Hi Andrew,
I commend your enthusiasm but there are many, many technical and economic barriers standing in your way. I'm no expert but I have built a couple external, self-contained, water-cooled TEC coolers before...
As Ben said, TECs are not very efficient - they use about three times as much energy as they can pump. With todays overclocked CPU heat dissipation approaching 100 watts, you need a LOT of cooling power (large capacity Pelts), dedicated power supplies to run it and a large, well designed water-cooling system to take the heat away.
It is more efficient to apply a TEC directly (via cold plate) onto the CPU and water-cool the hotside (already done by many) but this also gets expensive and has a number of disadvantages.
Slightly different approach, but you might be interested in taking a look at Thermaltake's SubZeroG4 TEC system. It is NOT designed for sub ambient temps but instead uses an air-cooled TEC as a "quiet cooling soultion".
Good luck with your project,
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