Bill Lear — and a prototype system

When hurricanes, wars or other emergencies force authorities to respond, three essentials top their list of must-haves: water, electricity and refrigeration.

Now, in a project funded by the U.S. Army, two University of Florida engineers have designed, built and successfully tested a combined power-refrigeration system that can provide all three – and, with further development, be made compact enough to fit inside a military jet or large truck.

The engineering researchers’ solution: a small system that ties a novel gas turbine power plant to a heat-operated refrigeration system. The refrigeration makes the gas turbine more efficient, while also producing cool air and potable water. The turbine can run on conventional fossil fuels as well as biomass-produced fuels or hydrogen.

The system, which makes water by condensing the turbine’s combustion gases, is capable of producing about one gallon of water for every gallon of fuel burned, Sherif said. The water would need to be treated to be potable, but even if untreated it could be used for cleaning or other purposes. Because the plant reuses gases so extensively, the power plant also has very low polluting emissions, Lear added.

It took some time to track this down — the original article about this process. Lots of folks are writing about it; but, this does the best job of explaining what’s going on.