It's great to see that people are working on projects like this. The less energy we use, the better for the planet.

This seems really cool. I do not, though, understand how he can imply cooking fires are a "non-consumable." Firewood, camel-dung, etc. seem to be in short-supply in many places where this gadget would be applied.

I wonder how hot you have to get the thing. Maybe could use something like a solar-cooker.

Above video is about 1 1/2 years old now, which is quite old news in tech circles. Anything more recent on this??

Is refrigeration "bad"? No, of course not. But is it as "good" as Westerners automatically assume it to be? My perception, acquired from learning how my mother-in-law and wife lived most of their lives is that it isn't. My wife grew up very poor in Thailand. The family didn't own a refrigerator until the early 1980s, at which she was more than twenty years old. Since they couldn't keep foods that required refrigeration they instead went to the neighborhood fresh market almost every day. But Thailand is modernizing and so the neighborhood fresh markets are increasingly scarce. In their place come supermarkets and even gigantic Tescos. Moreover, because these modern, high-tech / high-energy-consumption outlets are at the end of a longer and more complex distribution chain, more Thais are buying refrigerators to support the modern, high-energy-consumption model of food distribution shopping. The paradox is that while living without a personal refrigerator may appear "primitive" to modern Westerners, my wife's nearly encyclopedic knowledge of fresh food and how to prepare it makes her popular with both younger Thais and Americans eager to incorporate her "ancient secrets" about buying and preparing fresh food into healthy meals...

Could probably be done with solar cookers too, but the most important thing is refrigeration for the poor, so better use a fire that they already have and would use anyway than complain it's not 100% green

Just like in Mosquito Coast, sounds great. Where can I get one?

are any available for sale? i would love to have one of these.

if he's doing this in a non-profit/humanitarian manner, i hope he will release the details of construction. an 'open source' approach to this technology will probably aid in its rapid deployment and add innovation as well.

@ web design company: You bring up a crucial point regarding what is considered a normal level of technology/energy usage. We in developed countries seem to assume that what we currently do (even if reformed through green tech) is optimum, when in reality a perfectly healthy, happy, productive life is possible using much less (of everything). Considering the amount of natural resources required to keep the developed world standard of living going (unsustainable ecologically by seven-fold or so), perhaps the answer is the developed world "undeveloping" a bit so that the developing world can rise up some. On a need basis for healthy, socially & spiritually (whatever your belief or lack thereof) productive lives we require far less in terms of material consumption than is considered normal by the average North American, European, Japanese, Australian, etc.

To the nuts that think refrigeration is a "bad" western idea.

My grandparents on both sides were farmers/ranchers.
They did not have refrigeration until 1947.
They went from just being able to grow enough food to selling food because of the reduction in spoilage.

Obviously you have never lived "off the grid"

Q.Why are dolts so sure of their position without experience?
A: Because they are liberals who's emotions rule their brain.

This sounds like a high tech version of the pot-in-pot refrigerator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-in-pot_refrigerator

Evaporative cooling that only requires sand, two clay pots, and water.

THIS IS EXCELLENT!

This is interesting. Often, distribution of health care depends on refrigeration of drugs, vaccines, etc throughout the whole supply chain. Pop one of these in with the meds to be shipped and send them out to similarly equipped refrigerator in the field.

It may be 1.5 years old, but I've never seen that before. That is absolutely brilliant. The implications for developing nations are fantastic. However I see this as an awesome tool for camping. Imagine a cooler without the need for ice!

Sure, I'm not thinking about the big picture here, but things like iceless coolers would up the production of such devices and make them even more affordable for the 3rd world.

"Q.Why are dolts so sure of their position without experience?
A: Because they are liberals who's emotions rule their brain."

Uh oh, Rand's got his broad brush out. Stand clear. I don't see what being liberal has to do with your comment. I also find it ironic that your statement is obviously based on an emotional reaction to 'liberals', which is a word you seem to use a pejorative. If you're the type that has to put everyone in 2 groups: liberal and conservative, then you are asserting that liberals are the only ones whose emotions rule their brain? Why not just criticize people that don't think rather than trying to assert that that characteristic belongs to a certain group of people? Because both liberals and conservatives act in the way you are suggesting. So in essence you just asserted your own ignorance. Nicely done.

If you listen closely to the video he's talking about providing coolth to preserve vaccines as they are transported to a very rural place. This is a method that can be re-charged a number of times with local tools to continue to provide coolth, which is necessary for vaccines, without electricity.

Maybe wood is scarce but not so scarce that a once every 24 hour cooling during a trip and vaccination run that it wouldn't be reasonable to find dung, wood or some other waste to recharge this technology.

In general, I don't get the impression that this is for food, airconditioning or anything other than necessary medical equipment being provided to a very disperse population...