Posted on 07/06/2005 8:33:43 AM PDT by skyman
Really cool invention brings teens awards Physics students: They came up with an environmentally friendly, economical air conditioner By Jessica Ravitz The Salt Lake Tribune Salt Lake Tribune
BLUFFDALE - The code name, Space Beast, was one they came up with in the wee hours of the night.
Tyler Lyon, Daniel Winegar and Chad Thornley were overtired and giddy as they tackled a science fair project. Their idea: Eliminate the use of Freon in automobile air-conditioning systems by relying on the Peltier effect - of course.
"We aren't planning our lives around making air conditioners," Lyon explained. "We wanted to do something to help the environment and the economy."
But what began as a Riverton High School physics class assignment nearly two years ago has morphed into an award-winning, internationally recognized invention.
Lyon and Winegar, two recent Riverton graduates - Thornley graduated in 2004 and is now on an LDS Church mission - won the first-ever Ricoh Sustainable Development Award in May when they competed against 1,400 other worldwide invitation-only entries at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix.
Aside from the $50,000 college scholarship the two 18-year-olds will share, the budding engineers are jetting off to Japan today for a 10-day visit on Ricoh's dime. The office equipment and electronics company, a leader in the field of sustainable development, has invited the Utahns to attend the World Expo, address Ricoh executives, tour their research and development lab, meet with government officials - including the Minister of the Environment - and sit down with Tokyo University professors.
"It's been a total, unbelievable dream," marveled Tyler's mom, Diane Lyon, last week. "They're just typical boys. But when someone believes in you, amazing things can happen."
Physics teacher Kari Lewis, who recently left Riverton High, said trusting in Lyon and Winegar was easy.
"They came up with this idea . . . and they made it work," she said. "It's a perfect solution to an incredible problem."
Today, the young inventors say, U.S. drivers use about 7.9 billion gallons of fuel each year to run their air-conditioners, which draw power from the engine. By adopting their contraption - which taps into the electrical system, using fans to blow hot air through five Peltier chips and then releasing cold air - they say the country stands to save 3.9 billion gallons of fuel annually, or about $10 billion based on current gas prices.
Furthermore, the product would free drivers from Freon - which despite improvements, remains an ozone-depleting chemical in current air-conditioners. The Peltier chips, which they purchased on eBay for $9.99 each, have a life span of 20 to 30 years and an unfaltering cooling capacity. And like every component in the Space Beast, which can be minimized in size to about 2 inches in width, the chips are recyclable.
As a young boy, Lyon's parents said he tore apart and reassembled household electronics - CD players, clocks, an old stereo that didn't work until he fixed it. And while Daniel's mom, LouAnn Winegar, was grateful her son was "not a take-apart-person," she said her boy's love for science, engineering and computers has been consistent.
"It's nice to see all of his years of interest and hard work being recognized," she said.
The two-year process of fine-tuning, however, was not without its glitches. When the teens were trying to convert a blow-dryer fan from AC to DC power, a miswiring gave Lyon a doozy of a shock - "a low-enough amp that it couldn't really stop my heart," he said. And there was that computer power strip that they managed to ignite, before throwing it outside in the snow, only to retrieve it two days later to recycle its parts.
Despite the setbacks, and bouts of procrastination, the teens didn't give up. When they weren't playing computer games, skiing, snowboarding or, in Lyon's case, rock-climbing, they buckled down, sometimes working through the night. Their focus nearly cost them graduation - they had to scramble to make up work in other classes - but they accomplished what others couldn't.
After they had already begun their work, Lyon and Winegar learned about a 1964 General Motors analysis that explored the idea before the car company concluded it wasn't possible.
Going in with open minds, however, the teens were not deterred and pulled off what GM rejected. "Nobody told them it couldn't be done," Robert Lyon, Tyler's dad, said.
The first time he felt a cold gust of air successfully come through the system, Winegar said he remembers saying: "We may actually have something here."
Looks like they do. A Salt Lake City attorney is working to secure a patent. The Environmental Protection Agency called to express interest Tuesday morning. And though repeated attempts to communicate with Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. have gone unanswered, high officials in Japan - an ocean away - are awaiting the arrival of Riverton's young inventors.
