[sammyg2]

Rich, funny you should mention that refrigerator thing.
A couple of days ago I was starting at my fridge. It cools the coils by blowing air over them. The air gets hot, and transfers the heat to the room. That's OK in the winter but in the summer it adds more heat that the air conditioner has to get rid of. In the winter we could save electricity by using colder outside air to cool the coils as you said. Basically a heat pump hooked up to the fridge. It would be a universal unit built into the house just like a central air conditioner unit and the fridge would basically just plug into it. If you wanted to get fancy you could even bury the coils underground where it is cooler and reduce or eliminate the need for a fan, more energy savings. It would save room under and behind the fridge which would allow more storage space for the save outside space.
The initial investment would be high but it should last for a long time. It would reduce the cost of a fridge a little and reduce the cost of running it, so it would pay for itself after a number of years, not to mention it would be more ecologically responsible (did I say that?)

I figure it's only a matter of time before we have these, just remember you heard it here first or second or third.