sinkingship@mander.xyztoDIY@slrpnk.net•Increasing the efficiency of (some) refrigerators with commonly available foam insulation, potentially cutting yearly energy costs in half
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17 days agoI don’t know where you live. But where I live, styrofoam costs next to nothing. In fact, you get it for free, if you don’t mind looking through another man’s trash. You can also probably get some for free if you ask a company, that gets stuff sent, that need cooling. Like a supermarket.
For environment: styrofoam is a kind of plastic, so there is that. On the plus side, it’s quite little plastic inflated with air.
I assume it’s way better than getting a replacement fridge, especially considering the electronics and maybe the coolant gas (I don’t know if that’s still an issue).
I wouldn’t be surprised if the electricity saved alone offsets the environment damage (assuming not fully green power used to run the fridge).
Regarding solar electricity: does that mean to mirror the sunlight to a solar panel? If so: ignoring, that one would constantly need to adapt the mirror’s position, I think I also read somewhere that solar panels decrease efficiency with heat. So my question is: could one increase solar panel output by bundling light or would heat related inefficiency cancel that out?