A Refrigerator that Runs Without Electricity

Sometimes there are simple solutions to universal needs that don’t require coal fired electricity, fossil fuels, or even solar panels or wind turbines.

Around a third of the world’s population have no access to electricity. If you’re like me, you’ve spent your entire life being able to plug in. Do we ever give a thought to what life would be like if the various appliances we’ve come to rely on were to suddenly stop working? One of the most energy guzzling appliances in our carbon footprint portfolio is the refrigerator. But, unplug it, and the quality of your life will suddenly deteriorate. Take that thought, and imagine living in a hot dry country in Africa, without electricity, where food quickly wilts and rots in the sun, aided by onslaughts of flies.

One modern day genius, mindful of this basic need to preserve food, has solved the problem for many. Mohammed Bah Abba, a Nigerian teacher, invented the ‘device’ — a refrigerator that doesn’t require electricity!

From a family of pot-makers, Mohammed has made ingeniously simple use of the laws of thermodynamics to create the pot-in-pot refrigerator, called a Zeer in Arabic.

Here’s how it works.