RIVERTON — The second time ended up being the $50,000 charm for two Riverton High students, who have worked two years to create a more environmentally friendly car air-conditioner.

Tyler Lyon and Daniel Winegar earlier this month netted a $50,000 scholarship, plus a trip to the World Expo, at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix. They won the Ricoh Sustainable Development Award for their project, "The Peltier Effect: Eliminating the Use of Freon in Automobile Air-Conditioning Systems," besting 1,400 other high school students with their entry.

The pair will share the scholarship. Where they'll attend college, however, is yet to be determined.

The 2005 World Exposition is in Aichi, Japan.

"It's kind of big," Winegar said in a telephone interview from his booth at the fair. "The most I ever won in my life was a Christmas tree."

The team's Freon-free vehicle air-conditioning system employs the Peltier effect. That's when current passes through dissimilar conductors connected to each other at two junctions, and one side heats up while the other stays cool.

The students wanted to put the effect to use in automobile air-conditioning, now largely dependent on Freon. They created a contraption with wood, Plexiglas, ceramic chips and other parts found around the house, school junk yard and eBay. It works off an electrical current from a second alternator placed in a car, with fans blowing air over the cold sides of the chips.

The students' research estimates their system would cut millions of pounds of hydrocarbons and nitrous oxides, and billions of pounds of carbon monoxide found in vehicle emissions. It also would increase gas mileage by four miles per gallon and hike horsepower by as much as 4 percent — saving American drivers billions of dollars in annual gasoline costs.

The idea last year won a sweepstakes award at a Brigham Young University science fair. But it didn't do so well at the international fair.

So the team spent the past year tweaking the system, mainly by putting in a different chip, Lyon said.

The project includes work by Chad Thornley, a 2004 Riverton grad now serving a mission for the LDS Church. He couldn't be part of the contest and winnings. But the team's U.S. patent, which they are working to secure, definitely will include him, Lyon said. They planned to e-mail Thornley the good news.

"This is pretty amazing," Lyon said. "It's really, really cool."

Eight other Utah teens also won varying prizes, Intel announced, including Hillcrest's Stephanie Baker, who won a $105,000 full-tuition scholarship to Drexel University for her project, "Got Dielectrics? Simulating Electrical Properties of Muscle."

Other winners: Douglas Naftz, Park City High, $2,100 combined in environmental science awards; Karli Oberg, Weber High, $500 Fourth Place Grand Award, Microbiology; Brandon Peart, Hillcrest, $500 Fourth Place Grand Award, Engineering; Mark Evans, Hillcrest, $100 Showboard Second Place Award; Kristin Sorensen, Pine View High, $500 Fourth Place Grand Award, Environmental Science; Megan Moulding, Wahlquist Junior High, $500 Fourth Place Grand Award, Environmental Science; and Lindsey Hubley, Woods Cross High, $50 Honorable Mention from the American Association for Clinical Chemistry.

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