Scientists at General Electric have developed a breakthrough refrigeration system that is said to be 20 percent more efficient than current systems already on the market. Unlike traditional systems that use a chemical refrigerant and a compressor, GE’s new system is based around a metal alloy that heats up when placed near a magnet and cools down when taken away.

That latter bit is what’s important here. As outlined in the clip above, today’s refrigerators work by extracting heat from within and dumping it into your kitchen. The new system would essentially do the same thing, just with magnets and the special metal alloy instead.

The system is still in an early prototype state and is too large to fit inside a commercial fridge. But GE is confident in their ability to shrink the technology down so it’ll be small enough to fit inside a fridge by the end of the decade.
