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Saudi Research Tests New Energy-Efficient Cooling System

KAUST's new cooling system
KAUST's new cooling system
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Saudi Research Tests New Energy-Efficient Cooling System

KAUST's new cooling system
KAUST's new cooling system

The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) has conducted observational experiments in the houses located inside the campus to create a new cooling system that consumes energy less than the currently used systems.

These experiments aim at testing the efficiency of the new system under different weather conditions in Saudi Arabia.

Air conditioning systems in use today typically achieve only 35–40 percent of the cooling possible for the amount of electricity they consume. As well as their principal task of cooling air, they remove moisture from the air by lowering its temperature to the level at which the water in it condenses. But this double step wastes a lot of energy.

A team led by Kim Choon Ng, professor of Environmental Science and Engineering at KAUST, has now devised a way to reduce the amount of energy consumed by decoupling the two processes.

Instead of dehumidifying air by cooling it, the system uses a more efficient process called adsorption. This binds the water in the air to the surface of a specially developed nanomaterial. Made of calcium chloride salt embedded in a silica gel lattice, this material can adsorb up to 20 times as much water as conventional silica gel in proportion to its weight.

Ng is now testing prototypes, and findings to date show an improvement in efficiency of 30–60 percent over conventional air conditioners. “This new type of air conditioner could offer a much-needed mean to slow down the increasing contribution of cooling systems to climate change,” says Kim Choon Ng.

In this new system, the proprietary adsorbent coats the coils of a mechanical vapor compressor, which cools the air the adsorbent has dehumidified in the manner of a conventional AC system. Air flow through the system is reversed and then reversed again in a period cycle to regenerate the saturated adsorbent.

Global consumption of air conditioning electricity, mainly generated from burning fossil fuels, has risen from 600 TWh in 1990 to 2,200 TWh in 2020, and based on current trends, could reach 6,300 TWh in 2050. By then, half of all electricity used by the world’s hottest countries, including Saudi Arabia, would be used just for keeping people cool.

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Italy’s Ventina Glacier Has Melted So Much Geologists Now Can Only Monitor It Remotely 

An overview of the Ventina glacier, near Sondrio, northern Italy,1985. (Lombardy Glaciology Service via AP) 
An overview of the Ventina glacier, near Sondrio, northern Italy,1985. (Lombardy Glaciology Service via AP) 
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Italy’s Ventina Glacier Has Melted So Much Geologists Now Can Only Monitor It Remotely 

An overview of the Ventina glacier, near Sondrio, northern Italy,1985. (Lombardy Glaciology Service via AP) 
An overview of the Ventina glacier, near Sondrio, northern Italy,1985. (Lombardy Glaciology Service via AP) 

Italy’s Ventina glacier, one of the biggest in northern Lombardy, has melted so much due to climate change that geologists can no longer measure it the way they have for the past 130 years.

After this year’s hot summer, geologists discovered that the simple stakes used as benchmarks to measure the glacier’s retraction each year are now buried under rockslides and debris that have made the terrain too unsteady for future in-person visits.

The Lombardy Glaciological Service said Monday that it will now use drone imagery and remote sensing to keep track of the ongoing shrinkage.

Geologists say that the Ventina glacier has already lost 1.7 kilometers (1 mile) in length since the first measuring benchmarks were positioned at the front of the glacier in 1895.

The melting has accelerated in recent years, with the glacier losing 431 meters (471 yards) in the last 10 years, nearly half of that since 2021, the service said. It's another example of how accelerating global warming is melting and shrinking Europe’s glaciers, causing a host of environmental and other impacts.

“While we could still hope until the 1980s that there would be normal cycles (of retraction) or at least a contained retraction, in the last 40 years something truly striking has occurred,” said Andrea Toffaletti, a member of the Lombardy Glaciological Service.

Italy’s mountain glaciers, which are found throughout the Alps and Dolomites in the north and along the central Apennines, have been receding for years, thanks to inadequate snowfall in the winter and record-setting hot summers. Glaciers always melt some in summer, with the runoff fueling mountain streams and rivers.

But the hot summers are “no longer able to guarantee the survival of the winter snowpack,” that keeps the glacier intact, Toffaletti said.

“In order to regenerate and remain in balance, a certain amount of residual snow from the winter must remain on the glacier's surface at the end of the summer. And this is happening less and less frequently,” said Toffaletti.

According to the Lombardy service, the Alps represent a climate hotspot, recording double the global average of temperature increases since pre-industrial times, resulting in the loss of over 64% of the volume of Alpine glaciers.

In February, the journal Nature reported on a study showing the world’s glaciers lost ice at the rate of about 255 billion tons (231 billion metric tons) annually from 2000 to 2011, but that quickened to about 346 billion tons (314 billion metric tons) annually over about the next decade.