Utah teens develop thermoelectric Car air-conditioners.

Here's an interesting story about a couple of tennagers from Utah who developed an air-conditioner for cars that uses the Peltier effect and could lead to substantial saving in fuel consumption.

www.sltrib.com...

BLUFFDALE - The code name, Space Beast, was one they came up with in the wee hours of the night.
Tyler Lyon, Daniel Winegar and Chad Thornley were overtired and giddy as they tackled a science fair project. Their idea: Eliminate the use of Freon in automobile air-conditioning systems by relying on the Peltier effect - of course.

--snip--

Today, the young inventors say, U.S. drivers use about 7.9 billion gallons of fuel each year to run their air-conditioners, which draw power from the engine. By adopting their contraption - which taps into the electrical system, using fans to blow hot air through five Peltier chips and then releasing cold air - they say the country stands to save 3.9 billion gallons of fuel annually, or about $10 billion based on current gas prices.
Furthermore, the product would free drivers from Freon - which despite improvements, remains an ozone-depleting chemical in current air-conditioners. The Peltier chips, which they purchased on eBay for $9.99 each, have a life span of 20 to 30 years and an unfaltering cooling capacity. And like every component in the Space Beast, which can be minimized in size to about 2 inches in width, the chips are recyclable.

I'm really surprised this hasn't been done before.
I thought of this years ago as a way to make cars more energy efficient and was wondering why no manufacturers were using it. I hadn't realized that nobody had been able to make it work.

It'll be great if manufacturers start using this technology.

[edit on 22-7-2005 by AceOfBase]

Should've sat down, worked on it, and gotten a patent!

That's fantastic. It eliminates 50% of the fuel needed. I doubt oil companies would be happy, but by god that's brilliant. Those kids are exactly what the world needs - people thinking on their own to come up with alternatives and sidesteps around the oil problem.

Also, they'll get a pretty penny.