Cool! Toronto's Deep Lake Water Cooling System was launched today. The system cuts electricity consumption in commercial buildings by 75 per cent by drawing near-freezing water through pipes extending five kilometres out into Lake Ontario. According to the
city, the system will save enough power to service more than 100 Toronto office towers or 4,200 homes per year, and it will eliminate 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Here's a public television segment explaining the process. Seems like it makes a nice complement to the lakeshore
windmill.
posted by stonerose
on Aug 17, 2004 -
48 comments
Badgirs (Farsi) or
barjeels (Arabic) are
windcatchers that work as low-tech air conditioners. The city of
Yazd, Iran is probably best known for them. Badgirs are built so that they can be opened to catch the wind from different directions, the air is then cooled as it travels down the tower, and in turn cools the rooms below. When there is no wind, air in the tower is heated and rises, which draws cooler air from the courtyard into the house. (There is no URL to link to for the search result for “badgir” on
Encyclopaedia Iranica, but I recommend checking out their definition and diagrams even though you’ll have to go through three different PDF pages.) Badgirs have been around in some form “since the New Kingdom (1500- 300 BC) in Egypt”, but global warming might make them ineffective.
(scroll down to #16-#18) Variations, such as
malqafs, can be found from
Egypt to
Pakistan. You can get
a modern one for your own house. You can win an
award shaped like one
for advancements in sustainable development. Or you could just stay in the Fairmont Dubai Hotel which is shaped like a
huge badgir. So even after all this, I still don't know what those sticks sticking out of the sides are for.
posted by lobakgo
on Jul 10, 2003 -
28 comments
