Big bucks go to the teams that come up with an air conditioner that's five times as good.
We have noted that as poverty decreases, air conditioning increases. In an earlier post we quoted a study that predicted that 700 million air conditioners would be added by 2030. " In terms of electricity use and greenhouse gas emissions, that’s like adding several new countries to the world."
That's why Richard Branson and others have sponsored the $2 Million Global Cooling Prize being led by the Rocky Mountain Institute.
The prize will attract talent from across sectors and around the world to design a cooling solution for a typical tropical or subtropical home that will have at least 5x less climate impact. This will be achieved through a combination of dramatically reduced consumption of grid-supplied electricity and use of lower global-warming-potential refrigerant per unit of cooling than a typical RAC [room air conditioner] unit being sold in the market today.
Global Cooling Challenge/Screen capture
