Why This Age Old Tech Can Be the Future of Energy - Stirling Engine Explained
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ค. 2021
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The Stirling engine is starting to make a comeback. This age-old technology could prove quite useful, considering that it can provide energy, where ever you have waste heat. So Could this be the breakout technology we need for a truly sustainable future? Where heat generated from A/Cs or electronics can be harnessed for free energy, rather than wasted? Let's find out today, Can Stirling Engines Make infinite Clean Energy? On Two Bit da Vinci
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Constant speed (10k rpm?) Wankel rotary converted stirling engine, possible? Efficient? (My son & I've owned a dozen RX-7/8 between us, so ...yeah.)🤗
Great video
If the extensive
Use the ground as the cool side of your billion dollar idea. 65degrees to 120degree attic temps 55 degree delta
This might be a late comment. But in areas where there summer tempratures reach over 100°F, like in arizona and texas, would it be good to do something similar to the as to the attic idea but place the sterling engine under a shaded area and the cooling system out on the open to. Similar to solar water heaters.
I designed a Stirling that was intended to use the heat in exhaust gas from IC engines. It would be a power generating muffler. I believe that I solved many of the challenges raised in your discussion.
That is awesome! When I learned that heat is just energy, I started wondering if cars could make their own energy, but I got distracted as I grew up, and am just now wondering again. Back then, I theorized that the heat generated from braking could be harnessed, but that's as far as I went. The exhaust idea seems absolutely brilliant to me!
I am surprised that you didn't mention the other super power of stirling engines. If you power them they can produce extreme cold, far better than the rankine cycle we employ today. Some liquid hydrogen production uses a six stage stirling cooler. Coleman used to make a 12V portable cooler that ran at -70 degrees.
It's always great to go down the comments, a bit like mining in reverse, the gold is at the top but as you dig down you can still find gold it depends how you see things.
I never knew that about the extreme cold thanks UA.
"produce extreme cold" means 'Pumps HEAT rather well. You're looking where the heat WAS, but I'm interested in HOW IT PUMPS HEAT.
@@manifold1476 I used the term “produce extreme cold” to illustrate a deliberate use of Stirling engines to create a cold environment rather than discussing thermodynamics. People who have a passing knowledge of thermodynamics fully understand that cold is simply removal of heat energy. Just like we say “the fridge makes our drinks cold”, rather than “we use this metal box with a heat pumping mechanism to remove the heat from our drinks”. So apart from pointless nitpicking, did you have anything of relevance to add to my comment?
@@manifold1476 oh and they pump heat extremely well, far better than rankine cycle heat pumps. They have much closer tolerances in manufacture and therefore are more expensive to produce, this is why you don’t see them in common household use.
Back in the days of Yellow Front ! lol
I've been thinking of combining many energies, and I'm glad you said it! Like rain water, snow, tree movement, flywheel and/or springs. Thanks!
Excellent device for geothermal or volcanoes.
And concentrated solar as well.
How about solar thermal?
Couple thermoelectric generators and Nitinol heat recovery and boom over unity
It should be called a displacement engine. The temperature scale only requires a difference which can effectively act on the space hot or cold.
High volume low to med speed higher torque. High speed toy size models give the wrong impression. The toys need high heat to reach high speeds with low volume. They seldom have a heat regenerator which conserves the driving heat instead of dumping it into the open air.
not really. geothermal heat with high T is perfectly converted by a turbine, with a low T heat pump. Leave such questions to professional power engineers, please.
In 1998 I attended a stirling engine show at Lake Itasca MN and saw a super home made Stirling engine. The engine had two 4" pistons and was pressured to 100 psi. I was amazed when I put my arms around the fly wheel and was surprised at the amount of power produced, I could not stall the engine. Unfortunately the builder passed on several years latter.
Do you know where that engine might have gone or if there is any documentation of its design? I imagine many hobbyists would love to use it for inspiration.
I got a teacup Stirling engine on Amazon & have had hours of fun with my coffee cups making the engine spin while the coffee slowly cools off ^^
Me too :)
Well Sterling engines are big hunks of metal.
So if you use Sterling engines as heat sinks for your Bitcoin mining rig, you could probably claw back a significant amount of waste heat.
I guess I should watch the video now.
that's brilliant actually! Wow amazing the great ideas I hear on this channel. thank you!
That's a great one to add to the list. Join us on discord and keep them ideas coming.
@@TwoBitDaVinci even better if it's winter and you're going to be running a heater anyway. Not only that but the Sterling engine will run more efficiently in the cold.
Then you would be getting paid to heat your house.
Nah, low grade heat, relatively small temperature difference from the computer rig heat sink and the ambient air temperature, max 10 percent efficient, probably more like 5 at a push,
Making them with 3d printers with light weight material can make sterling engines cheaper and more modular in design.
"HOW I BUILT a 5HP STERLING ENGINE" is a great book!
There is a New Zealand company that makes Sterling engines for yachting boats, it creates enough electricity to run the electronics on the boat and the heat is used to dry the cabin and all it's heating needs.
Name that company…I think it’s bankrupt but I want to look it up if you have the name.
