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In 2014 I wrote several columns for ASHRAE Journal on different ways of using water for refrigeration, but I neglected one of the most ancient, common, easy and effective ones: ice. Ice has been used for thousands of years to

The investment in new refrigeration equipment is one of the largest capital commitments that a cold store or freezer operator can make. There is always pressure to figure out how to minimize the “sticker shock” associated with the project cost.

Last month, in Part 1 of “Be More Specific,” we thought about the ways in which people try to assess energy performance of cold stores and the reasons why those methods are unsatisfactory. It seems obvious that the true measure of efficiency should be the size of the electricity bill at the end of the […]

For years I have been hearing that coefficient of performance (COP), sometimes called energy efficiency ratio (EER), is the most important parameter in refrigeration systems if you care about energy performance. These are the ratio of cooling effect (or heating effect for heat pumps) to the energy input, often expressed as a dimensionless ratio because […]

After an incident or accident there seems to be no end to the people willing to step up and offer an opinion on just where exactly things went wrong. Engineers have a relentless desire to understand things better and I regularly tell my staff that it is smart to learn from your mistakes, but smarter […]

If it were invented today it would surely be prohibited! It is flammable. It is highlytoxic. It is ethyl alcohol. The United States tried prohibition 100 years ago when the 18th amendment was ratified on Jan. 16, 1919. While it had undoubted short-termmedical benefits (reduced liver disease, reduced poverty, reduced violent crime),these were soon reversed […]

Of all precious metals, gold is the king. Others may be less common or more expensive but gold captures the imagination like no other. It is remarkably commonplace, albeit in very small quantities, being used in printed circuits, electrical contacts, dental implants and sun visors as well as jewelry and coinage. Despite this widespread usage […]

The National Institute of Standards and Technology was founded 118 years agothis month, originally as the National Bureau of Standards. Headquartered inGaithersburg, Md., NIST has made a huge contribution to the development of refrigeration technology in that time, not least through the development of their reference properties software, known as “Refprop.” This tool has guided […]

On July 10, 1893 a fire in a cold storage warehouse in Chicago claimed the lives ofat least 16 men including at least 15 firefighters and injured over 20 others. Thewarehouse was on the edge of the Columbian Exposition fairground and had beenintended to have the dual purpose of providing provisions to the restaurants andcafes […]

Over the years I have developed a real appreciation for the skill of the project manager, particularly when it comes to the management of “fast track” projects. Recently, it seems, every job is urgent and the days when a project wasn’t “fast track” are a distant memory. So what makes a job “fast track” and […]