Put your hotness to work: thermoelectric generators

VW claims to have developed a thermoelectric generator that will convert wasted heat from a vehicle’s exhaust into a useable amount of electricity (about 30% of the Golf test car’s needs). They also claim a 5% reduction in fuel consumption because of the reduced load on the engine.

Reality check: is this a crazy idea? Not really, the process actually works. It’s just very, very inefficient. They’ve tried this before, and it’s pretty much not worth it to hook up an expensive thermoelectric device for a few watts of power. Apparently the VW engineers have improved the efficiency, but what’s the tradeoff? I am guessing that the device would be prohibitively expensive.

Good idea for more research and study, though. If you get this device cheap enough, and combine it will other efficiency technologies (example: a plug-in hybrid with regenerative braking, direct-fuel-injection, etc.) you might make a pretty big impact in fuel consumption. Let’s hope the net gains of a device like this outweigh, for example, the energy or harmful substances used to produce it. And these technologies would let us use internal combustion engines for a bit longer. The reality is, gasoline and diesel are pretty useful sources of fuel, from a chemical standpoint – lots of energy per unit, relatively easy to store, and still somewhat plentiful. I’m 100% in favor of getting as much bang for our gallon as possible until the party’s over – and that means wringing out as much efficiency as we can to make the dino fuel last as long as possible.

[Source: gizmag]