@@esquire9445 Sorry, I don't remember the name, but you could be correct that it has gone bankrupt.
They should use the steam to distill salt water too.
Whispergen
@@rickfreezerburn1159 that’s right, and it was diesel powered. The factory was destroyed and the company just stopped making the engine… I think this is accurate but I could be wrong
When you spoke of a heat line I thought of people that install hot water loops in there houses so they don't have to wait for hot water at the faucet. I think the hot water loop could play a double role in that the hot water heater could be in the attic where it would absorb heat from solar hot water heaters, appliances below, and drive a Stirling engine to generate electricity or use electricity to heat the water depending on hot water needs and electric rates at the time.
Sure do like ur way of thinking tyvm
You could also use the ocean as a heat differential for the operation of the Sterling engine. This has been proposed for sometime.
In the early automotive industry, Stirling engines lost out to internal combustion largely due to the reason you gave, poor responsiveness. Nowadays, inverter generators use a smaller engine than normal because they don't have to be very responsive to sudden, temporary load increases -- the battery and inverter can handle that. So not-so-big Stirlings in cars might be able to effectively use the same concept, steadily charging a battery and letting the battery and inverter handle surges.
Hemp is the best way to go
Could work in theory, but power density is still a problem. Also cost as the machining tolerances for a Stirling engine piston/cylinder pair are way higher than for say, internal combustion engine. Using Helium adds to the cost too, SE has very poor efficiency when using air. You could of course use Hydrogen which is cheap, but that has its own problems: next to impossible to contain (small molecule, leaks everywhere), potentially explosive and because at high temperatures it is chemically active forming hydrides with metals (making metals brittle) limits the choice of materials from which SE body can be made. So yeah, there are challenges.
The main thing against it is lack of energy density. Another thing against it is it uses the combustion of fuel for heat to power it when used in mobile applications. In stationary applications,it can use waste heat,solar heat,geothermal,and others, without combustion.
@@mikedunn7795 The Sterling could still burn gasoline (or diesel), so the energy density could be the same.
@@PeterLawton No,because the gasoline just supplies heat for it to do it's thing,which doesn't change the power output.
I love your attic idea that you shared in the video, I would love to see some companies try and make something for this!
Further research and development could make this engine useful in the future to power homes.
During World War 2, portable generators powered by Stirling engines were used by the military in battle zones because they did not rely in spark ignition that was detectable. After the war these were sold off as army surplus. I do wish had bought one!
I have been hearing a lot of talk about heat pumps and that led me to your site because you mentioned old technology which I find fascinating as a historian. In your miniature version that powered the tiny L.E.D. light I could picture using waste vegetable oil providing the heat. When you started talking about attics my first thought was the argument I had many years ago with my sister-in-law who thinks she's always right. My bedroom is in the gable end of my attic with a large 36"x 60" egress window that faces west which heats up my bedroom even more. The bedroom is 16'x16' due to city code for multiple unit housing limiting the use of the attic to 1/3 of the overall space. My sister-in-law told me that I didn't need my air conditioners and that it was a waste of energy even though I bought the most energy efficient ones available. She said that their master bedroom cooled down quickly just using a ceiling fan. I explained that my roof is a 12/12 pitch and I couldn't add skylights for cross ventilation because my house was built between 1893-1896 and is historic. I did argue with the city that they did have roof lights in old buildings but they denied my petition. I told my sister-in-law to stop by after we both got off work on a hot sunny summer evening and I intentionally left the a/c running on medium rather than low because I wanted her to feel the contrast. We entered the bedroom and she looked at the a/c with distaste and I asked if she found the room comfortable and she said it could be a bit cooler. Then I walked her to the door that led to the attic and I let her go ahead of me and she stopped within a foot or two of the threshold. I pushed her forward and asked, now do you understand? It is 120 degrees in the attic if it is 75 degrees outside and sunny because half of that massive roof is facing south. I have no idea how hot it is at the very top because I've never made the effort to drag a long ladder up 2 flights of stairs just to see how much hotter it is. During the pandemic I couldn't hire someone to put the big beast of an air conditioner in the window and I tried to come up with various ideas using fans to draw out the heat once the sun went down but if it rained I would have to pull the fan out of the window. When my now elderly cat was younger I had installed an automatic "doggy door" in the door so he could run around the attic and it was his favorite place but now that he is old he no longer uses it so I disconnected the sensor so it wouldn't open and close when I walked by. I had an idea and I opened it manually and put my Vornado fan (I have 3 of their fans now.) up against the door and it worked to cool the bedroom. Then I bought their standing model and placed it at the bottom of the stairs and pushed the heat from that south facing wall and 3 large windows up even though I know heat rises naturally I wanted to cool the house with no air conditioners. I pulled all the hot air into the attic and for sleep if the nights didn't cool down I had my desktop mini-fan on my bedside table. My electric bill was considerably less than with two air conditioners and other than a half dozen hot nights I had a good summer over all and have two old air conditioners in the attic space. I would love to find a way to use that heat and wanted to understand how heat pumps worked so your video came up and I decided to view it. I'm going to look for more information but as I live in New England the heat is limited to about 3 months and it may not be worth the cost. Thank you for the great video and thank you for reading my "story" as you have gotten to the end finally.
