The snow? Good for making air conditioning

If in the coming months it will snow, the snow drifts piled up under the house or on the balcony could be gold (in summer 2017). Why not harness the power of the cold to save on air conditioning? If they ask for two Canadian researchers, the University of British Columbia, in a study published in the journal Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy.

FROM WASTE TO RESOURCE. Based on a computer model developed by the two directing the

ventilation ducts of a building into a pile of snow collected and removed from the road, it could reduce the use of air conditioning, saving money and greenhouse gas emissions. It's not so new idea: something like that already do so in countries such as Sweden or Japan.

SALE OF FROST. "The technology we are talking about is very similar to that used in geothermal heating and cooling systems that take advantage of the cool underground temperatures in summer," the researchers explain. "The difference is that instead of bringing down the pipes underground, these should be brought to snow deposits. It would move the cold temperatures from the snow to the building's ventilation system. "

THE LIMITS. The system, they warn, could work unless electricity prices in the affected area are skyrocketing, and as long as the snow is plentiful (no small detail but perhaps negligible, Canada). Also it is missing in the study, an estimate of the costs necessary to preserve the snow until summer, or at least until the first warm.

OTHERWISE, YOU CAN DO. Some people can take advantage of the snow. Bibai, the island of Hokkaido (the northernmost and least developed between the main islands of the archipelago of Japan), the winter snow, packed in special warehouses, keeps cool agricultural products at lower than the electricity bill. When it's hot, the cold generated by the snow or cold melt water are used to cool the buildings: it must be said that the average temperature of August does not exceed 22 degrees, and that for several months a year the island is swept by Siberian winds.

In Sundsvall, Sweden (more favorable place in the cold), a cooling system based on a snow storage keeps cool the local hospital already since 2000, and makes sure that medical equipment does not overheat.