On Mon, 22 Jul 2002, Russell McMahon wrote:

>> Invent a better energy-generating 'mousetrap' and the
>> dollars or Euros currently spends on present forms of
>> energy will happily and **most willingly** flow *your*
>> direction!
>
>The Stirling Cycle thermal to mechanical energy converters aka Stirling
>Engines are one such.
>Arguably "the" such.
>Philips estimated that it would take (if I recall aright) 60 Billion $US to
>get it right. And that it would have a pay back time of under 6 months
>(mainly due to savings relative to oil based fuels). Apparently nobody has a
>spare $US60B to double this year :-)
>
>The SE is based on the Carnot cycle which is the most efficient
>thermodynamic cycle possible. Actual implementations of SE's are not
>necessarily the most efficient possible and eg a good Diesel will beat a bad
>Stirling. The major advantage of the SE is that it is "external
>combustion" - it uses heat from a source external to the engine. Therefore
>it can conceptually use any heat source including hydrocarbon, gas, wood,
>coal, geo-thermal, nuclear, solar, yak dung etc. Even Hydrogen :-) A large
>demonstration SE was built to run on burning rice husks (a waste product
>with little other use). .
>
>THE problem that has to be solved for the SE to be commercialised is how to
>reliably and economically seal engine internal pressures around 3000 psi /
>20 MPa at elevated temperatures.

Meanwhile someone on this list did propose one:

http://www.bobblick.com/techref/projects/stirling/can/can.html

Peter

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