Why wouldn't you cover up the window from outside put some mirror tint on it, or spray water with chalk in it on the outside to block the sun entering
"Stirling engine makes energy without fuel"
Uses a flame to power it. gg
The one exception here would be solar power or any heat source that doesn't require us to burn something. Otherwise the statement that it doesn't need fuel is completely wrong
Thats the definition of a external combustion engine
I have a one of these on top of my Potbelly stove. It circulates the hot air for free. I love it.
The air-condition unit is a really good point... I wonder how much of the heat you could use to drive the fan for the heat exchanger.
My experiments with upscaled Steriling Engines were disappointing. They don't produce the torq needed to produce electricty.
Mind to share about your upscaled experiment? Have tried adding gear?
Thanks for your fun and easy comprehensible video. It reminded me of my father who work in the '60s and '70 at the Dutch Philips Corporation and with GM on research on apply the Stirling engine in vehicles! (just found some Stirling related patents with his name from this period)
so he worked on a successor to the Stirling Engine Phillips released in the 40s?
@@BushidoBrownSama yes he did, he was a head researcher at the Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium (Physics Research lab) in Eindhoven from the late 40’s until the early 80’s.
You know, while we have no Stirling engine, we do have a "heat line" to our house. We call it _Fernwärme_ (literally "remote heat"), but I believe the usual English term is "district heating".
I been thinking to do a Sterling engine project with a heat exchanger. Particularly in a colder climate where your Delta temperature of a house (inside vs outside) will be optimal for a sterling engine. Awesome video. Thank you!
The fuel burnt inside an engine is a fraction of the fuel needed to burn outside of the engines...
The fuel could be hot air in a desert, heated by the Sun. . .aka free.
Again, the total cost /energy cycle needs to be considered. How much energy does it take to produce a Stirling engine versus what it will output (payback time)? Another drawback is it takes mechanical energy to get the cycle going. Has anyone looked at the amount of electricity that could be produced by the heat in an average home attic versus the cost of installation and maintenance? It’s an interesting concept, but needs a lot more experimentation to become practical.
Stirling engines last ages so over the life of it you will more than get full return on energy spent to make it IMO 1,000 X
The real reason they don't work is they are not efficient at low temperature differentials. You need a temperature change of hundreds of degrees.
The idea of a house heat line makes a lot of sense. in winter it could supplement heating, so your fridge doesn't just heat up the wall. and in summer a stirling engine could supplement the energy for the heat pump or other devices.
i tried 15 years ago to locate a stirling 5 to 10 hp engine. I wanted to run it on my wood boiler since there was always a fire running inside and i sure could use the electric..........unfortunatly i did not find a commercially availible unit. I would have spent 20k for the engine in a heart beat as it is a much better choice then steam for the small scale like me. Now i can find a 20 hp steam engine ( not turbine) and needed two 14 thousand boilwers to run the engine. Also i could use the excess heat from the steam engine to heat my greenhouse.
It was a great Article my friend and I thank you for puting it together.
additionally since the wood boiler i had kept water temp at about 190F it was a perfect marriage for the charcoal\methanol refrigeration systems .............just perrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfect~
Nicely explained thanks Mr 2Bit.
Loved the quote, a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step, it should be one written on every school wall.
All done with a great patter that's easy on the ears & eyes.
I wish we'd had such videos and TH-cam when I was learning in school,
back then (1970) we had no computers and streaming was what you
got after a beery night out and too much curry.
I love Stirling Engines, too. I have several and give them away as presents to family members (they consider me a GEEK, anyway).
cool little things aren't they? I love them too :)
Wow , team TBDV , wish u all the best & keep up the good job .
For me this is mind blowing ever since I came in contact with Two Bit da Vinci I can't stop enlightening myself
Cool Concept. I was thinking the same thing for awhile now, I just didn't know the Stirling Engine could be the answer. Awhile back, I asked myself why data centers don't' make use of that heat they want to get rid of.
A sun catcher solar dish uses a stirling engine, and is more efficient than solar panels. It can generate power 6-8 hours after the sun goes down without external batteries. Requires no exotic manufacturing or materials. Is currently producing a fair amount of power in the US already, and hasn’t been in the news for 11ish years. I wonder why. Cheap energy isn’t profitable, I guess;)
What is your estimated cost/kwh?
Yes @Absolicon does exactly that!
I saw one design available that used a linear generator on the end of a really neat designed sterling engine with the heat sink at focal point of a single dish, couple years ago..
@@bru512 @Absolicon looks to be about €0.50 per kWh including storage!
Another way to store energy to run a sterling during peak hours would be a heat tower like that European solar generator using a mirror and tower filled with heat storingb fluid.
Thx for sharing. One place that the Stirling engine/heat pump is being used everyday is the cryo-refrigerator in an MRI machine. If you've ever been in the room with an MRI machine you'll hear a constant swoosh swoosh ... . That is a helium base heat pump used to keep the coils at super conducting temperatures.
I don't know if someone else mentioned it but NASA had a Stirling engine added to a pick up truck in the early 70s. It had good response to user throttle inputs. Another application was in a boat where it too had good throttle response.
