Subject: Re: What is solar cooling?

From: "Robert G. Marsh" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 10:08:18 -0400

For what it's worth....
	Years ago I read a report from  the University of FL, they 
burried a concrete septic tank in the backyard of their "solar"house, 
insulated it well, filled it with water, and used an antifreeze mix 
through a radiator aboveground when it was below freezing, and then used 
the chilled antifreze mix to aircondition the house in the summer. The 
project was a "failure", as they could only freeze enough of the tank of 
water to provide A/C all summer long 1 year out of 3 , IN FL !!!! 
Robert

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From: Richard Austin <[email-masked]>
Date: 13 Jul 1995 04:03:55 GMT

A better approach to solar cooling, especially for most refrigeration 
needs is a sky refrigerator. It is the exact opposite of a solar 
greenhouse. Faces north and opened to the night sky.

History, in the middle east in ancient times (and perhaps even now) an 
east-west wall was built. The sun never hit the north side. In winter, 
water was placed on the north side and froze. It could be kept well into 
summer because the north clear night sky has a radiant temperature of 
near absolute zero.

It would be fun to build a sky refrigerator. I plan to do it myself as 
soon as I pay off some debts. For those who would like to try:

Build a north facing greenhouse. Fill with water storage.
Insulate the glazing during the day, open at night.
Let freezing air in winter to freeze the water.
Convey the "coolth" to your inside refrigerator with a small pump which 
circulates an antifreeze coolant such as alcohol/water from a pipe 
buried in the frozen mass.

Good luck.

Richard Austin  --  email: [email-masked]  --  radio: KG7SU
-------------------------------------------------------
              Institute for Planetary Renewal
"Creating a Better World Through Healing & Design"

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From: [email-masked] (Will Stewart )
Date: 14 Jul 1995 15:31:21 GMT

In <[email-masked]>

>water to provide A/C all summer long 1 year out of 3 , IN FL !!!! 

You've piqued my interest.  Do you have anymore information or does
anyone else know about this?   What size tank, how much insulation,
what cooling load, how much would this cost?

Will Stewart

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From: [email-masked] (DaveHatunen)
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 1995 17:21:58 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
>what cooling load, how much would this cost?

Bring back the ice house.

Well into the 20th century people and organizations cut ice from ponds
in the winter and stored it in ice houses, using sawdust piled on the
ice stack as insulator. Until the widespread development of
refrigerating ice manufacturing, this was where the ice for granny's
icebox came from (I'm old enough that "icebox" was the apellation for
even a refrigerator when I was young). In fact, there was one New
England company which made a considerable amount of money shipping such
ice to the tropical areas of the Caribbean and South America and
Florida. It was used for air conditioning, among other things. Pond and
lake ice was an actual industry in northern states.

My uncle lived near Lake Superior on the Michigan UP. I visited him in
the late 1940s and he took me down to the village ice house with him
while he picked up ice for his general store. This was in August.

This may be why air conditioning equipment was once commonly rated in
"tons/day(?)", as in "a one-ton air conditioner". The tons were tons of
ice.

-- 

    ********** DAVE HATUNEN ([email-masked]) **********
    *     Daly City California: almost San Francisco      *
    *   but with parking and lower car insurance rates    *
    *******************************************************

---

From: [email-masked] (William B. Warren)
Date: 14 Jul 1995 15:25:56 -0400

>what cooling load, how much would this cost?

	In the book _Table of Contents_ by John McPhee he writes about an 
"ice pond".  Some researchers at Princeton filled an insulated hole in 
the ground with ice made by a slightly modified snow gun.  Whenever the air
temperature was below freezing they would make ice, all winter long.  
Once it started getting warmer out they insulated it further with some 
sort of cover and used the meltwater at the bottom as coolant.  It was 
pumped through a heat exchanger which, in turn, cooled a given office 
(building?).  I read this 8 or 10 years ago (scary!), so if the details 
are off i apologize, but the researchers succeeded in "saving" winter 
cold for use in summer.  

	Build an Ice Pond!
		Will

ps.  The researchers may have included Ted Taylor, if I remember correctly.

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From: [email-masked] (Mike Schaal)
Date: 14 Jul 1995 21:42:01 GMT

>                 Will

Now you have my interest as well. I remember a presentation given by one
of the researchers back in the early 1980s. Perhaps one or more of the
following references might shed some light...

BOOKS:

Gunther, Raymond C.
Refrigeration, air conditioning, and cold storage, principles and
applications. / [by] Raymond C. Gunther. 2d rev. and enl. ed.
Philadelphia, Chilton Book Co., [1969].

Ice pond cooling of a power plant and its effect on plant performance
Urbanski, John Anthony. Ice pond cooling of a power plant and its effect
on plant performance. 1977.

ARTICLES:

AUTHOR(s):       Thakar, Girish S.
TITLE(s):        HVAC Retrofit Opportunities with Thermal Storage and Cold
                   Air Distribution System.

           In:   Energy engineering.
                 1992 v 89 n 4
         Page:   59

TITLE(s):        Focus on Cold Storage.

