this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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Mildly Interesting
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well technically it is powered, just directly by wind and water kinetic energy, probably(?) much more efficiently than if it had been converted to electricity first
Do we know it's more efficient? Has anyone done the math?
Are you joking?
No, I'm being genuine. It's theoretical and all, but if you were to put up a windmill in the same spot instead of a tower, it's possible traditional air conditioners would be able to cool the building to the same degree while also providing surplus electricity. It's also possible that you wouldn't, and I don't know the answer. It would also be interesting to compare it in different ways as well, like rather than asking "If a windmill was here" we could ask "The energy removed from the wind by the tower", because that would indicate scalability problems if one windmill was indeed able to cool one building, but maybe 100 wouldn't be able to cool 100. All hypothetical, but air conditioners/heat pumps are actually very efficient, so it's possible an active design could be more efficient than a passive one in this situation. At least, until someone does the math
Another thing to note, to your point, is that a windmill breaks down and requires energy to repair. These wind towers in Yazd are still there and doing the same thing from hundreds of years ago
Very true. The best machines have the fewest moving parts
True, and it wasn't meant as an attack at all, just a question out of curiosity. The towers are super cool
Exactly, I have no idea. The "probably(?)" in my comment should have been a "maybe," probably maybe.