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Scientists Invent Ultrasonic Dryer That Uses Sound To Dry Your Clothes (yahoo.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Yahoo: Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have developed a dryer that could make doing laundry much quicker. Called the ultrasonic dryer, it's expected to be up to five times more energy efficient than most conventional dryers and able dry a large load of clothes in about half the time. Instead of using heat the way most dryers do, the ultrasonic dryer relies on high-frequency vibrations. Devices called green transducers convert electricity into vibrations, shaking the water from clothes. The scientists say that this method will allow a medium load of laundry to dry in 20 minutes, which is significantly less time than the average 50 minutes it takes in many heat-based machines. The drying technology also leaves less lint behind than normal dryers do, since the majority of lint is created when the hot air stream blows tiny fibers off of clothing. Drying clothes without heat also reduces the chance that their colors will fade. While the ultrasonic dryer has been in development for the past couple of years, the U.S. Department of Energy explains in a published video that it has recently been "developed into a full-scale press dryer and clothes dryer drum -- setting the stage for it to one day go to market through partners like General Electric Appliances."
That explains a lot why the average power consumption in the US is 11MWh compared to a meager 4-6MWh in the EU. The longer washing cycles use much less energy.
Why would you care about how long it would take? You don't have to watch it to completion!
Then I'll hang it all out to dry.
Now I understand that stateside having clothes hang outside is a sure sign of poverty. While I'm certainly not rich, there is no such stigma here.
In the county where I am in the US there are by-laws that prohibit hanging washing outside*, and from what I understand this is not uncommon.
In addition there are by-laws that prohibit using furniture and items that were intended for inside use, from being used outside your house. I assume this was to stop people putting old couches on their front porch. But a few years ago a local was prosecuted for using an old bath tub as a planter in their backyard. The kicker was that you couldn't see the bath tub from the street.
Home of the free. Yeah, right.
* And at this time of the year you wouldn't want to hang your clothe outside. There is so much pollen flying around that your clothes would be unrecognizable.
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In the meantime one could consider a heat-pump clothes dryer. Rather than using electricity or natural gas to heat indoor air, pass it over the clothes, then dump it to the outside in a once-through cycle, a heat-pump dryer uses (as you can guess) a heat pump. The hot side of the heat pump creates warm air that passes over the clothes gathering moisture. The cold side condenses the moisture back out, before passing this de-humidifed air back to the hot side.
Advantages:
Yes, they are more expensive. That is to be expected, considering how dirt-simple the mechanisms of a traditional dryer are. However, depending on your local electricity rates and how much laundry you do, the breakeven should be well within the lifetime of the appliance. Maybe that's not enough to junk a perfectly good existing dryer, but should definitely be considered when purchasing a replacement.
Driers are useful when the conditions outside aren't amenable to drying clothing. For example, if the outside temperature is below freezing, which is common in many places for at least one month out of the year, clothing turns into icicles. Or if it's raining outside. Or if it's early spring and the local farmers are spreading manure in their fields in preparation for the spring harvest, and you don't want your clothing to smell like manure after a few hours outside. (For the record, I have no objection to living near farmers who use manure. I just keep my windows closed at certain times of the day and don't hang my laundry out to dry.)
As for interior, my current apartment doesn't have room for me to put a drying rack anywhere that I won't trip over it.
There are valid reasons for someone to own a drier and not hang their clothing outside.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
Europeans manage to dry their clothes just fine with all the conditions you've listed.
So how exactly do they manage to dry clothes when 1) it's raining outside, and rains every day in fact (as in the Pacific Northwest), 2) it's snowing outside, or 3) it's below freezing outside (which is common in the winter in many parts of the US), or 4) it's 100% humidity outside (which is normal in the southeast US during the summer)?