Another great embodiment of a Stirling engine was done by Philips in the 50s. It was used as an electric generator and there are a few TH-cam videos about it.
So, these are just a few of the success stories of a Stirling engine in use.
Unfortunately they do suffer from low energy density hence they have to be big. Some time in the future it will be better to use big Stirling engines instead of watching our planet burn up at our hands.
Again, thx for sharing.
Fantastic! Lots of potential here!
Along with capturing the heat from the attic of a house, all air conditioning systems should be split system heat pumps, with the condenser of each house being submerged in a tank of water. That tank would be connected to large geo cooled waterline and return waterlines that would be many miles long and 20 feet below the ground. This would remove ambient heat from the area and the ac units wouldn't have to work so hard.
Does not work in latitudes greater than 48 degrees N or S
Attach your hot attic to your clothes dryer inlet, attach your outlet to your cold attic.
There was a news item about a local who wanted to do that and couldn't find a contractor willing to do it
Greath idea! I also think that so many split air conditioner terrible jncrease temperature in the Cities.
@@CharlieBrown723 Turns out, a lot of people don't live in latitudes greater than 48 degrees N or S. They also don't use AC much, so it's kind of besides the point. Also, yes it does work at those latitudes.
thank you great video, and yes I will be building a Sterling engine, to spin a axial flux generator.
Ty sm4ur knowledgeable insight MrRicky ur great
Not really sterling related, but I remember seeing a video some years ago of a resort in Alaska who uses multiple centrifugal chillers to generate electricity for their remote resort, using nothing but the delta T of ambient air, and a moderately warm stream. The working fluid in that case, is refrigerant.
Love your channel!
That sounds fascinating David - could you possibly find the video or link? Cheers, Darren
Best explanation at 2:58 🙌🏻 👏 😆 great job
Little engineer in training 😁
I've been thinking about this for a little while. I think that if you are going to have a "Heat" line, it makes more sense to dump that all in a larger Water Tank (thermal mass). Maybe in your attic, but maybe not. I am not entirely convinced that you can convert that heat into electricity all that efficiently, but maybe the point is that you do it at all. Still, that's a lot of infrastructure in the home, and people have problems when Solar takes a while for "Payback".
Very true… hot water line is a great point and we already have this in homes. It could be the fluid we pump heat into
I didn't think the point of a heat line was for making electricity, it's to serve all the devices that use or create heat in your house. Hot water at all the faucets, waste heat from the fridge, waste heat from the range maybe, actual heating of the house, waste heat from a/c, recovered heat from drains, etc.
I like the heat line idea, especially for summer.
Our house took part in a pilot programme for the Whispergen MicroCHP unit over a period of several years. This burned "natural gas" and produced hot water for the central heating system as well as approximately 1 kW of electricity when running. They were about the size of a washing machine and, as you observed, very heavy. Ours was installed in the garage. However, reliability was an issue. A key component was the so-called " wobble yoke" and both this and the seals often gave trouble. About the longest it ran without engineers having to come and service it was around 6 to 8 months, and being on the pilot programme, the company came and installed new, improved models several times (about five in total). In the end, the energy company (e-on) decided to pull the plug on the test program and we had to go back to having a conventional system boiler coupled with a thermal store.
I believe however that smaller versions are still fitted to ships and sailing yachts.
I should have made clear that the Whispergen MicroCHP had a Stirling cycle engine at its heart.
Sounds awesome & I believe we should all the planet saving resources every chance we can create.
Good review of the tech. New tech may keep it out of wide adoption. An oscillating electric engine pump, more efficient heat pump.
Had to pause the video to comment on your attic idea. It's mind blowing.
I mentioned to an engineer at a local solar panel/water-heater installation company that if they are short on panels, why can't they install a large solar water heater and use a sterling engine to generate power. His reason for not doing it is that moving parts are prone to failure, which is true, but I figure they can improve that. Imagine a giant hot water tank that you can use to generate power. In a way, this can act as a battery.
Imagine using both solar panels as the top layer, then use the rest of the solar heat to evaporate water, then condense/pressurize the vapor to make hot water. You have energy, hot water, and distillation all in one. Again the hot water could be used as a battery with a sterling engine.
We’ll said. I like how you think. Yah in practice it’s tough and requires some baselining. But I find it fascinating to think about
Having watched a few overviews of Sterling engines I was hoping you'd do one, knowing it would be excellent. I think "a worthy niche" is a better way of looking at it than "a relic of the past". Recovering exhausted energy, as does a compound engine, seems worthwhile but the math to prove it is not as easy as for a compound engine. We need an algorithm.
Well, let’s be honest; Stirling engines do not “make” energy, they convert energy- from heat to mechanical power. Their benefit is that they capture the inevitable wasted energy that is a symptom of combustion.
Your assertion that Stirling engines need to be very large is incorrect. Many small engines can be employed very efficiently. That is the tactic employed by a European company who supply 24 such engines set up inside a shipping container.
I like the death by 1000 cuts. Many small engines should be experimented with more for sure. We need all the constructive ideas we can get.
Do you have a link to this company?
