Global Warming and the Quest for Efficient Cooling – From Bladeless Fans to Blade Runner

Dies irae, Dies illa!

Solvet saeclum in favilla,

Teste David cum Sybilla

(Day of Wrath, the day of Burning,

Seer and Sibyl speak concerning,

All the World to Ashes turning)

Tomasso Di Celano, Dies Irae

The utterances of Dr. Michael Taylor, Climatologist and Head of the Department of Physics, Pure and Applied Sciences, University of the West Indies at the Energy Conference 2011 on Monday September 19^th 2011AD suggests that we humans are being slow boiled in a stew of our own making.

Global warming, theorized to be on the increase due to human activity, will increase energy consumption, whether or not we switch to Alternative Energy sources in Jamaica as stated in my blog article entitled “Dr. Taylor's states Global Warming increasing Jamaica's Energy Bill - Vybz Kartel's Summertime Soylent Green”.

65% of energy consumption wasted on Refrigeration and Cooling is a lot of energy, not to mention a serious dent on ones Electricity bill, to which there are no easy short term solutions. So at this point, I have decided, on inspiration, to throw my engineering design hat into the debate and design a solution that would help to reduce the cost of Refrigeration and Cooling via a redesign of the Fan.

A curious invention, the Fan! Basically a motor with a shaft attached to a set of curved blades, its design is to push air in order to cool object via convection, as the rapidly moving air carries away heat from the surface of the object rapidly, thereby creating cooling. Air Conditioning units and Refrigerators are all based around fans and may be responsible in part along with the compressor for their 65% electricity consumption.

The technology of the Dyson HOT Bladeless Fan as stated in the article “Dyson heats up with Hot bladeless Fan”, published SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 6:00 PM PDT, By David Carnoy, CNET News – Crave provides some inspiration and shines a light towards what is possible. But the fact that it still has to be plugged into a power source to continue working makes the technology a novelty redesign of the Ionic Breeze Fan with the same power consumption problems.

What if the Fan could produce its own power or derive its power from a source external to the PUC (Power Utility Company)? With this in mind, a suggestion floats into my mind for such a Fan that may start out expensive, but with time may be adopted as a standard.

My suggestion is simply to:

1.      Reduce friction within the Fan design by removing the motor and replacing it with a different technology to turn the Fan in a friction-less manner

2.      Decouple the Fan completely from its analog electrical plug via the use of Integrated Solar Panels as stated in as stated in my blog article entitled “Alternative Energy and Solar Power - Die Another Day”

3.      Include technology to recapture the Wasted Energy generated by turning the Fan blades and turning it back into electricity to power the Fan as suggested in my blog article entitled “Powering Gadgets by Recycling Waste Energy - Alice's Windmills in my Mind Through the Looking Glass”

4.      Include a Lithium-Ion Battery in the design, so that the Fan would have a reservoir to store any recaptured Wasted Energy and thus make its reuse by the Fan more efficient

5.      Fan should be programmable and controllable via an app on ones smartphone and be powered by an Open Source OS e.g. Google Android

I will deal with each design suggestion one step at a time.

First, the redesign of the Fan to be frictionless. The below diagram best illustrates a proof-of-concept actualization of such a Fan whose blade is levitating in a magnetic field that rotates it, effectively making it frictionless!

Such a theoretical Fan design in the above self-explanatory design would only have to be plugged in ONLY once to charge the Lithium-Ion Battery pack, which would best be optimized to last for a 24 hour period. Once fully charged, the Frictionless Alternative Energy Fan or FAEF would thus be self maintaining, powered by electrical power that trickle charges the Lithium-Ion Battery from either of the following power sources:

1.      Integrated Solar Panels

2.      Sound to Electricity conversion kit from Ubeam

3.      nPower PEG Kinetic charger that would be the axle of the Fan blades, balanced on self-lubricating ball bearings.

Albeit appearing to be an attempt at a perpetual motion machine, friction would eventually get the better of this contraption controllable via a smartphone installed app. At that point the Fan would have to be plugged in again – six to eight (6 to 8) months later, assuming the household in sufficiently well lit, has lot of noisy occupants and are regular users of the Fan.

The use of the technology gear from a partnership between University of Pennsylvania graduates Meredith Perry and Nora Dweck and their Ultrasonic Power Transfer Technology start-up uBeam and the sound conversion technology of graduate student Sang-Woo Kim from the Institute of Nanotechnology at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea as described in my blog article entitled “uBeam's Perry & Dweck Ultrasonic Power Transfer - Rafe Needleman's Hidden Village of Sound” is included in this design.

This along with Integrated Solar Panels similar to Apple’s concept as stated in the article  “Apple eyes gadgets with built in Solar panels”, published January 22, 2010 7:46 AM PST by Martin LaMonica, CNET News - Green Tech and the article “Apple patent bid combines solar with touch screen”, published June 7, 2010 6:31 AM PDT by Martin LaMonica, CNET News - Green Techwould help to cut the analog Power cord, the last vestige of the Analog World.

But more interestingly, is the fact that this concept used in this appliance could be extended to other appliances, making them self-powered and possibly Google Android 4.0 aka Ice Cream powered by 2015AD as stated in my Geezam Blog article entitled “Apple’s Revolution: Android @ Home and IceCream Sandwich in 2015AD”.

By then, Apple will have caught wind of this development and would have begun licensing Apple iOS for use in such self-powered Appliances and All-Electric Vehicles, Blade Runner (1982) Style…….