The energy comes from the movement of a conductor through a magnetic field.
whats your point?
"You are very, very mistaken. Why do they build water turbines at the bottom of thousand-foot dams? "
Because water has to be falling in order to convert he kinetic energy into electric energy. The more energy the water has through the height of the column of water above it, the larger the turbine you can turn to generate electricity. It has nothing to do with electrical loads. You can have zero load on the turbine and it is limited by the kinetic energy in the flow of the water. If you put an infinite electrical load on the turbine, it doesn't stop turning. You also need a constant supply of flowing water, which you are not assured of if you put your turbines at the top of a dam.
Correct.
Brilliant? For knowing one of the first lessons in elementary physics?
Unfortunately, people like that wind up defining our energy policy with their ignorance.
Not just surprising... I'm shocked.
you may be right, but they won a prize based upon what others did not see. sometimes one item is not all that is the product, but it is all the space the news is willing or knows how to explain the product. Ricoh didn't give them an award for theory.
The concept probably won't save any fuel. The Peltier device requires active electrical drive that will come from the car battery. The alternator has to charge that battery using engine power derived by burning gasoline. A freon based compressor is driven from the same set of engine pulleys.
I worked my way through collage working at a discount
emporium. This old fellow would come through my
register Sunday mornings. He was dressed in khaki work
clothes. But, he had a diamond ring; the diamond the
size of a nickel. His wife always had lots of jewelry
on too.
Turns out he was a mechanic. In the early 1950’s he
patented the idea of three color tail lights on cars.
Green you’re on the gas, amber you’re coasting, red
you’re breaking. The car companies wanted to buy the
patent, not to implement it, but to kill it.
He wouldn’t sell it. He wanted royalties.
He had retired at 26 years old in the late 1950’s.
These kids may do very well for themselves.
Thermodynamics doesn't come into play here, although a toilet tank does exactly that to fill.
Do you set your stove burner on full to warm up some soup.
No, because the soup would burn, something not at issue for the A/C.
Do you accelerate your car to full speed and then slam on the brakes at the next stop light?
No, because comfort is also a factor in the acceleration/deceleration profile of the ride, again, something not at issue with the A/C.
Of course not, and yet this is how A/C works.
None of your examples are good analogies. But, for example, a furnace is either on or it's off. So too with an electric blanket, or fishtank heater. In these systems, there's a lowpass filter that smooths the on-again, off-again input to an average value.
How many times have you heard people complain that A/C leaves them either too hot or too cold?
It's not my fault they can't adjust a knob - or aim the vents properly, or whatever. Neither does it disprove that the most efficient way to operate an air conditioner is by pulse-width-modulating the output, either at the most efficient place, or off entirely, and cycling fast enough so the net cooling is perceived as average, as opposed to on-again, off-again.
It is inefficient if you are using more energy than is actually needed at a given time.
Instantaneously, yes, on average, no. It's more inefficient to run it all the time, at an operating point with lower efficiency.
The solution has been to run the A/C and add warm air so you avoid the uncomfortable cycling and can zone different parts of living space to specific temperatures. You trade off energy efficiency for comfort.
You made my point for me ... you are now admitting that you are trading away energy efficiency.
"Brilliant? For knowing one of the first lessons in elementary physics?"
Sarcasm... sorry, no tag included.
Look, the guy may not have been correct, but didn't deserve a bashing... at that point. Turns out he has an attitude, and I'd call him fair game now.
"BTW, they are rethinking the moniker, fossil fuels. Turns out they're not sure that's how oil was formed, and they're not even sure that oil is a non-renewable resource anymore."
Please say that again!
Top sends
It doesn't generate any electrical energy above and beyond the load. On an older car without an idle speed selenoid, you can start flipping on electrical accessories and hear the load increase and idle speed decrease. As the electrical load is increased, the mechanical load increases.
If you short the alternator, you will kill the engine. But don't do that because alternators aren't rated for that much mechanical energy or electrical load.
Amen to that question. Dehumidification is a HUGE reason why conditioned air feels so good. It's not just cool. Watch the drip rate of an AC on a hot Southern summer day.
MM
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