making ice from solar energy without electricity

[Thorin]

I thought this was interesting: http://www.solaripedia.com/13/389/solar_ice_maker_chills_with_heat.html.

Basically, it's a device that creates ice on a daily cycle due to solar energy causing gasses to expand and contract enough to freeze water.  I found it when I was following a blog comment about the self-cooling beer keg (WHAT AN INVENTION!)

[Darren Dirt]

The whole warmup-cooldown expand-contract idea makes me think of geothermal heating tech. Relatively small changes in temperature can cause enough pressure change that you can get some kind of energy collection out of it, cool* stuff.


















*sorry.

[Lazybones]

This seems like one of those ideal third world country techs, or something you should memorize in-case an EMP destroys our electrical grid or you ever get sent back in time since it looks like it doesn't really use anything to difficult to build.

[Thorin]

Well, better than how they did it 150 years ago: http://mentalfloss.com/article/22407/surprisingly-cool-history-ice

[Mr. Analog]

The John Gorrie story is fascinating, I remember seeing it on Connections (with James Burke). He was doing research into tropical diseases and the prevailing theory at the time was that "bad air" caused the spread of disease. As part of a treatment he had devised he would suspend a basin filled with ice in patients rooms, interesting idea, totally wrong, very expensive. Not knowing he was wrong though he solved the expense part by building a machine that could make ice. Back in the 19th century ice had a lot of commercial uses and was in cheap supply closer to Arctic regions where it could be collected, however in the tropics it was understandably expensive, so when he patented the idea he found that he couldn't sell it.

He died a financially ruined recluse.