Ancient Iran had swamp coolers* to be more accurate here.
This works in the desert, but you can’t replicate it in a humid climate like you can with AC.
The very term Air Conditioning refers to a technical system, that is deliberately influencing aka conditioning the properties of the air.
So yes, this is an ancient AC system.
Cool, but that’s not what we mean when we say AC. The meanings of words change over time and AC is used almost exclusively to refer to a specific type of device so unambiguous that I don’t usually have to explain which exact type of device I mean.
Otherwise literally just putting up a fan next to your window is technically AC. The term AC will lose all meaning.
The specific device that mostly works by fanning in air that is cooled by using evaporation? Seems very similiar to what the ancient people there had.
Well a significant difference is that this increases humidity, while normal AC decreases it.
They didn’t have an AC compressor, refrigerant, etc. Their system stops working when your humidity is too high.
It works on the same physical principle, but they’re still very different in their usage, side effects and limitations.
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Wind powered swamp cooler. Basically a humidifier, but it does lower the temperature. I’ve heard people call swamp coolers air conditioning, so I don’t think it’s wrong.
No, calling swamp coolers air conditioning is definitely wrong.
If it’s 100% humidity in your room, the swamp cooler is going to do absolutely nothing, but AC will cool it down and can even dehumidify a bit if you run it enough.
Swamp coolers are awesome, but they only work in dry climates unfortunately.
This isn’t just mildly interesting. We should be considering methods of air cooling that do not use any carbon in order to avoid aircon usage becoming a contributor to the climate problem as things get hotter and hotter.
I agree with you that we should be exploring alternatives, but aircon is extremely energy efficient for how much thermal energy it moves (reaching 400% efficiency in some cases) . The problem isn’t aircon itself, but what is being used to power it (coal/natural gas power plants)
In fact the technology behind aircon can be expanded into a heat pump to both heat and cool, being more efficient than electro-resistive or gas heating. There’s even water heaters that will actually cool the area they’re in and use the heat they gather from the space to heat the water.
Technology Connections has a great series of videos that go in depth on both heat pumps and aircon.
400% efficiency is good, but it’s not better than the ∞% efficiency you get from something that doesn’t require fuel input to begin with. (I’m pretty sure the Technology Connections guy would agree on that point.)
If nothing else, think of it this way: even if you still want to use air conditioning to make sure you get all the way down to comfortable room temperature or whatever your target is (which a Qanat, although able to achieve a >15°C ΔT, might or might not be able to do reliably), it’ll still give you a big head start and greatly reduce the amount of energy needed. It’s a lot like using a ground-source heat pump instead of an air-source one. What’s not to like‽
Sorry my point wasn’t that we shouldn’t explore other options to use instead of/in tandem with A/C. I was entirely pointing out that the use of an AC/heatpump is by itself, in absence of the context of what is used to power it, a non issue as its one of the most efficient electric heating/cooling technologies we have.
Wind catchers could be, and likely are a great technology to adapt for wider use, though I can’t speak to that, I’m not an HVAC engineer.
Can you explain 400% efficiency?
IIRC for every watt of electricity, 4 watts of energy get moved from the inside bit of your AC to the outside unit
Yeah, “air conditioning powered by solar/wind/hydro” can feel like it’s one big Rube Goldberg machine to make air cool, but the reality is that it comes together to make something that can scale really easily. I can’t imagine coming up with a design like what’s in OP for an apartment complex or condo building.
Source: just made it up, but also a Technology Connections fan. All that’s to say, feel free to correct me with a little data
They actively use this design in large buildings (with a modern twist). Its known as a chilled water system: https://hvactrainingshop.com/how-a-chilled-water-system-works/
Or you have ones that do not run at all during the day, and only chill/freeze the water at night on excess power/cheap power: https://www.buildinggreen.com/news-article/making-ice-night-cool-buildings
The second system I linked would then let the ice slow melt over the day as its way of actively chilling air passing through its exchanger.
These systems work by chilling water instead of air, which has a much higher heat capacity. Meaning, it can accept much more thermal energy per unit mass before raising its temperature by 1 kelvin. You are able to build a single, very well designed, and efficient refridgeration unit that can provide HVAC services to up to multiple high rise buildings. This reduces waste and reduces the usage of coolant/refridgerant.
This system can be reversed in the winter (heating the water instead of chilling) with geothermal heat, solar heat, or if no “green” options are readily available, natural gas direct fire heat can be extremely efficient compared to electric coil
The #hvactrainingshop.com link is dead to me (it’s in an exclusive walled garden not openly available to all people [#Cloudflare]). I could not find a replacement link. If anyone has a better source, plz mention it.
This would be a great idea if you want everyone in that building to file humidity complaints every single day. Air conditioners work by using mechanical work (compressor) to exploit evaporation in order to pull heat from one location to another and exhaust it away, in turn cooling the first location (this could be air, water, etc.)
This system works by using ground temp water as a heatsink to suck heat out of the air passing over it. When it does this, it humidifies the air. In the desert…who cares? In an office building…who cares? Every single worker who is stuck there all day
If you’re saying we need better systems than the AC unit you grew up with, fear not! Many office buildings have been moving away from it (same with other large venues) they use a chilled water system. They use the best of both these systems to get WAY more performance out of way less wattage. You only need a fraction of the cooling power with a chilled water system because the water can absorb much more heat per unit mass than air and can be sized to never run during the day, but only at night when the grid is least in use
AC unit you grew up with
Lmao grew up with? Most of us have never used AC at all in europe. Here in the UK no homes have AC. The issue is that people are installing it now because of climate change and the result is massively higher energy use.
People in the UK are installing air cons, because most houses are very bad and have no insulation.
This is not true? L1A, L1B, L2A, and L2B exceed american insulation regulations by a huge amount, and they exceed the EU regulations as well. I did some roofing once upon a time.
Not necessarily in your house. I’m talking about the design of the units from when you were a child (Many public buildings in the EU have AC regardless of houses not having it). AC was invented in 1901, and has come a very long way since then, and we have begun combining it with old principles to extract the best of both solutions
Combining modern refrigeration/cooling techniques with well designed passive systems that exploit material properties (Heat capacities, transfer coefficients, etc.) to their advantage is the future of HVAC. It started with CFCs and knowing we could exploit their boiling point with mechanical force to chill air beyond the outside air temperature. Who knows where science and engineering may take us next!
Cooling a ware house, lecture hall or mall is very different from cooling an apaprtement building. In particular because most of the former have been designed with AC in mind.
Who knows where science and engineering may take us next!
Not beyond the hard limits of physics. You are not going to retrofit an appartement building built in 1900 or 1970 or 2000 for that matter with an efficent heating/cooling system without major rebuilding.
Not quite an air conditioner, but it seems modernizing it could be a great idea for new constructions to save on power. Maybe as a supplement to Air Conditioners.
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A modern home ACs can only cool about 20f below the outside temperature. 50c to 35c is 27 degrees so that’s pretty damn good for a fancy unpowered swamp cooler
Yeah, the thing is the “unpowered” part. Look how much energy an AC chugs to achieve that cooling. This tower uses wind power to do it’s thing.
The AC is also small compared to a literal building with a sewer underneath and doesn’t require a windy day. Trade offs
ok, but the cost of building a quanat is still pretty high and is not trivial to achieve.
Can’t have water flowing everywhere in a country for this to work.
I love passive systems. The more passive the better.