           In:   Refrigeration and air conditioning.
                 SEP 01 1993 v 96 n 1146
         Page:   23

TITLE(s):        Spotlight on Cold Storage.

           In:   Refrigeration and air conditioning.
                 DEC 01 1991 v 94 n 1125
         Page:   20

TITLE(s):        Cogeneration and refrigeration: This combination is a hot
                   idea for low temperature cold storage installations.

           In:   Heating, piping, air conditioning.
                 DEC 01 1989 v 61 n 12
         Page:   59

-- 
A. Michael Schaal                        [email-masked]
Department of Mineral Economics
Penn State University

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From: [email-masked] (Mike Jamison (ADF))
Date: 14 Jul 1995 17:32 EDT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (DaveHatunen) writes...

[snip]
>lake ice was an actual industry in northern states.

A recent issueof Popular Science discusses an idea the Canadians have for
using the very cold water in lake Erie [it's at 4 C, in the bottom of the
lake, and accumulates each winter due to water being at its highest density
at 4 degrees C - if I remember right] as air conditioning for the buildings
in some of their major cities.

The idea is to simply build a pipeline that reaches the required depth, and
to pump the water through heat exchangers in the buildings, then back into the
lake.
Mike Jamison

"Scientific research consists in seeing what everyone else has seen, but
thinking what no one else has thought"

						-A. Szent-Gyorgyi

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From: [email-masked] (Munn Heydorn)
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 1995 00:17:05

Hi;

There have been a number of postings concerning the above topic. I recall that 
Prudential Insurance did a rather imaginative - at least for an insurance 
company - two building office complex in New Jersey some time ago (1960s?).  
One of the energy saving items was an ice house approach to summer cooling.  
Is there any published data about this development in terms of actual utility 
useage over the years compared to a standard, energy saving methods used 
and the like or about design of the buildings?  Or, is my memory totally 
failing me and there is no such development?

Thanks,
Munn

Munn Heydorn (The words and ideas are mine, not necessarily
agreed to by The First National Bank of Chicago)
[email-masked] (Preferred)  OR   [email-masked]
Wheaton, Illinois, USA
email me for Internet Resources for Not-for-Profits
in Housing, Health and Human Services

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From: [email-masked] (Petri Sakkinen)
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 17:47:18 +0100

>to pump the water through heat exchangers in the buildings, then back into the

Before these systems are introduced in large scale, the ecological impact
of the resulting higher water temperatures should be thoroughly
investigated. Technologically and financially brilliant as such a system
might seem, it may cause serious problems to some vital parts of the lake
ecosystem that _require_ those low temperatures.

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From: [email-masked] (DaveHatunen)
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 14:47:50 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Albrecht Kadlec <[email-masked]> wrote:

[...]

>> So, I'd guess Lake Michigan would have the same temperature near its bottom 
>> as Erie does - just a lot more water at that temp.
>
>D> Your logic escapes me. . .
>
>Water is most compact at 4 degrees C. That's why ice (being less
>compact, though at a lower temp) is swimming on top of that. So the
>lowest part of a lake is near 4 C at any time, winter or summer.
>A shallow pond gets more energy from the sun (surface to volume
>ratio), so it's generally warmer.
>A small & deep lake is likely to have some 100 meters of 4 C water,
>with only the top 10 meters being affected by summer / winter
>fluctuations.

Oh. I get it.

I'd be very surprised if Lake Erie had a bottom temperature that cold
all year round. OTOH, I'd not be surprised at all if Superior did. As a
kid I spent my summers on Lake Erie (it wasn't particularly polluted
and that should give you some idea of how old I am) and the upper
layers get quite warm by September. I would thing that there would be
quite a bit of turnover in a lake that shallow.

I've also swum in Lake Superior in August. It felt like the surface
waters were at 4C.

In any case, any significant withdrawal of "cold" from deepwaters
means, ipso facto, the heating of the bottom waters, quickly
introducing convection currents that weren't there before. This could
have considerable impact on the local ecosystem.

--

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From: [email-masked] (Mike Jamison (ADF))
Date: 20 Jul 1995 11:09 EDT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (George A. Gleason) writes...
> 
> 
>Re. using lakes as a source of temperature difference for cooling purposes:
>this may turn out to have undesirable ecological consequences, particularly
>if done on a large scale.  When you take "cool" *out*, you're putting "warm"
>*in*, and heating up an area surrounding your heat exchanger; in essence
>creating a little micro-climate.  To the extent that some species take a
>liking to that warm zone, they can be wiped out when you switch off the
>system for a prolonged period.  Perhaps not significant unless on a larger
>scale; at which point another effect kicks in, namely interference with the
>natural convective cycles in the lake.

I see that, by your e-address, you live in California.  Sounds like you've
never been to Cleveland, OH.

Around here, there's an expression "if you don't like the weather, wait five
minutes".

So, I doubt that there'd be any negative effect on climate.

Second, about the only fish in Lake Erie are Carp and Zebra Mussels - the
mussels are a nuisance, and were introduced by accident, so they really 
*thrive* [no natural predators].

In other words, there really isn't much of an ecology to mess up...
> 
>I'd be very careful with this kind of stuff; more research is indicated.

