Slashdot Mirror
New Heat Pump Will Last 10,000 Years
formaggio writes "Most heat pumps maintain an average useful life of 10-20 years, but researchers at the University of Stavanger in Norway (USN) and the University of Oslo believe that they have developed a new heat pump that will last up to 10,000 years."
They guy at Best Buy will still try to sell you the extended warranty too!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
An article about itty bitty peltiers? Do they come in white?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
This is like the bridges built in the '60s that were supposed to last over a hundred years, but need to be replaced now. By the time they have to be replaced, the companies manufacturing them will simply no longer exist to sue and will have moved on to Carbon Fiber (the next 100+ year technology that won't last nearly 100 years).
Soooo this looks like a thermocouple or peltier element. What's new?
The miniature pumps will just continue to pump. We stick fans on them, and they must be replaced, but the heat pump itself will stay and be equally effective after 10 000 years," Bording continues.
Misleading headline, both on this blog post and on the blog post that this blog post cites.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
Solid state heat pumps exist already. It is called Peltier Junction. They are not used because their efficiency is bad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peltier_effect
The COP of current commercial thermoelectric refrigerators ranges from 0.3 to 0.6, only about one-sixth the value of traditional vapor-compression refrigerators
So what is the break through in the little heat pumps?? TFA is completely uninformative on that. It doesn't even specify efficiency of the heat pump.
PS. I've had an open loop heat pump for the last decade, and so far it didn't require "frequent inspection" or "maintenance" as TFA says it does. It comes with 20 year warranty. It is basically just like a larger version of a fridge. The only maintenance I can envision is simply cleaning the heat exchanger once in a while.
If it's anything like broadband in the UK, it means it'll last 100 years most of the time, and then on occasion it'll last 3000 years but you're capped at 1 use per day except at lunch time when you can only see it from a distance.
I was going to suggest that we let it eat Slashdot posts, but...
If I recall correctly, a CD was supposed to last for a hundred years. Maybe the first batch ever will even make a good run, but once it settles into mass production and the competition to lower the price warms up, you can pretty much squash the hope. And when you hit the period when the product is already superseded by the next generation, but still selling by inertia, you will be lucky if it still works by the time you get home with it. A 10k years? Whatever, i'd rather buy the one that promises 10 years.
FCKGW 09F9 42
Technically everything will last forever, it just changes state a lot over that period. :p
not more inhabitant spam. Normally junk mail is addressed to resident . I blame those damn alien direct-marketroids with their faulty understanding of the English as she is spoke.
Physician, heal thyself.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Well, being solid state, they are basically stone artifacts. Though yes, proving they won't fail for 10,000 years due to a number of known effects that take place on the nano-scale would be a daunting challenge.
Someone had to do it.
Older vehicles used belts to turn the rad fan but most vehicles now use an electric motor.
*It's "fan belt", but without the extra 'u'.
Goering?
Oh wait...
I still have my grandfather's old axe. The head's been replaced twice, and the shaft three times, but still the same axe.
In Norway "imperial units of measure" are typically called "English units of measure", so a mile is typically called "an English mile". The question "how long is an English mile" is thus usually answered "as far as an English car will run".