Spacecraft Power (2016)
Just a side note:<p><pre><code>    This kind of research could help us on Earth, too. For example, 
    some of the heat that gets wasted when you drive your car could 
    be reused and put back into the car to charge the battery 
    or power electronics.
</code></pre>
I once worked for a company on software that was, among other things, used to optimize the fuel efficiency of cars. There was some talk about how using Thermoelectric Generators (TEGs) to recover the waste heat form the exhaust pipe would be really cool - But that those TEGs were too heavy, too inefficient and too expensive to make any sense in a car.<p>So maybe, this is the breakthrough that was needed. If this technology could recover a few KW from the waste heat, this might greatly improve the fuel efficiency of cars. Or it is just some marketing talk, like, &quot;Look, what we are researching here might be useful to YOU too&quot;...<p>Can somebody comment on that?