Supposedly the Canadians have been researching this, and they believe that
the amount of cold water removed/year will be insignificant.

By the way, around here they recommend not eating more than a few fish per
month - not because it'll deplete the fish, but because of the heavy metals
still found in the fish [it's better than it used to be - previously, the
recommendation was to not eat *any* fish caught in Lake Erie].

Hope this answers your questions.

Mike Jamison

p.s. If I don't respond to my e-mail over the next three weeks, it's because
I'll be in europe on my honeymoon - don't have a laptop to take with me
[not that she'd even *let* me :-)]

						-A. Szent-Gyorgyi

---

From: [email-masked] (Donald R. Young)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 1995 08:12:06 -0700

In article <[email-masked]>,
> I'd be very careful with this kind of stuff; more research is indicated.
 
I recall something called a thermocline, a horizontal separation
of lake water temperatures which is inverted but balanced for
part of the year. The thermocline dumps annually, recirculating 
deep and shallow water (and nutrients). Alterations of 
temperatures at various levels could shift the thermocline 
inversion date. A shift of a couple weeks could have major 
ecological impacts.

There may be ways to accomplish the intended task without
disrupting this thermocline cycle. Keep an eye out for 
environmentally responsible limits, adaptations, opportunities,
etc... I don't claim to know all the details, but expect 
consultation with lake biologists, fisheries, hydrologists, 
etc, might be worthwile. They might even know of specific 
water bodies which would *benefit* from thermal adjustment. :-)

Thermal banking in lake water could be used in summer AND
winter if done responsibly. Technically, it works both ways.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Donald R. Young                          Voice: (509) 662-3820
P.O. Box 1884                              FAX: (509) 662-3820
Wenatchee, WA  98807-1884             Internet: [email-masked]
--------------------------------------------------------------
--

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From: [email-masked] (Elaine Gallegos)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 1995 18:02:56 GMT

Mike Jamison (ADF) ([email-masked]) wrote:
: In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Phil Rosenberg) writes...
: >In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Mike Jamison (ADF)) writes:
: >>From: [email-masked] (Mike Jamison (ADF))
: >>Subject: Re: Storage of winter cold for summer A/C (Re: What is solar cooling?)
: >>Date: 14 Jul 1995 17:32 EDT
: > 
: >Mike,
: > 
: >Interesting idea....Any idea how cold the bottom of Lake Michigan gets in the 
: >summer?  Same idea could be interesting in Chicago.

: I believe lake Michigan is the deepest of the Great Lakes [700 ft, if I'm not
: mistaken]

: Lake Erie is the shallowest - about 50 ft. average depth, 200 ft. max.

: So, I'd guess Lake Michigan would have the same temperature near its bottom 
: as Erie does - just a lot more water at that temp.

: > 
: >Phil Rosenberg, President, UTIL, Inc.
: > 
: > 
: >>A recent issueof Popular Science discusses an idea the Canadians have 
: >for>using the very cold water in lake Erie [it's at 4 C, in the bottom of the
: >>lake, and accumulates each winter due to water being at its highest density
: >>at 4 degrees C - if I remember right] as air conditioning for the buildings
: >>in some of their major cities.
: > 
: >>The idea is to simply build a pipeline that reaches the required depth, and
: >>to pump the water through heat exchangers in the buildings, then back into the
: >>lake.

---

From: [email-masked] (Ross Alexander)
Date: 21 Jul 1995 21:33:11 GMT

[email-masked] (DaveHatunen) writes:

>In article <[email-masked]>,
>Mike Jamison (ADF) <[email-masked]> wrote:
>Your logic escapes me. . .

The water at the bottom of any freshwater lake that freezes over
anually is damn close to 4oC.  That's the temperature of the highest
density for freshwater.

regards,
Ross
--
Ross Alexander, ve6pdq  --  (403) 675 6311  --  [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Ross Alexander)
Date: 21 Jul 1995 21:37:44 GMT

>ecosystem that _require_ those low temperatures.

Bruce and Pickering nuclear stations have been doing this for decades,
and we're talking 1000's of megawatts thermal.  Has anyone published?

regards,
Ross

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From: [email-masked] (DaveHatunen)
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 05:38:42 GMT

[...]

>I believe lake Michigan is the deepest of the Great Lakes [700 ft, if I'm not
>mistaken]

The people who finally found the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior
will be mighty surprised to hear that. . .

>Lake Erie is the shallowest - about 50 ft. average depth, 200 ft. max.

Well, you got one right, anyway.

--

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From: [email-masked] (Alan Horowitz)
Date: 23 Jul 1995 22:17:07 GMT

Petri Sakkinen ([email-masked]) wrote:

: Before these systems are introduced in large scale, the ecological impact
: of the resulting higher water temperatures should be thoroughly
: investigated.

       How thouroughly _can_ it be investigated?    Till who is satisfied?
      Till how much money is spent on the research?  Till how many graduate
       students have milked a Ph.D out of it?

       I could put out an Environmental Impact Statement that would make 
it seem highly desireable to force Petri Sakkinen to stop producing more 
Carbon Dioxide...... 

--
Alan Horowitz
[email-masked]