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Improving Engine Efficiency with Thermoelectrics
New advances in thermoelectrics materials science could be another way to stretch the fuel when driving, or provide more efficient generators. The waste heat with vehicle engines is just that, a lot of wasted energy. By being able to extract a lot of that and transform it into electricity, you could be driving a lot more miles with your electric accessories running for only a bit more cost, or be recharging the batteries faster in your hybrid.
"Thermoelectrics are also very small," he added. "I like to say that TE converters compare to other heat engines like the transistor compares to the vacuum tube." ed.z.: Anything to make those catalytic converters useful beyond starting grass fires when you park them over some weeds. I hope these researchers can get these devices functional and out there soon, it sure would help in this transition to pure or partially electric drive vehicles. Or how about using that at the focal point of a solar thermal concentrator rig, instead of using heat transfer liquid or gases to a turbine? A pure solid state approach. And I'd like one for the woodstove as well, I think it would be a spiffy add on. They have some crude models out there already you can get that slip into the stove pipe stack, but they aren't that great yet either. I've wondered what happened to this tech for decades now ever since I saw a table radio running off of a thermocouple equipped kerosene lantern that was imported from Russia in ww2 by a boss I had, the owner of the dairy I worked at. It worked, I mean the dang thing worked using waste heat, that was his main shop radio. Pretty funny to see a radio plugged into a kerosene lamp! Imagine a kerosene lantern with air cooled engine fins around the bottom base fuel tank container part, that kind of swept up a little ways around the wick and flame area, but not so much as to block the light, that's what it looked like.