@@katiegreene3960 Azelio, I think, is the name of the company.
I suggested this to a previous employer who has ten die-casting furnaces full of molten aluminum running constantly. Suggested it could cut his energy costs by up to 50%. We had a tool room that was virtually redundant for 25% of the year which could build and experiment with the engines for a fraction of the cost of contracting. He looked at me like I had two heads!
@@Barbreck1 what an awesome idea, sadly many people in charge lack vision.
@@katiegreene3960 The problem tends to be that their operation consumes a significant amount of power on a daily basis, so they simply get used to this as a running consequence of doing the job and are therefore complacent about what can be done to mitigate the costs. It would also require additional effort to organize and execute - a job made all the harder by the existing architecture- and an effort that is not directly engaged in production. These facts combined unfortunately close the idea from the outset. It would require a fresh and ambitious Entrepreneur with a vision to design and build such a facility from the ground up.
Just watching that little engine turning the generator makes me think that if it charged a small battery or supercap while the engine was running, some simple electronics could be used to detect applied heat and use the generator as a starter motor when the source of heat is first applied. And I really like Stirling engines. What a brilliant invention. Just occurred to me too that the reciprocating movement of the piston could be used to generate electricity by oscillating an attached magnet in a coaxial coil.
Another great video!
Seems everyone is focused on generating electricity. How about direct mechanical transfer, like running a mechanical pump to move water - probably more efficient and flexible than ram pumps. Could even use some of the water as it transfers for coolant on the “cold side” of the rig. The heat pump concept could be repurposed in many ways.
It is crazy that everytime I am deep into a subject I find thar you either have or or immediately thereafter release a video on that same topic. Since I don't believe in conspiracy theories, & multiple occurrences cannot be written off as pure coincidence, it leads me to the assumption our minds are similarly attuned, And that we may have the same goal or vision in mind. I would very much like to pick your brain & see if this is A. True & B. If a Partnership rather than a Competition may be more mutually beneficial. I originally started on a Independently derived disalonization / engery generator project in 2008 after watching the documentary "Blue Gold: World Water Wars" But put the project aside for my military career when I had learned that there was already a similar project (Ivanpah Power Facility) in work. Now years later I have rekindled the torch but with my focus & goals on clean energy alternatives for more "everday" type devices using an algomating other similar "outdated" or "discarded" technologies for energy efficiency. I have a few working ideas & concepts I think you may have similarly thought about. Hit me up if you open to a collaboration & would like to discuss it more privately, IDK how to go about the discussion on an open forum while maintaining proprieties.
Edited for spelling & Grammer
Yes, Stirling engines were often used to pump water.
Point a bunch of those mirrors at the bulb of your engine there. Could run a generator.
GREAT VIDEO -- A few ideas to change your perception of the problem and make it easier to find solutions... 1) Stop calling it "waste heat"... I know it sounds like a little thing, but it makes a big difference in how you look at things. Instead just refer to it as HEAT ENERGY, or WASTED Heat. Heat is not waste, it is just wasted. 2) Instead of thinking in terms of "pumps" or "engines" instead think in terms of CYCLES... Heat that exits one cycle can be used as the input for another. 3) Remember that gasses can do work when expanding AND contracting. Make use of BOTH.
EX... Combine a pair of Stirling Cycles with a pair of Refrigeration Cycles -- Use external heat to power a Stirling Cycle, and transfer power to one of the refrigeration cycles. Next, use the condenser to heat water under a moderate vacuum. That water converts to steam, and the pressure pushes the vapor to the "hot side" of the second Stirling Cycle and across the evaporator coils of the Second Refrigeration cycle. The Second Stirling Cycle takes in external heat also, and is used to power the second Refrigeration Cycle.... Heat from its condenser is also used to boil water under negative pressure to transfer energy to the first Stirling Cycle and the evaporator coil in the first Refrigeration cycle.
Good job on explaining this Engine
For your attic you'd do better to absorb the heat on the outside of your roof, before it even reaches
Or vent to let the hot air flow outside, the heat will naturally make it flow upwards, so placing a vent as high as possible will move all of this hot air outside. Sure you'd not take advantage of the heat, but most of this heat is due to the sun light hitting the roof, so it'll be more efficient and cheaper to cover the entire roof with solar panels.
One of the most compelling use I've heard for sterling engines is in datacenters in cold climates (eg. iceland, northern canada,..). The temperature difference between the heat produced by the computers and the cold air outside should be enough to recapture some of that energy to partially power the datacenter, so they are making more efficient use of their electricity.
@@aarondewindt Well spoken, you're making sense!
How about the heat line you mentioned, coupled with an outside solar concentrator that tracks the sun and sends heat to a plate to power the whole house stirling engine.
Feel your attic with sand/regolith, not only a great thermal mass, also blocks radiation. You can power your house at night with the energy collected during the day.
NASA already has a solid state version, I expect the Sterling engines to be exceptionally common for space applications.
