The Cold Trap

Kris Potts seems like an average college student, but his dorm room is far from ordinary. Upon entering, sights of welding torches, cut up refrigerators, and various other contraptions ensnare the curious mind and leave you searching for the method behind the madness. Kris, an Oxy freshman, has created an invention that may someday put a serious dent in the problem of global climate change. His new Cold Trap, is a slight modification on the classic dorm room mini-fridge which will save energy without changing students’ lifestyles. Instead of the door opening like normal, the door of the Cold Trap opens down, like a dishwasher with two pieces of cloth attached to each side of the door, which fold out as you open it.

When you open up a normal mini-fridge, since cool air sinks, the air in the fridge flows out into your room and some of the warmer air in your room flows into the fridge. When you then close the door, the cooling unit has to work more to get the temperature back down to the desired level. If you use a Cold Trap then the dishwasher-like door and side clothes keep the cool air from flowing out of the unit. Kris and his project partner Grey Kammerer have tested a mini-fridge by opening it every 5 minutes for 15 seconds and after one hour of testing, the same fridge with his modifications used 0.095 fewer KWH. This number is not all that staggering, but when extrapolated to a whole year, each dorm room mini-fridge will save about 34.6 KWH, approximately $5 at current energy prices. This is not a big number, but we are not yet talking about big refrigerators or large quantities of refrigerators. If he were to modify every mini-fridge on campus, in roughly 600 rooms, and each saved $5, the school could save $3,000 a year at current prices. There is potential for a significant impact on energy efficiency when this same concept is applied to large home refrigerators, fast food freezers, and coffee shop refrigerators (which are opened every time someone gets milk or ice in a drink).

The great thing about Kris’ idea is that you don’t need to buy a new refrigerator, because he can modify practically any make of mini-fridge out there. He charges $5 for modifications to a dorm room fridge, and you can choose any color fabric for the sides. He soon plans on talking to local restaurateurs about allowing him to make some modifications on their freezers and fridges. He also hopes to have invented a browsing friendly refrigerator with a clear plexiglass front to allow you to see inside without having to open up the unit. A long journey to energy efficiency begins with a single step in the right direction.