December 3, 2008 a US Department of Energy press release announced funding for thermoelectric HVAC development targeting vehicles.  Conventional air conditioning refrigerants, like R-134a, are seriously bad greenhouse gases.  Today R-134a is not yet a major contributor to global warming, but only because it hasn't been in use very long.  The refrigerant it replaced, R-12, represents a significant contribution to global warming and will continue to do for many years.  If rational minds prevail, R-134a will have to be banned too, this time for climate issues.

Once R-134a is off the table, all alternative air conditioning technologies move up one position on the list options.  That includes thermoelectrics.

The DoE program also thinks a distributed TE cooling system may actually be more efficient at the system level than conventional air conditioning.  Hence the program.

Here is the thermoelectric-related portion of their Dec. 3, 2008 press release:

Thermoelectric Systems:
Two projects totaling up to $13 million in cost-shared cooperative agreements, DOE share of up to $6.5 million, subject to annual appropriations. These projects were selected to accelerate the development of thermoelectric (TE) systems that provides the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) in vehicles. The use of solid state TE devices to heat and cool a vehicle’s passenger compartment can increase vehicle efficiency by reducing engine load - by reducing or eliminating the need for conventional air conditioning refrigerants, these vehicles further reduce greenhouse gas emissions. TE HVAC enables the use of distributed cooling/heating units that cool/heat the occupants rather than the whole cabin and its components. While applicable to all commercial and passenger vehicles, TE HVAC is particularly attractive for hybrids and plug-in hybrids where an electrically driven air conditioning system can maintain occupant comfort even when the engine turns off.

• Ford Motor Company (Dearborn, Mich.) has been selected for negotiation of an award for a 36-month, up to $8.4 million, DOE share of up to $4.2 million, project to accelerate the deployment of light-duty automotive thermoelectric HVAC technology. This work will focus on the development of a zonal TE HVAC system, while reducing energy consumption of existing HVAC systems by one third. Partners include Visteon, BSST, DOE’s National Energy Renewable Laboratory, and Ohio State University.
• General Motors Corporation (Warren, Mich.) has been selected for negotiation of an award for a 36-month, up to $4.6 million, DOE share of up to $2.3 million, project to develop a system that provides thermal comfort equivalent to current HVAC systems while using significantly less energy. The team will design, test, and evaluate the thermoelectric system components and then integrate the components into a demonstration vehicle for testing and evaluation. Partners include Delphi Thermal Systems, University of California at Berkeley, and University of Nevada at Las Vegas.