solar sterling engine generators

[LucMan]

The problem with evaporative cooling is the ambient air has to have low humidity , the lower the better it works. It does not work well in a high humidity climate.
Swamp coolers don't work on the east coast.

[russ]

Hi Russ,

As I said , still a way to go !!

hey my swh Tank is full and reading 89 degrees c, tomorrow morning it will be about 80 degrees c

so I don't see hot water storage for night use as a problem,

Storing 200 or 300 liters is no problem - try storing 20 or 30 m3 - different story

[cssolar]

hot water storage

IF !! a swh sterling setup for domestic use became viable

Maybe a smaller quantity of hot water would be required for night use


I just think it is a shame that I have plenty of stored energy and cant use it all !!

The winter is not so bad because I pump the excess hot water through my under floor heating system

--
It is very dry and low humidity here so the solar cooler pots work well

Tony

[Sunking]

IF !! a swh sterling setup for domestic use became viable

Maybe a smaller quantity of hot water would be required for night use

Tony you are not grasping thermal dynamics. Unless you can heat that water to 600 degrees F in large quantities, you are going to generate any useful amount of power with a sterling engine.

Sterling Engines just are not going to be used in any fashion. There are just much simpler and less expensive ways to generate mechanical energy. You would use a steam turbine before using a Sterling Engine.

Like I said earlier Sterling Engines are matured technology. That means we know all there is to know about them, and there is nothing more that can be done to improve them. It is like cathode ray tubes used for TV screens and vacuum tube amplifiers and logic gates. No one uses them anymore as they are antiquated relics that have been replaced with much more efficient, reliable, and cost effective technology.

Allow me to give you a good example I think you would understand and appreciate. Take that laptop or personal computer you are using right now to read and type replies on. Roll back the clock to 1970. That laptop you are using now would have been a super computer in 1970. It would have been made using vacuum tubes. It would need a large building of about 6000/ft2 to contain all the equipment racks and thousands of miles of copper wire. In addition it would take a huge air conditioning system to keep it cool from the tremendous amount of heat generated. It would also require a small generating, enough to power 50 luxury homes to run the thing. It would have cost several millions of dollars, and thousands of dollar per month to run because it uses so much electricity.

Now ask yourself: Is that what you want to go back too? Well if you want to use a Sterling Engine then your answer would be YES.

[cssolar]

Hi Dereck,

So you think cool energy are wasting their time then ?

Do you know any way to change low temperature hot water into electricity ? that could be used for domestic use

Tony

Not all old stuff is rubbish, the wheel is quite old !

[russ]

I expect the most important section of their web site home page is the suckers - whoops, I meant investors button.

In a couple of years they will have pissed away all the funds they can milk out of the public and the company will be gone. If they are reaally good they may manage to milk the thing for 10 years or longer.

A real product - nothing in sight.

Things like this get built up really big on the green web sites where it will receive many thumbs up and much praise. In the real world I doubt it will go far.

[cssolar]

May be Russ,

I try to remain optimistic

Many times in the past people have said something cant be done and have been proven wrong.

I don't know if it can or cant be done, but I would be pleased if it worked, wouldn't you ?

Cheers Tony

[russ]

A saying from an old boss of mine from when we were sitting in an engineering meeting and someone said 'I wish'.

He would reply, 'Crap in one hand and wish in the other - let us know which fills up first'.

If someone has a breakthrough I am all for it - however, 99.99% of these cases are pure BS. If Khosla is involved then it is a great time to run - he is great for latching on to off beat ideas and investing in them. He attracts more money then usually bails out prior to everything going down the drain. Later he brags about making money by investing in 'green tech'.

This has nothing to do with saying it can't be done - several laws of science are being bent rather strongly.

[cssolar]

gas boiler with sterling engine

Hi all,

I am still quite interested in sterling engines, I have found a company in the UK that now makes a gas boiler fitted with a sterling engine that produces 1kw of electrical power at the same time as heating.

It is made by Baxi , has any body got one, if so are they any good !

Tony

[russ]

Which of their units are you talking about? I saw nothing about a sterling engine.

[cssolar]

Hi Russ,

Model is baxi chp eco gen, click on the how it works and it tells you the power comes from a sterling engine.

Regards

Tony

I haven't heard any more updates from cool energy inc. wonder how their solar sterling engine is coming on ?

[russ]

The only mentions I saw were as follow -

1) ''Meanwhile, electricity is generated by a Stirling external combustion engine''
2) The high efficiency boiler uses technology called a Stirling engine. As soon as heat is demanded, a magnetic piston drives up and down within a generator coil to produce 6kW of heat and 1kW of electricity per hour. If the heat demand goes above 6kW, the supplementary burner will fire up and can offer an additional 18kW of heat. As heat demand falls within the home, the boiler modulates down to as low as 3kW, while still generating electricity.

So far Stirling has been a complete failure - until these guys get some track record to show I consider this to be more of the same. Here that would be a max of 20 cents US per hour when the unit is on line - heating season only which is about 3 months out of the year.

[cssolar]

Yes it would be interesting to get some feed back on the baxi eco gen.

Look like a good idea, I am sure we will start to see some great developments in thermal electric generators
in the coming years.

Electricity here in Spain is quite expensive I pay about 100

[russ]

Many companies have worked on the Stirling - one big project was go in California until at the last minute they cancelled the Stirling - to problematic as I remember.

If this were practical and economic all the green sites would be going crazy reporting it.

Generation is less of a problem - storage is the major problem.

[cssolar]

Yes storage is the problem.

ps you can see a Video on you tube , search baxi eco gen

Regards

Tony