$100 laptop, $30 fridge, 3 cents worth of commentary
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Bending back expectation and shattering my rudimentary understanding of science (I mean, burning wood to power fridges? This has a certain Yakov Smirnov “television watches you” logic), a consortium of British universities have designed a wood burning device that acts as a refrigerator, cooker and power generator.
The Stove for Cooking, Refrigeration and Electricity (SCORE) takes advantage of thermoacoustic technology (better believe spell check flagged that one), where sound waves are used to either heat something up or cool it down. As the article on nature.com points out, the SCORE will “generate electricity and cool the fridge while it is operating as a stove.”
So hooray for Third World progress, and a genuine thanks to the scientists and technologists who devoted themselves to this worthwhile goal. But the SCORE is action packed with lesson excitement for us industrialists as well.
It helps to highlight that in developed countries a large swath of the population has moved beyond need as the primary impetus for consumption. We're not designing stove-fridges anymore. As a replacement for need we focus on want, and that means sometimes the line gets blurred between the two. All of a sudden we need things we should want (I see you iPhone and AppleTV) and lose track of a few of the real essentials. So in honor of the wood burning refrigerator, let’s all get a little Yakov Smirnov today. Build a treehouse, see a show, talk to your friends and then talk to your family – IMing doesn’t count. Realize that what you need is hardly ever displayed on an LCD screen or broadcast on the Interwebs. Rinse, wash, repeat and we should get right back on track.
posted by Matt Mack
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