<story><title>Thermoelectric heating stands at the brink of commercialization</title><url>https://spectrum.ieee.org/thermoelectric-heating</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>gcanyon</author><text>&amp;gt; Researchers use a dimensionless quantity called ZT to describe the strength of the thermoelectric effect in any combination of materials. Two decades ago, combinations such as lead and tellurium yielded ZT values of around 1. After ten years, the search for new, more complex, and more effective materials had yielded ZT values of 2.&lt;p&gt;These sentences are useless. Going from 1 to 2 &lt;i&gt;probably&lt;/i&gt; means doubling the efficiency, &lt;i&gt;if&lt;/i&gt; the base value is 0. But even if that&amp;#x27;s true (which it&amp;#x27;s not guaranteed to be) is a real-world usable value 3? or 478?&lt;p&gt;Much later in the article: &amp;quot;Vining predicted in 2009 that a ZT of 4 would be the required threshold for commercialization.&amp;quot; There it is. But even with that, the information given tells us very little about the underlying property, or the technology.</text></comment>
<story><title>Thermoelectric heating stands at the brink of commercialization</title><url>https://spectrum.ieee.org/thermoelectric-heating</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>bilsbie</author><text>I’d pay a premium for a solid state AC or heat pump. It’s absurd how much they cost to install.&lt;p&gt;And I don’t get why replacing one is an all day job for three people. There should be standard connections they just plug into. Like a dishwasher.</text></comment>