Renewable Revolution

Lloyd Alter (@lloydalter)
Design / Green Architecture
 May 9, 2016

SNIPPET:

Solid state cooling devices have been around for centuries, since the Peltier effect was discovered. They are often used in CPU coolers and even tiny iceboxes, but are not very efficient. Phononic has significantly improved on them; as can be seen in the video of their little fridge below, they have integrated the basic chip with heat transfer systems that appear to make it work better.

It is a road map familiar to those who watched the development of LEDs, which were first rolled out as replacements for things we already knew and understood, like light bulbs and fluorescent tubes in computer monitors and TVs. Now LEDs are everywhere and in everything.

Similarly, Phononic is now working with the world’s largest appliance maker  , Haier, starting with high performance wine chillers, delivering smaller units with more accurate temperature control and lower power consumption. They are now branching into residential refrigerators in Europe and Asia, (where we have noted that small fridges make good cities). With Haier’s acquisition of GE’s appliance division, no doubt totally silent fridges without compressors will be arriving here soon too.

Solid state fridges have a lot more room inside because the compressor is gone; solid state heat pumps could heat and cool while taking up almost no space.

However the revolution this will cause in multifamily housing is going to be even more significant. Currently most apartments are heated and cooled by a vertical fan coil or heat pump units in the corner of a room, with ductwork running under the ceiling to the other rooms. Or they have noisy, inefficient through wall heat pump units that are very high maintenance. Imagine replacing all of that with a solid state heat pump with no moving parts, a heating and cooling panel on the wall in each room delivering what is needed when it is needed. They might well be built into the floors for radiant heating and cooling. This could make the design, operation and maintenance of multifamily buildings so much easier.

And of course, getting rid of compressors also means getting rid of refrigerants, which leak and which have serious global warming potential. Another problem gone with solid state heating and cooling.

I do not think I am overstating the case when I suggest that just as the transistor revolutionized electronics, and the LED is in the process of transforming lighting, Solid state thermoelectrics are going to revolutionize heating and cooling. Since the form of our homes and buildings has always been a function of how they are heated and cooled, it might we change that as well.

in 2014 I thought we were on the verge of a cooling revolution; now I think it is even bigger than that. It is a cooling, heating and design revolution.


http://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/year-could-see-real-revolution-they-way-we-do-heating-and-cooling.html

Agelbert NOTE: For those that live in the reality based community (fossil fuel industry defending wishful thinkers wouldn't know reality if it bit them in the ass), the solid state heat pump technology will knock out fully 75%, on the average, of energy DEMAND from an average home. That MEANS that the solar panel input can then be used to power a HIGHER PERCENTAGE of the home AND ALSO make MORE RENEWABLE ENERGY JUICE available to charge EVs and supplement grid power.

For those who are not following where this inevitably leads, just look at Energy use stats for ALL the homes in the USA now in BPD (barrels per day). THEN subtract 75% of that...

"Hitting peak oil will come faster than any of us think. But don't blame dwindling supply — it's all about disappearing demand" Amory Lovins