Make your own light air conditioner
for Rs.1500 ($30)
Over the past five summers, after developing over 25 variegated models of Snowbreeze, a mild ice-based air-conditioning system, partly funded by Government of India, we have at last come to a model which you can make yourself without any help. It is a perfect low intensity air conditioner consisting only of a plastic bucket some aluminium pipes and an exhaust fan. In winter you can convert it into an energy saving and humidified room heater.
A silent “green” “ice energy” revolution is taking place in Europe, cooling offices with ice. The Economist (London) says that “in southern Europe (spanning over a dozen countries from Atlantic to Black Sea) roughly one in 20 air conditioned offices is now cooled with ice.” Thus millions of square metres of office space in Mediterranean Europe is ice-cooled. America, Canada and Brazil are catching up.
A Chinese company is the first to undertake commercial manufacture and marketing of various models of Snowbreeze. (See http://zjmore.manufacturer.
com/product647
4348-Snowbreeze+Mini+Air+Conditioner.html)
The question is “when will India wake up and see the vast reservoir of ice energy waiting to be tapped almost in every home?”
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Snowbreeze AC
Room air, when forced through aluminium pipes loaded with ice, comes out 8oC to 10oC cooler and drier in a thick jet-like stream.
Click here for pictorial description |
Times of India and Economic Times
March 22, 2011
(Quoting the inventor on the new Snowbreeze Technology)
 “The greatest achievement (of Snowbreeze) is that it has given the world a new source of energy called ice energy. One has to spend a lot to tap solar or wind energy, but a person can use ice enerygy sitting at home. It is also a hot topic of research abroad," says Lal, gingerly typing on his iPad, and going to his webpage to testify.
It functions simply. "This is what happens in the Himalayas. River and seawater evaporate and rise up to form clouds. When clouds hit mountains, water turns into snow and flows back down into the rivers," explains Lal, who calls the device "a green Gandhian air conditioner."
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Snowbreeze as Room Heater |
Converting Snow- breeze-1 into a humidifed, power saving room heat- er is a simple process. Remove the lid of the |
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ice-drum. Suspend a 300 to 500 watt halogen bulb from a bar resting on its rim, with its frame tilted inward, in the upper half of the drum, filling the lower 40% of it with water and leaving a gap of half to one inch between the water and the bulb-frame. Then switch on the system. Warm air will start blowing into the room within 10 minutes. The warming up period could be reduced to five minutes or less if, to start with, you put pre-heated water in the drum. |
| Click here for full article |
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People’s Snowbreeze
It cuts down ice consumption by 70%
Click here for final report on Project
(partly funded by Government of India) |
Dedication
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A Cool Discovery for millions
(The Hindu February 25, 2010)
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Retired scribe has invented ‘Snowbreeze’, a cooler which saves water and power AGE NO BAR: Octogenarian M.B. Lal has invented 13 models of the “Snowbreeze” so far and says this is his last service to humanity, particularly for those living below the poverty line.
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| Click here for full article |
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Beat The Heat
(The Statesman, March 2010)
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Three years since an elderly journalist came up with the ‘common man’s airconditioner’, his Snowbreeze variants have acquired government support and a ‘green’ guarantee. |
Click here for full article |
Green AC that’s
cheap as a cooler
(Snowbreeze’ to keep you cool)
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It’s energy conserving, non-polluting and lightweight. It dehumidifies the surroundings like a normal air conditioner and costs much less. |
Click here for full article |
Dean Nelson’s Blog on (London) Telegraph website
Dean Nelson is the Telegraph Media Group's South Asia editor.
The Burfwala Cometh |
“The Snowbreeze arrived a few weeks later in a large blue plastic dustbin, which clashed with everyth- ing and then we had to wait for the burfwala (ice man) to deliver the 20 kgs of ice required to cool the room overnight. |
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Click here for full article |
America Wakes up!
Over the next two years, 11 participating utilities in California will install 6,000 of the ice energy devices at a total of 1,500 locations, providing 53 megawatts of energy storage to relieve strain on the region's electrical grid. The project is the first large-scale implementation of Ice Energy's technology.
For details visit: http://www.technologyreview.
com/
energy/25352 |
Three Stage Snowbreeze 4 |
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A perfect green air conditioner. It gives you the options of cooling your room air by 5oC, 7oC or 11oC. |
Click here for details
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Snowbreeze 4
(A Desk-Top AC)
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Encased in a sleek, shiny, sturdy and small steel can (13”x13”x15”), and carrying twice the weight of copper coils that was fitted in all previous models, it is one of the most effective cooling and dehumidifying models in the series.
Click here for details
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Click each title for details of Models given below
Snowbreeze 1 |
Designed in several shapes and sizes Snowbreeze 1 runs a stream of compressed air for 100 to 150 feet through aluminium groo- ves fitted in a separate casing around an alumini- |
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um drum packed with ice. It keeps the room cooled and dehumidified for about 8 hours when it has to be refilled with ice after draining out condensed water. For details see Mini-Snowbreeze section |
Click here for details
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Mini-Snowbreeze
A Boon For the old and Sick |
Elderly people with limited means need not die of heat or cold for lack of facilities to cope with the weather and power breakd- owns. Invented by an |
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80 years old man in similar circumstan- ces, Mini-Snowbreeze is a cheap but effective air conditioner which can run on an inverter and keep a small room cool and dehumidified for eight hours with “free” ice from the family fridge (Cost Rs.2,500-$50).
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Water cooled Snowbreeze
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We now have a working model that can run round-the-clock entirely on chilled water circulating automatically between the water cooler and Snowbreeze.
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Click here for details |
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Snowbreeze 2
(A unique self-cooling AC) |
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Snowbreeze-2 is a unique cooling device the like of which has never been invented bef- ore it harnesses the self-cooling energy of water in conjunction with ice, based on the centuries old self-cooling ‘matka’ (pitcher) principle, which sets in motion an automatic convection current in a water body.
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Snowbreeze
Fan Mail, Orders
Newspaper and TV reports of Snowbreeze have brought me a flood of orders for Snowbreeze 4 by email from all over the country though only now a few businessmen are coming forward to manufacture this gadget.
I am reproducing the contents of these letters in a separate section of this website since to me they represent the pulse of the nation. Together with the Chinese firm’s initiative they are indicative of what the Indian middle class intelligentsia expect from the concerned authorities.
Click here for text of letters |
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Automated Snowbreeze Models |
The latest 90% energy saving,100% green, fully autom- ated models of Snowbreeze de- signed to match a wall airconditioner. Their chief advantage is that it costs you practically nothing but a mere pressing of a switch to keep your room cool and comfortable during the summer and monsoon seasons, whenever you want it.
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Battery Powered Rural Unit |
It is a special model suited for rural areas where power is available for just a few hours a day or not at all. It can run for eight hours at a time on a specially designed power unit equipped with an automatically recharging 15-ampere dry battery and a 6" DC fan.
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LINKS
Contact address:
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