> I had an argument with someone who was apparently an insider in the 
> industry
> about passive solar cooling.  He couldn't describe it to me in a way that 
> didn't
> seem to be a gross violation of physics.  It sounded like a heat pipe, 
> where you
> heat up one end, but then because some heat is naturally flowing, extra 
> heat
> decides to come along for the ride.  That just didn't seem to float.   I 
> did
> some googling and the only thing I could find was the use of electric fans
> powered by solar cells.

Yes, car makers are very interested recently in using solar panels to do 
cooling.  The idea being that either they power fans to cool the interior of 
the car while the engine is off, or more recently (with bigger and more 
efficient cells) some are even trying to power some air-con system just from 
solar cells.

The only other effect I could think of was similar to the "solar chimney" 
already posted, it could possibly also be used in some fluid circulation 
system like heat pipes.  Anyway, the method seems to be getting the solar 
energy to power convection, which draws in fluid from/over a cool sink.

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