if every conventional heatsink in the US was replaced with a Sandia Cooler, the country would use 7% less electricity. For the most part, these savings would come from air conditioning and refrigeration systems
How does that work? Is the same amount of heat not being expelled from the chip into the room? Does transferring the heat with a smaller fan somehow make it smaller heat?
Transferring heat with a smaller fan requires less power to run the fan. For a given amount of electricity, the Sandia Cooler can extract more heat from the processor, so it requires less electricity to keep the processor cool.
Not just CPU fans. FTFA, and the latter part of which was included in the GP's quote:
"an ideal replacement for just about every fan-and-heatsink installation in the world... For the most part, these savings would come from air conditioning and refrigeration systems..."
I know, I read that. The impression I got from the article was that these new heatsinks were going to be used on the CPUs and that somehow that would generate less heat. e.g, if Intel makes a lower power chip, a lot of savings will come from AC, even though Intel isn't making AC systems. It was not obvious to me (and I still have my doubts) that "every fan-and-heatsink" was referring to AC systems as well as CPU heatsinks.
I think they're referring to the heatsinks _in_ the air conditioning and refrigeration systems. The higher efficiency of the cooler itself would allow these devices to operate more efficiently.
That would be interesting. A more efficient way to heat the planet. :) It sounded like they were only talking about CPU/GPU coolers, but I suppose similar ideas could be applied to AC systems.
Yeah, the biggest heatsinks are not in your computer. There are big heatsinks in your car (radiator) and A/C units that would benefit from the tech more than your laptop.
Yep. If it can use a lower power fan/impeller, then there would indeed be less heat expelled into the room- a very tiny bit less, but the principle holds true.
The major energy savings would come from large implementations such as air conditioners.
How does that work? Is the same amount of heat not being expelled from the chip into the room? Does transferring the heat with a smaller fan somehow make it smaller heat?