Hi Carlo,
Sorry to burst this bubble... The Peltier cooling chips upon which their
"invention" is based, are typically 5 to 10 percent efficient (i.e. it takes
100 watts of power input to produce 5 to 10 watts of heat removal). Even the
current bleeding edge technology is only in the 20% range. On the other
hand, mechanical refrigeration such as used in automotive AC systems, is
typically 80% efficient - 100 watts of power input gets you 80 watts of heat
removal.
The teens mentioned in this article somehow equated electrical power in a
car with being "free", while in fact it has to come from the alternator. An
effective mechanical AC system requires several horsepower of power input,
and there is no alternator on the market with more than about 2 HP peak
output. Even if that issue were overcome, the wiring involved in passing
several hundred amps to the cooling system is nontrivial and would take up a
significant amount of space, both underhood and in the passenger
compartment. Another problem with Peltier coolers is that the hot side of
the cooler is immediately adjacent to the cold plate - you get 10 watts
worth of cool air from the ducts but there's a 100 watt radiator on the side
of the duct... Where's that hot air going to go?
Their idea has some merit, but it's not anywhere close to commercial
realizability at this point in time, and it's unfortunate that the hype
around this thing has reached this level. The economic analysis mentioned in
the article is pure bunk - cars manufactured in the last (ten?) years don't
use Freon, they use HC-134A, and since a Peltier cooling system would use
four to ten times the energy to produce an equivalent amount of cooling to
the mechanical AC system, it's tough to proclaim it as an ecologically sound
alternative to modern AC systems.
Theo
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