Have you ever stood in front of your household freezer one hot summer day to cool down? It felt great right? Not to mention the fact that the process was simple. You open the fridge door, stand in front of it and voila! Well, it turns out that ice can also effectively cool down a whole company!

Credit Suisse which calls New York's MetLife home relies on such a system. Here's how it works. The basement floor contains 64 tanks that hold about 800 tons of water. At night, the water is frozen and then during the day, the cool mist or air from the ice blocks are ventilated throughout the company. In this particular company, 2.15 million kilowatt-hours are saved annually and is equivalent to taking 223 cars off the road for the year. Apparently, this is enough to power about 200 homes or so! The company not only saves money because of this cost-effective method, but it also saves the environment by cutting down on the pollution that regular air-conditioning produces. I love the fact that Credit Suisse manages to do this in the middle of New York City. If that's not a test for you, then I don't know what is because New York City alone consumes more power during the blazing hot summer days than the entire country of Chile! So now that you know it works, pass the word around! You never know!