Eli Goldstein, co-founder, and CEO of SkyCool Systems (skycoolsystems.com) delivers an informative overview of his company’s incredible technology that produces cooling by utilizing the cold environment of outer space. His company, SkyCool Systems, works to provide clean, renewable, breakthrough technologies that allow for more sustainable and cost-effective cooling that is efficient and decreases water loss. Mr. Goldstein’s interest in energy systems and science led him to pursue and secure his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. He has since worked extensively in the field as well as in academia. Mr. Goldstein has spearheaded experimentation and testing in thermal modeling and continues to work toward advancing the science.

SkyCool Systems’ patented heat panel is easily installable to any roof. Once installed, the panel receives fluid that is cooled passively by sending heat to the sky. Through the use of a specially developed film that prevents heating from the sun, it is able to cool below the existing air temperature. Goldstein explains the technology behind SkyCool Systems’ patented product. As he details, their specially developed film is specifically designed to mirror, and not absorb heat from the sun. While avoiding the heat absorption, the panel’s film is able to emit light in the infrared that is transparent to our atmosphere, and thus it can go all the way into space. This process allows SkyCool Systems’ panel to utilize outer space as a cold resource. Thus, unlike any other material exposed to the sun, SkyCool Systems’ panels, via their patented technology, are able to cool down, in spite of the sun’s tremendous heat. While the technology is available and successfully working to lower temperatures for structures, Goldstein muses that someday it may be possible to even have clothing that is made from materials that work off the same infrared transparency model.

As SkyCool Systems’ technology moves further into the marketplace, an immediate application will be to merge their panels with commercial air conditioning and refrigeration cooling systems, to allow for more efficient and productive cooling from those traditional systems. Via ‘sub-cooling,’ SkyCool Systems’ technology can increase the cooling of the traditional systems’ refrigerants with an overall goal of improving efficiency by ten to twenty percent. Goldstein explains the radiation aspects of his technology with the example of a space heater. As a space heater uses thermal radiation to provide heat to someone even though they are ten or twenty feet away, SkyCool Systems’ technology can perform in a similar manner, but with cooling as opposed to heat.

From supermarkets to convenience stores, office buildings to data centers, Goldstein discusses how SkyCool Systems’ innovative process can increase cooling efficiency, decrease electricity usage, and do it all without needing to evaporate water. And as tech companies’ data centers typically use hundreds of millions of gallons of water for their cooling systems, SkyCool Systems’ process is a unique solution to decrease this massive water waste. Goldstein discusses how the use of these methods for cooling dates back to ancient civilizations, as early Persian civilizations utilized the technique to actually make ice in desert climates.

By making well-insulated buildings with a hole in the ceiling that allowed for exposure to the sky, these early civilizations discovered the powerful effects of night cooling to assist them with food storage, general cooling, and more. From cooling medicines to structures, to combine work with solar thermal systems, and beyond, Goldstein’s work is just the tip of the iceberg, literally and figuratively, of where he plans to take SkyCool Systems’ technology.

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