stirling

A Stirling engine powered by a solar concentrator could work very well for pumping and storing air.

Guess it's easier to make less inefficent than going with a steam engine or a stirling one, at that size...

The Stirling formula is another place where the square root of pi pops out from factorials.

If it were for something like a Stirling Cycle, you'd need a fairly substantial surface area to disburse the heat difference.

Bruce Stirling reckons it has to do a lot with the language.

I think the issue with Stirling Engines is the fact that they have moving parts that could wear and break down.

RTGs and stirling engines are fairly lightweight and compact.

If the new material can withstand 700 C then point a Fresnel at it and hook up the output to a Stirling engine for conversion to electricity.

I'd love some advice on using a Stirling as a heat pump.

>I think the issue with Stirling Engines is the fact that they have moving parts that could wear and break down.

I've considered just buying a Stirling engine and running it backwards, but I've not yet found one which is designed to be able to run effectively as a heat pump.

Furthermore, if an application desires electricity instead of a heat source, the Stirling cycle generators are tough to beat in terms of cost, reliability and end-to-end efficiency, even with exotic solar cells and lenses.

In the same spirit as Rogue Warrior, check out "The Phantom Major" which chronicles Sir David Stirling's efforts to create what became the SAS.

"Mad Mike" Calvert's various books pick up where Stirling allegedly left (some, such as Stiff in "See you in November", claim that Watchman International amongst others was a front for the MI6's black ops, so Stirling never really "retired") and also has some nice stuff about Orde Wingate, another interesting leader (both in results, and as a person) who unfortunately did not survive Burma.

Stirling engines are still much simpler than reactors, even if they are slightly more complicated than RTGs.

Speaking of Stirling, his series The Domination is in the same class as Ender's Game and Dune, at least, for world-building, and the first one was published in 1988, per wikipedia.

Mathematical Analysis and Proof by David Stirling.