Non-Electric Lifestyle


A clever inventor in Nasu, Tochigi prefecture is thinking about how to live a non-electric lifestyle - and doing something about it. Yasuyuki Fujimura, with a PhD in engineering, makes products that don't run on electricity, including this fascinatingly simple refrigerator.

Japan for Sustainability explains:

How can it refrigerate food without electric power? It uses a phenomenon called radiational cooling together with the natural convection currents of water.

Radiational cooling occurs when infrared radiation is emitted from an object's surface, causing its temperature to decrease. On a clear night, infrared rays are emitted from the ground into the atmosphere, cooling the air down. This is why the night is extremely cold in the desert. Most people have experienced water's natural convection currents when warm water rises while cold water sinks and pools at the lowest level.

The cooling unit of the refrigerator (capacity 200 liters) is made of metal that has high thermal conductivity. A large volume of water (about 250 liters) is stored around this unit as a coolant. Radiator panels are placed on top so that the inner surface of the panel touches the coolant water. The heat of things stored in the cooling unit is conveyed to the surrounding water by the metal, and the heat goes up by natural convection. Thus it is conveyed to the radiator panel, and emitted through radiational cooling.

The system is most efficient on a clear night when there is less water vapor in the air. One clear night (and sometimes even one cloudy night) every three days can keep the temperature inside the refrigerator at around 7 to 8 degrees Celsius even on a mid-summer day. This innovative refrigerator belies our present-day common sense assumption that things cannot be refrigerated without electricity.



I bet this is going to be a lot more popular in the near future, as our electricity bills are bound to increase and we face chronic energy shortages. For those who are already experimenting with off-the-grid lifestyles, here is a wealth of information. People preparing for power outages will also be glad they found this!

Price? 44,000 Yen (about 400 Euro or 560 USD)

More images of 非電化 hidenka (non-electric) products on the website (J)
English website Atelier Non-Electric
(Hat tip to Pandabonium for bringing this to my attention!)

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