Mr. Carnot suggests that the efficiency depends on the temperature difference. You need a lot mote engine to get the same power if the source is waste heat in most cases. Might be useful for CSP plants that store heat in rocks. I love the idea of thinking about home energy globally. Years ago when I was in practice as a plumbing engineer; I came up with a 5 pipe system with 2 pipes that moved hot and cold water between fan coil units and another gathered heat using heat exchangers. The other two were domestic cold water that doubled as fire protection and domestic hot water. The idea was that it would save on installation and material costs while requiring little or no extra space like air ducts and sometimes waste pipes do. A sixth pipe could carry waste and be only 2" if a vacuum system was used.
Thanks for sharing, great article. Another option could be the use of solar collector tubes to create heat to run your sterling engine and power a home.
I just saw a news item about a European company making water cooled PV panels and the heat went to a heat pump
I think the quantity of energy the Sun produces allows us to to be "wasteful/inefficient" for the sake of easier installation/less moving parts (solar & batteries).
If I made an automobile out of the black box material that survives plane crashes nobody would die from collisions. Only problem is it would cost more than most could afford. Storing solar pv energy into batteries for residential merely robs battery supply to produce more hybrids or full blown EV's. Meaning it would actually be wasteful / inefficient on a maximum global carbon reduction aspect.
Ultimately solar and battery produce more pollution and cost too much
@@Cerberus984 this is current problem, not a future one.
@@fredmauck3547 incorrect
@@IamtheDill Check your facts buddy. All the pollution caused in mining the materials for batteries and solar panels, all the pollution caused from making the solar panels and batteries, all the pollution caused from transporting these things, the environmental disaster it causes in disposal.Dude, the only way we can pull out of this mess is to phase in tidal and wave energy technology
Sterling engines can become MUCH more energy dense if the working fluid were to phase change
R-11 boils at 74.5 degrees, I thought of this same thing for many years now.
gives many pebbles for thought. ty
A company I worked for in the early 2000's built components for Stirling Engines. The engines were used in solar farms. Mirrors concentrated light onto a heat plate which ran the engine. The engine turned generators.
Unfortunately, that project had issues with premature failures on the heat plate assemblies.
Plus the costs were considered to be prohibitive.
But, I am a big fan of Stirling Engines.
Any ideas why a fresnel lens concentrating on the engine, wouldn't work?
Could you in theory use this with geothermal energy? Because there's a few places this could be useful
Seems to avoid the efficiency issue. You need high temperatures at one end and low temperatures at the other end of a stirling engine. Attic may have a lot of heat, but efficiency will be very low. The maximum theoretical efficiency of a heat engine (which no engine ever attains) is equal to the temperature difference between the hot and cold ends divided by the temperature at the hot end, each expressed in absolute temperature (Kelvin). A 120 degree attic with a 50 degree cold side is only 1.7% efficient.
11:30 that's the method we should be looking into here in Western Aus. My thought though is that at the focal point heat could be collected and stored in molten salt form, if a temperature differential is required then heatpipes could be sunk into the ground where temperatures remain much cooler and stable
Excellent video which create lots of exciting ideas!
Could Stirling engines be powered by dump incinerators to send power into the electric grid? We currently bury our waste here. It’s always seemed like a loss of potential energy that might be captured by incineration.
Very much so yes. Industrial waste heat of many kinds is often lost. It could increase profits a lot but many just don't think outside of the box.
Join us on patreon or yt member and keep those ideas coming and we can get the word out together.
Here in South Australia methane emissions from a local refuse site are used to fuel an engine (converted diesel?) which spins an alternator.
The power output is low but it may be by design so that they don't consume more methane than it can produce long-term.
Spent nuclear rods don't produce enough energy for the super heated steam to turn the turbines, but they could still heat water to run these Sterling engines for centuries.
@@1MarkKeller yes very true. Great idea.
@@CNile-se9xw two bit da Vinci is working on a story about methane energy. He might call it POO POWER 💩💩💩💡💡💡😆
Would you watch a video on that subject?
I don't know what you call fuel, but the heating element of the engine is running off of something hotter than the ambient heat.
It may be solar, it may be geothermic, it may be whatever, but if the temperature is above ambient something is fueling the device.
Fuel is the use of a product to create heat or energy by burning. The coffee is not burning, so it is not fuel. Thats like saying being under a blanket you are fueling the heat in the blanket, you are not. There is absolutely zero burning happening. Hot air expanding a sterling engine means that it is fuelless, it is being heated, but not being fueled.
@@facelessdrone really and the water for a waterfall, is not the fuel for the engine which is the waterfall.
Oh no, it's gravity.
Remove the water, the waterfall doesn't turn, so therefore gravity does not work as an fuel, but think again gravity can pull a rock out of the sky and make it destroy the Earth so gravity does work as a fuel.
I have been looking at the engineering behind stirling engines for a couple of years now (however, Im not an engineer ... just an ex electrical/electronics eng turned psychologist). Ive been looking at, and testing, the idea of a reciprocal SE (balanced) & re-engineering the piston to operate as a linear induction rod to charge coils to charge batteries: A EV range entender based on a reciprocating induction, which can also "kickstart" the SE, while using the heat of the batteries/electric engine to provide range charging. Yes, losses. But youre losing to charging, removing large losses to friction, equals greater efficiency.
My attic is warm only for few months of the year. My double layered roof is quite a good insulator even in summer. I rarely use AC. Only on humid days.
