Thermoelectric cooling is notable for not having any moving parts and ability to scale down to small sizes, so it might end up having many specialized applications, but for A/C heat pumps are already very effective.
In practice I strongly suspect most peltier based systems are built very cheaply... because their inefficiency means the majority of the market is bordering on a scam. Sophisticated consumers aren't going to be buying very many fridges built with them (of course you might have a niche use case where they actually make sense and you're willing to pay for a quality product, but do most purchasers?).
"better" "cheaper" "cleaner" is buried by political spite agendas
There's engineering challenges here, but I believe the science is pretty clear that in principle these beat gas phase change systems.
Do you know by how much?
Thermoelectric cooling is extremely inefficient, to the point that we have very little practical use for it right now. Heat pumps a hundred times more effective predominate.
Aren't there theoretical limits to this sort of cooling too?
But, if this innovation causes Technology Connections to make yet another heat pumps video, I'm all for it.
Solar panels used to be horrible at efficiency. Now they’re pretty amazing and extremely competitive in the power generation market. It, similarly, took a few decades of these kinds of efficiency improvements to get there.
To be fair, in my understanding economies of scale kicked in _hard_ for solar, making it much cheaper to produce single panels, moreso than making each individual panel more efficient.
But before that I figure it's worth it to check the comments already to see what people are thinking. And of course, your comment is at the top of the list.
Someone should code an "HN TC poster-bot" that scans headlines for topic matches and just immediately posts the relevant TC video. All of which to say, TC is awesome and everyone should check it out.
Since these devices can also produce power given a heat differential, they are used in spaces where you need just a little power and heat is readily available.
https://www.jhuapl.edu/about/people/rama-venkatasubramanian
This is the same sort of person that MAGA and tech workers want to discourage coming to the United States.
westurner•2h ago
> Abstract: Refrigeration needs are increasing worldwide with a demand for alternates to bulky poorly scalable vapor compression systems. Here, we demonstrate the first proof of practical solid-state refrigeration, using nano-engineered controlled hierarchically engineered superlattice thin-film thermoelectric materials. [...] The improved efficiency and ultra-low thermoelectric materials usage herald a new beginning in solid-state refrigeration.