Ceiling fan
Meanwhile, electric ceiling fans became very popular in other countries, particularly those with hot climates, such as India and the Middle East, where a lack of infrastructure and/or financial resources made energy-hungry and complex freon-based air conditioning equipment impractical. In 1973, Texas entrepreneur H. W. (Hub) Markwardt began importing highly efficient ceiling fans to the United States that were manufactured in India by Crompton Greaves, Ltd. Crompton Greaves had been manufacturing ceiling fans since 1937 through a joint venture formed by Greaves Cotton of India and Crompton Parkinson of England, and had perfected the world's most energy efficient ceiling fans thanks to its patented 20 pole induction motor with a highly efficient heat-dissipating cast aluminum rotor. These Indian manufactured ceiling fans caught on slowly at first, but Markwardt's Encon Industries branded ceiling fans (which stood for ENergy CONservation) eventually found great success during the energy crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s, since they consumed far less energy (under 70 watts of electricity) than the antiquated shaded pole motors used in most other American made fans. The fans became very effective energy saving appliances for residential and commercial use by supplementing expensive air conditioning with a cooling wind-chill effect. Fans used for comfort create a wind chill by increasing the heat transfer coefficient, but do not lower temperatures directly.
Due to this renewed commercial success using ceiling fans effectively as an energy conservation application, many American manufacturers also started to produce, or significantly increase production of, ceiling fans. In addition to the imported Encon ceiling fans, the Casablanca Fan Company was founded in 1974. Other American manufacturers of the time included the Hunter Fan Co. (which was then a division of Robbins & Myers, Inc), FASCO (F. A. Smith Co.), and Emerson Electric; which was often branded as Sears-Roebuck.
Air conditioned clothing
One advantage of air-cooled clothing is that it requires much less energy to cool people down than to cool down their entire environment. For instance, an air cooled shirt uses 4,400 mAh of power for 8.5 hours on the fastest fan setting, while an average central air conditioning unit uses 3000 to 5000 watts of power. In some cases, the purpose of air-conditioning is not to cool down the objects in the room, but the people. Directly ventilating clothing is therefore far more efficient. A 2012 New York Times article reported that gases commonly used in air conditioning absorb some 2,100 times more infrared radiation per ton than carbon dioxide, and due partly to increasing use of air conditioning in the developing world (particularly in tropical areas like India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil, and southern China), air conditioning is projected to contribute to some 27% of the overall greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Although there are some ideas for room air conditioning units that do not significantly contribute to producing greenhouse gases, none of those options are yet on the market.