Almost Genius: Refrigerator Saves Energy, by Clinging to Walls... Outside

Wow, <i>that's</i> gimmicky. Let me guess how this started...<p><i>Designer:</i> How can we save energy by redesigning the fridge?<p><i>Engineer:</i> Well, you could save a lot of energy if the expansion coil weren't warming up your air-conditioned interior. We could run piping from the fridge to a box outside, like a window-unit air conditioner.<p><i>Designer:</i> No one is going to run pipes out of their kitchen... Oh! Lets put the <i>whole fridge</i> outside! No ugly pipes, and then it would be in the <i>sun</i>! Solar power!<p><i>Engineer:</i> ... Do you even know how much energy a fridge uses compared to cheap flexible solar paneling? How are we going to insulate it from the 95 deg direct sun in the summer? How do we keep seals from freezing in the winter? What about all the energy you lose every time you <i>open a window</i> from a climate controlled room to the outside?<p><i>Designer:</i> And LED's!<p><i>Engineer:</i> ...<p><i>Designer:</i> It's like every unit sold is an <i>advertisement for us</i>!<p><i>Engineer:</i> I need a beer and an escape slide.

This seems like the worst way to use the outside temperature to your advantage. They didn't even mention that it would have to be heated in the winter unless you wanted your milk to freeze solid. It's probably a lot more practical to just keep your fridge indoors and hook it up to a heat pump outside.

Reusing natural heat/cold should really be more common... Free energy. I remember seeing designs for a shower whose drainpipe wrapped around the cold water pipe. The heat transfer through the pe between the two made for a 30ish percent energy reduction.

External? Hell no. I don't want to clean bird-poop off my fridge. Ick.<p>Wall mounted, mostly-vertical arrangement for a small fridge? I like. But it needs to fit four things reliably to be considered by most people: gallon milk jugs, 2 Liter bottles, 12-packs of cans, and 6-packs of bottles. Were it a freezer, I'd add a medium-large pizza box to the list.<p>(above list not mean to imply that's all people use, just that they're standard shapes / sizes of <i>many</i> things people put in their fridges. So much so that fridges and these items are <i>designed</i> to fit each other with narrow tolerances.)