Environmentally-friendly products? Good. Lower energy bills? Great. Cold beer? Yes, please. GE’s new refrigeration prototype? The triple threat.

Researchers at General Electric Labs have developed a refrigeration system that promises to deliver on all three improvements. Operating on magnets, a special metal alloy, and a water-based fluid, GE’s new refrigerator looks to replace the basic compressor system that is nearly a century old with a cleaner, more efficient appliance.

The small prototype, currently approximately the size of a shopping cart, runs a water-based fluid through a specific metal alloy that has an alternating magnetic force applied to it. This creates a magnetocaloric effect, the process by which some metal alloys gain heat when near magnets and lose heat when pulled away. By running the fluid through the magnets, the new device is capable of triggering the effect for refrigeration.