Comments on: A Refrigerator that Runs Without Electricity

By: Furgutt

Furgutt — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:01:36 +0000

You guys are all arguing about, and comparing concepts from different eras and with differing circumstance. We all went through phases of supposed raising of living standard from the coolgardie safe to the modern freezer. Where is the dream of Frank Lloyd Wright of mile high sky scrapers set a mile apart to conserve the park and farming land? You forget one thing-does the feral human being have the right to take anything on the planet, at the expense of any other form of life, to superficially improve his own wellbeing? What we do today is only justifiable because we have to do it en masse, like a terrified pack of vermin who believe that the rest of our species will overrun us if we can’t get ‘em first by overpopulating our bit of the planet first and then taking theirs off them as well!

By: Alex Kruger

Alex Kruger — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:38:50 +0000

Re fridge
I have been using two large rectangular bisque fired clay pots for about two years now as a fridge – pretty similar to the one described. We can get up to 40 degrees centigrade here in the Klein Karoo South Africa. I am very happy with its performance, and am also going to be building a walk-in evaporation cool room. So if anyone out there has designs, it would be great to see them.
I find it is better to leave the clay fridge in the shade – the cool side of the house is good, and somewhere where a breeze can move over it. A thick wet towel over it also helps!

By: anders

anders — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:56:31 +0000

We are in Morocco and this sounds perfect as it is hot and dry out here. Will the fridge pot be cooler if left in the sun? I realise that you would have to add more water but if you wanted to keep more unstable products such as meat / fish etc?
Cant wait to try it out

By: Daniel

Daniel — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:35:26 +0000

Very interesting concept, too bad it will not work very well in humid Ohio. Some food for though… if you could sinking the copper coils on the back of a fridge 3-4ft into the ground, wouldn’t that conserve energy using geothermal properties?

Man-made global warming is crap, Al Gores film was criminally convicted (in England) to contain 9 errors. Increasing CO2 is a product of increasing temperature not the other way around like Al would have you believe. He is just trying to tax the ‘life cycle’ in which CO2 is essential to (yes plants need CO2 to live and so do we!). However I do disagree with strip mining, oil spills and the like and think we need to put some deep consideration into this, but I’ll be damned if our solution is to hand over all the power to a panel of bureaucrat and ‘experts’. It is all of our responsibility to educate ourselves and participate in government.

By: Mel

Mel — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:43:10 +0000

Ethan and Ryan: whether you believe in global warming or not, the truth of the matter is that the world population and its need for natural resources has drastically increased in the past century. However, the natural resources available haven’t increased, which means that with increased demand, those resources must have decreased. Which means that we are putting incredible strain on the environment. I’m sorry Ryan, but as this continues it won’t just be the government that’s ‘drastically destroying our quality of life’.

I don’t know if you guys are from Australia or not, but do you think its a hoax that Melbourne’s just had the driest spring on record? Or that the reservoirs are drastically low going into summer? Yes, we’ve always had drought cycles, but like I said there’s much more demand now than ever before because of our lifestyles and population size. Let’s concentrate on what we really can do – live in a way that has as little impact on the environment as possible; which is the point of a permaculture forum, isn’t it?

I’m so glad to see that people in Africa are making changes and being forward thinking in ways that us westerners struggle with. Maybe we can use these pots for our fresh fruit and veg, which might mean that we only need a small fridge for the rest of our food. I’m sure we can use rainwater or water caught in our shower to keep the pots moist rather than fresh tap water.

By: Asia

Asia — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:08:40 +0000

This is wonderful for hoy dry climates-not so great for hot humid climates-mold and bacteria problems plus evaporation would not happen quickly enough to get all the cooling benifits. In humid climates you can dig deep in the earth 3-4ft or more to take advantage of the earths naturally cool depths of if you have cold creek or spring in the shade you can submerge a waterproof cooler 3/4 up- this also works great.

By: ethan

ethan — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:42:08 +0000

as a small tag note: global warming isn’t “the end of the world.” but denying it is irresponsible and will simply make the fundamentals of life — such as plentiful access to clean drinking water, healthy food, and stable shelter — much more difficult to attain for all but the world’s wealthiest few.

By: ethan

ethan — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:30:35 +0000

Citing “an inconvenient truth” is nothing but a red herring. i’ve never even seen the movie, and it’s not relevant to this discussion. I will simply ignore your patronizing attitudes (which, yes, I will continue to mock if you continue to act that way) and restate my original, unanswered question:

what exactly about the scientific methodologies they use to assess the anthropogenic factors contributing to climate change do you disagree with?

telling me to “watch a movie” that has long been dismantled due to being completely misleading and disingenuous — including both abuse of interviewees as well as scientific data, and using industry-funded research and scientists — isn’t really an effective form of answering that question.

it’s really ironic that you spout off all this crap about int’l gov’t conspiracies and you don’t look at the matrix of power and control that already exists between governments and wealthy, extremely powerful industry interests. that’s not skepticism — it’s selective gullibility. millions and even billions of industry dollars [from basically a few rich white guys] which are behind the crap you keep trying to assert as “counter-evidence” that anthropogenic global warming is bunk.

http://www.climateofdenial.net/

so, start ignoring the propaganda and start participating directly in the discussion about the scientific data, methodologies and techniques.

By: Alexi

Alexi — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:12:56 +0000

Ethan, Ryan may well be right. Anthropogenic Global Warming is beginning to look like a huge and sinister confidence trick.

Watch the video before you comment. http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=4860344067427439443&ei=UlqxSPiCIpOKrgP25tjADA&q=%E2%80%9CGlobal+Warming+or+Global+Governance%E2%80%9D&hl=en

…and please don’t descend into personal abuse of anyone, just because they disagree with you. When you lose your temper, you lose your argument.

By: ryan brown

ryan brown — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 14:21:45 +0000

perhaps you could use an automatic plant waterer to keep the sand moist maybe.