AC Trivia

September 15, 2010

Burj Dubai

The Burj Dubai – Photo courtesy of Daniel Cheong

The air conditioning system for the Burj Dubai (the tallest building in the world), produces approximately fifty-one million gallons of condensation each year, which is salvaged and pumped into an irrigation system.

In 1881 naval engineers constructed an air conditioner consisting of a fan blowing air across a box of cloths saturated with ice water. It lowered the temperature of a room by 20 degrees. The catch? It consumed half a million pounds of ice in two months time. (Source: Jones Jr., Malcolm. “Air Conditioning”. Newsweek Winter 1997 v130)

During their famous walk on the moon, Neil Armstong’s and Buzz Aldrin’s spacesuits had built in cooling systems utilizing a liquid cooling undergarment. Think one of these suits would come in handy for walking around in the heat of a Texas summer? Think again. On earth the infamous NASA Apollo 11 spacesuit would weigh 180 pounds.

In what film does a hunter come across two-million dollars from a drug deal gone bad and hide it in an ac vent? Answer

Americans use as much energy to power their air conditioners each years as the entire amount of energy consumed by all of Africa.
