Free Refrigeration: Part Deux
By Matthew Philip • Aug 25th, 2008 • Category: Eating, Energy, Recent Posts, Resource Waste Reduction
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Last week, Wesley wrote an article about using the upcoming cold weather of winter for some of your refrigeration needs. But what about during the dog days of summer when the weather is anything but winter?
Well, thanks to Mohammed Bah Abba of Nigera, you have free refrigeration that uses zero energy! Bah Abba is the adward-winning inventor of the Pot-in-Pot system for refrigeration. The invention was born out of the need for increasing the life of fresh produce that spoils quickly in the intense African heat.
How does it work? Basically, his design involves a small clay pot within a larger one. The smaller pot is separated from the large one with wet sand and covered with a wet towel or cover. Now, as the water evaporates from the sand between the posts, the temperature within the small pot decreases due to the law of thermodynamics (evaporation is a cooling process). 
Bah Abba was awarded the Rolex Award for Enterprise and is featured on their site: Rolex Awards for Enterprise. They have a great site which explains everything much better than I could here. Anyways, I guess my point for posting this is to ask, “How can we take this concept and apply it to our modern lives?”
EHI There! Tell us how you’d use Bah Abba’s ideas to reduce your carbon footprint!
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Matthew Philip is relatively new to the "green" scene but comes to us with a strong business background. He brings a very pragmatic approach to many environmental issues and offers unique common-sense tips for "greening" one's life.
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[...] people to learn ways to cheaply and effectively treat human waste. Also, methods such as this free refrigeration method, highlighted by Matthew Phillip, could help reduce the amount of food wasted in developing [...]