that you stock enough long
term storage foods to last you at least a week.

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colanderman
0 and 10 °F or °C? There's a big difference...

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mikekchar
Sorry. °C. I would get heat if it was °F.

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windows10
You can buy one right now from India. [http://www.mitticool.in/Mitti-Cool-
Refrigerator.php](http://www.mitticool.in/Mitti-Cool-Refrigerator.php)