Haha, I have the same Stirling engine you showed with your cute boy! I never thought of the heat pump angle!
Another great video Ricky!
Cheers,
Eric
Thank you Eric as always! Yeah these little Stirling engines are so much fun! and I'm going to try to have my son in on more episodes :)
@@TwoBitDaVinci Brother, I just love these concepts bringing synergy in home thermodynamics and am so excited to see what Elon is cooking up. Taking advantage of some home equipments latent heat and sharing it where needed has always been an interest of mine. Here in the humid east coast in late spring, summer & early fall I would love to make use of the heat my whole house Dehumidifier produces (as well as capturing the water) so its not fighting with my air conditioning. Maybe if I had only placed my Dehumidifier in the same room as the water heater it would have been fun to work it out. 😀
Seems the stirling cycle with its steady state operation might be useful in many ways from your attic concept to below foundation thermal tap... fun.
When I designed this house, I did go a couple feet deeper in my foundation and with the R-28+ insulated walls and then added R-20 rigid foam insulation below the floor. Man, we were surprised how warm that floor is in the winter... we decided not to even hook up the radiant floor heating. Seems between the earths warmth 10'+ down (56° or so) and our modest basement heat... the floors just don't get cold... now if I could pre cool the Dehumidifier air through earth-tubes ... haha just so fun. But also expensive too.
On the 19th of August I actually get to meet my Architect at the new NC property ... I'll keep these dreams in mind when I meet with him. 😉
Cheers,
Eric
@@erickessler6094 Insulation is so important in lessening temperature cycles in the home.
Yes, it's expensive but it keeps giving all year round.
We built our '70s double brick home (in South Australia), before wall insulation for our type of construction was a thing, but later, we had wool insulation blown into the wall cavities & without a doubt, it's been the best money we've ever spent.
I'm now in my 70s, with my wife approaching the hurdle, we're not as cashed-up so we've recently bought bulky but light, comfortable insulated clothes for the colder weather like we're experiencing now.
If Eskimos can survive their icy environment, we should all learn from it. 👍
@@CNile-se9xw Amen to that insulation & temp cycling brother! The temp changes in this house are very slow as this home is an Insulated Concrete Form (ICF) home so the basement and house walls are Concrete up to the roof trusses. While the native R-value is R-28, some argue the passive geothermal effect gives them a higher effective R-value of about R-40 but I didn't consider that during my Manual J load calculations especially because that benefit really only would count during temp extremes where there is a high temp difference between the below grade soil temp and the hot air and sun. By design and lot selection, I also kept my south side of home to 1 story of wall (almost perfectly south) while the north side, due to lot slope, is 2 stories of wall. The heat & sun hitting that side of house does have to fight through both the insulation and the passive geothermal effect of energy conducting through the Concrete wall with its 12'+ deep foundation wall.
Anyway all a fun experiment and only the roof and gable ends are wood, and the gable ends are staggered-double-stud with R-40 spray foam. The roof is R-60.
It was such a fun project and my 2nd energy efficient design.
Cheers,
Eric
Ricky: can you please look into organic rankine cycle generators?
Sure haven’t heard much about it but consider it on the list!
The LTD sterling engine could be run on a heat scavenging basis in the far north. Here in Canada, we have seen winter indoor-outdoor temp differences of 40-50 degrees C. I've always wanted to see an 8 cylinder Low-Temperature Differential sterling engine. If you run the heat from a public building into a C-can and the bottom is out in the cold you would have the potential to make power. There's an Alberta Co. using Sterling engines with the energy from flare stacks in the oil industry to make power.
Great video. It's a contender. Imagine all the homes where wood and coal are used for heat and/or cooking. They could be powered by Stirling engines and generators. But industry won't let it happen. About 20 years ago, a 17 year old boy named Christian (last name escapes me) in South Africa invented a Stirling Engine powered refrigerator. It was announced to the world as the answer to Africa's lack of hydro and refrigeration among its poor. Within 3 weeks, it was scrubbed from the internet. I have never been able to find it. I guess big electric and appliance interests bought him out. Perhaps there was no way they'd let themselves be rendered obsolete overnight.
I'm really shocked you didn't give credence to the nasa inspired single piston design. Way more efficient.
I think is impossible to get all the info about a subject as vast as Stirling Engine in just a few minutes. The most important thing is that he creates awareness. The rest is pure self learning.
Using Hydro or thermo generated Electricity to make H to burn in a fuel cell seem the best idea for future clean energy I have heard so far. And H creates water when burned. H energy density is high like FF. High energy density is the problem with most wind and solar and batteries.
About the roof: why not move this to the outside (underneath the solar panels), cooling them down (efficiency)? I think some thermal - solarpanels already exist (pvt), but they now are connected to boiler/heatpump systems. If the boiler is hot enough, this surely would be a good solution to use the surplus in heat.
I like the idea of heatline going into Stirling (summer) or house (winter), since heat/cold is at different places needed/produce. A problem with that might be the different temperatures coming from different sources.
Brainstorming an idea: Use a Fresnel lens to really heat up a reservoir, hook it up to a Stirling engine, and then hook up the engine to a battery. My guess is that it would be much less powerful than a comparable PV system but it would be interesting to test it out.
