Friday, March 29, 2013

New solar structure cools buildings in full sunlight, replacing air conditioners

New solar structure cools buildings in full sunlight, replacing air conditioners | KurzweilAI:
"Stanford University researchers have designed an entirely new form of cooling structure that cools even when the sun is shining, eliminating the need for air conditioning.
Such a structure could vastly improve the daylight cooling of buildings, cars, and other structures by reflecting sunlight back into space.
“We’ve developed a new type of structure that reflects the vast majority of sunlight, while at the same time it sends heat into that coldness, which cools manmade structures even in the day time,” explained Shanhui Fan, professor of electrical engineering and senior author of a Nano Letters paper.
The trick: (1) the reflector has to reflect as much of the sunlight as possible and (2) the structure also must efficiently radiate heat back into space — that is, within a specific wavelength range in which the atmosphere is nearly transparent."

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