A few days ago, after I wrote a post about styrofoam dome houses, one reader asked why styrofoam isn't used in refrigerators. This seemed like a logical question; after all, styrofoam is cheap, lightweight, and a great insulator. For the life of me, I can't figure out why it isn't commonly used to insulate fridges. After all, refrigerators generally consume more electricity than any other household appliance, and it seems logical that a little strategically-applied foam insulation could really help.

Well, leave it to the folks at Oak Ridge National Laboratories to take the fridge to the next level. Their "Fridge of the Future" uses vacuum-insulated panels, polyurethane foam, an adaptive defroster, and DC motors to massively reduce its energy expenditure. The superfridge uses less than one kWh per day, half the energy consumed by the average current refrigerator/freezer, and one fifth the energy consumed by a 1972 model.

Because of the vacuum panels, which tend to be expensive, production costs on the superfridge would be about $134 more than those of the average refrigerator. On the other hand, a model without vacuum panels would still save over half a kWh per day, and would only cost $53 more to produce. On the other hand, the first company to produce the superfridge could probably charge a premium price. Paging SubZero!