Brazil_(1985_film) had the best pipes on the walls designs. maybe they got something right
Not a single engine "MAKES" energy
right, it converts it INTO another type of energy
depends on how you define makes. we "Make" iron from iron ore, but we never actually "Made" the iron. It's just a semantics thing that doesn't really bother me.
@@openlink9958 : or work?
@@elijahhmarshall Why not??????
@@relentlessmadman because like I said, it's just a semantics thing. Being nit picky gets you nowhere.
Maybe also check out the thermo acoustic engine. The company i work for make (very) large compressors, a year or two ago one of these compressors was modified to be an acoustic engine
Love your approach to these topics. Stirling engine capacity to produce electricity...so how big and expensive would a stirling engine have to be to provide enough power to run an average house (lets use around 200 sq ft as the average - although we live comfortably in a 600 sq ft home.)
I've always felt that using nuclear heat to boil water seemed a bit wasteful.
Even in theory no type of heat engine gets much more than 50% efficient (that applies to Stirling engines too). Steam turbines are around 35% efficient, plus or minus 3% (usually plus with nuclear plants). New designs are incrementally improving that efficiency but it's not like there's a much less wasteful way of turning heat into power (not without wasting a lot of money anyway).
If they closed loop the water it only takes 30c to boil water in a vacuum with a one-degree differential chiller you can return the steam to liquid and start all over again.
Great video. I know one professor who has the world's record for lowest operating Sterling engine.
I believe that we need every option on the table. I like bio fuels that can serve as a potential stop gap until we can come up with a better battery for electric cars. They even can get fuel out of the carbon dioxide in the air. Algae for bio fuels is great. Anaerobic digesters have potential too.
My hope is we have every option on the table.
This is such a good video I tweeted it and added it to my eco playlist.
On first getting to know about the Stirling engine one is immediately impressed with its potential as a power source. On closer study of this type engine , one gets to know of its shortcomings and why it has not supplanted gas, diesel or petrol engines. The engine in its simplest configuration must be taken as nothing but an extremely low power specificity converter and was indeed used as such in the early part of the last century to run pedestal fans and large slow speed air circulators using kerosene as the fuel. The first step towards an improvement in the power size ratio is the pressurization of the engine. The basic engine operates at mean atmospheric pressure and has a power size ratio of about ten times lower than an equivalent sized internal combustion engine, If the engine is operated at twice atmospheric pressure the power size ratio is increased by a factor or two. The Stirling puts out a huge amount of heat which heat could be used in cold climates for the heating of houses or providing heat for chemical or other processes. There are innumerable problems with lubrication, piston seals and efficient heat transfer which problems have been managed only on the very large sized engines run off nuclear reactors. A rather curious development was the use of the Stirling cycle in cryogenerators. The Stirling cycle has made possible the space programme as the earlier solid fuel was much too inefficient and unsuitable for sustained operation in space. The Stirling cycle quite literally made possible the entire space programme as it enabled the production, and storage of liquid rocket fuels and gasses. The use of the Stirling cycle in power or energy converters has almost been discontinued due to the many difficulties but has found exclusive application in cryogeneraros as being the only type now is universal use.
I like the idea of storing the excess heat in a sand battery and using to for winter heating, heating hot water or or maybe a new type of out door cooking Alliance line.
6:20 -- I half-expected to hear you say "...kind of like Betty White -- they're national treasures that never go away and deserve our undying reverence."
Very interesting idea. I'm glad I watched.
I like the idea of using a heat pipe from all your devices up to an attic, what if you put metal roofing on a shed causing that thing to heat up with a sterling engine inside. Paint the roof Matte black and it would heat up significantly and stay hot for most the night. Even in colder climates it would allow power generation
I like th way u think
Excellent alternative addition ...
Just a closed loop device between radiators in an attic and a geothermal system to provide cooling in the attic in summer and heat in the winter that all the sterling engine does is work the pump to circulate the coolant.
14:15 Yes! The "heat line". Combine all the wasted heat and make use of it. Something I was also thinking about!
I was thinking of utilizing engine heat loss which is up to 40% through exhaust pipe . That wasted heat can be useful for small multiple sterling engines across the exhaust system making electricity. That would help decreasing size of alternator and by doing that you could make IC Engine more efficient . BUT again its all about energy density of sterling engines and how much they electricity them are manage to produce. It might work as exhaust cooling fan for increasing IC engine efficiency like BMW used water cooling for exhaust .
Anther thought is a second Condenser coil and temperature sensor that is mounted outside and the refrigerator using Freon valves switches over to dump it’s heat outside instead of always inside.
Imagine a lens focusing solar heat/energy into a stirling engine powered by a geo-thermal system to enhance its function? I see many possible uses for this old tech. I saw an old stirling engine that was used to pump water on an old historic Orchard/farm in upper state New York. I've been inspired by it ever since.
BILLION-DOLLAR IDEA: use Stirling Engines on all oil derricks & oil refineries, since they generate massive amounts of waste-heat, the Stirling Engines could be used to generate heat for oil production & refining.