While this Slashdot-linked article about two high school students inventing a "new" sort of automotive air conditioner is interesting and very optimistic, according to the 'dot collective, it leaves a major caveat out. Essentially, peltier coolers (the chips they used to create the effect) are currently extremely inefficient, far less so than conventional compressor-driven systems.

Still, comparing an established and highly refined system to something that was almost literally ginned up in a garage doesn't seem exactly fair. Certainly Ricoh, a very large and serious HVAC manufacturer, is taking it seriously. Who knows... maybe they're sitting on some sort of process that makes these things far more efficiently?

Call it "a cool [ha!] wait-and-see" idea.