Re: Could a 200 year engine solve today's oil crisis?

From: Dez Akin (dezakin_at_usa.net)
Date: 06/07/04 

Date: 7 Jun 2004 10:57:16 -0700

usenet@mantra.com (Dr. Jai Maharaj) wrote in message news:<58r51zuuo0LguCjeWa7fc0c@ol7C5F4Le4w37AqJi9yChQ0a>...
> Could a 200 year engine solve today's oil crisis?
>
> http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x55095
>
> Could a 200 year engine solve today's oil crisis?
>
> http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=637532004&20040607021427
>
> Posted by alapolitical on Sun Jun-06-04 09:17 PM
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>
> I've been telling people this for 20 years.
>
> I've built a few Stirling Engines myself. They will run
> on any fuel. A Stirling-Electric Hybrid automobile
> burning ethanol, vegetable oil, or methane makes a lot
> more sense than a hydrogen fuel-cell car, and, in the
> case of vegetable oil, is much safer in a collision!
>
> Posted by benburch on Sun Jun-06-04 09:23 PM

Stirling engines are good for heat reclaimation and power generation
when the temperature differential is too small to use rankine or
kalina cycles, or when the engine is too small for using a vapor
pressure cycle. They are certainly less efficient than the otto cycle,
where the waste heat is just shoved overboard with the exhaust.

What they are ideally suited for is small nuclear reactors or
radioisotope generators in space. Now if you were arguing using
radioisiotope powered cars, then a stirling engine might be
appropriate as a car engine may be a bit small to use a full vapor
pressure cycle efficiently.

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