Stirling Engine Community (original) (raw)

I recently saw the Stirling engine on a discovery channel program. They mentioned it briefly and moved on.

"Wow," I thought, "That looks really neat. I should look it up on the interthingy!"

Then, since I'm an LJ fan, I found this group and went to write its first editorial.

So, I've found the major webites. I might even experiment with my own version, but I'm not really mechanically inclined. The engine itself is a bit of a contradiction. It solved a problem that got solve three other ways, so it's never really caught on. There's no place you can buy a 500 watt Stirling engine for the same price as similar internal combustion (IC) engine. You'd wonder if they the were even feasable beyond toy demos, except for the high-end yacht generators and the submarine engines.

However, as the cost of energy goes up, old ideas get new attention. I like the idea of bio fuels, but can the world grow both food and fuel for the modern population? We want to burn a soy based fuel to save the environment, but most of the Amazon deforestation is by giant soy farming corporations.

I'm optimisted about wind and solar energy. The sun dumps a lot of energy on the planet and makes things happen. I'm hoping that direct solar and wind power have the power to at least put some slack in the oil feeding frenzy. Hot air engines seem to have some advantages there. They certainly have some fun prospects.

For Summer energy storage, I'm wondering about the possibility of ice? It takes a lot of work to make ice. It would seem you could get a lot out of it. Use the extra energy during the day to make an insulated tank of ice slurry. At night use it to air condition the house, with the difference between warm house air and the ice to run a Stirling engine to pump water and circulate the air.