Kickstarter project for $100 - 1 kW - stirling engine

Yes gas is near $4 - what does that have to do with utility prices, since there aren't any gasoline powered plants in the USA since the 70s ?<p>I would have to assume the way the utility company produces power is far more efficient than a town with thousands of mini-engines. Only stuff like solar cells work better in distribution.<p>Not sure how this would work either - what fuel are you going to use to power it for 24 hours without maintaining it? Will it drive an alternator to power an inverter? How stable would the feed be?

Looks like a cool project.<p>One note to entrepreneurs using Kickstarter, or creating any slide presentation for potential investors: Take the time to spell check your slides.<p>Tim Sefton (creator of this project), if you happen to be reading this, here are some notes that may help you make your presentation more professional...<p>"One thing.. The Sterling engine is about 10% more efficent then the gasoline engine, but strugles with changes in suden acceleration - like what is needed for cars."<p>If you are the author of the presentation, you may want to correct the four errors: efficient, than, struggles, and sudden. Also misspelled is "temperature" (on the previous slide),<p>Not a big deal to me, but some potential investors will absolutely be turned off by that.

<i>"Well the average US household uses about 8,900KWH of electricity per year - that comes down to 24 KWH per day and so our goal is to have a minimum engine output of 1KW so that it can produce close to the average home use of electrical power per day (24 hours of 1 KW output give you 24KWH)."</i><p>This math isn't taking into account that the power use isn't consistent, batteries will be needed to handle the variances in consumption. You'll never get 100% efficiency from power storage so the amount needed per day is much higher.<p>I also didn't see anything about the temperature required to make this run. Does this go on a roof or do they expect me to keep this in the fireplace the whole time.

It's possible to buy something like this.<p>A WhisperGen which generates electricity (1kW) and makes hot water using a four-piston Stirling Engine: <a href="http://www.ehe.eu/ehe/dm/whispergen.asp?nombre=2401" rel="nofollow">http://www.ehe.eu/ehe/dm/whispergen.asp?nombre=2401</a><p>They do both because they get cooling by transfering the heat to the domestic hot water supply getting hot water and electricity at the same time. They are powered by natural gas. The gas company E.ON in the UK did a study on them (they also provide them I believe): <a href="http://www.microchap.info/Carbon%20Trust%20field%20trial.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.microchap.info/Carbon%20Trust%20field%20trial.pdf</a><p>To quote that report: "For typical family homes, carbon savings of up to 20% are realistically attainable with economic payback of around 3 years."

Variant idea: a small portable version for camping. Stick one end in a fire, USB plug for power connector at the other. 2.5W shouldn't be hard to get under conditions where "unreliable" is normal.

Although the goals are clearly different, Dean Kamen (inventor of Segway) has been working on optimizing Stirling engines for years with seemingly great results:<p><a href="http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news4.24.08d.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news4.24.08d...</a>

What sort of performance could you expect by just sticking this in the wall of your house? In the winter, you've got cold air outside and you're already heating the inside. In summer, you've got hot air outside and you're cooling the inside. Does it matter which side is hot/cold?

An interesting side note: You can build one of these that will run off a candle and fit in the palm of your hand. I've got one in my office. It's a pretty neat technology.

&#62;The second difference is the Stirling engine is more efficient then the gasoline driven engine.<p>Gotta proofread this stuff.<p>Anyway, I was thinking recently about how a stirling engine could be powered by solar energy, and discovered that this is actually done. From wikipedia:<p>&#62;Placed at the focus of a parabolic mirror, a Stirling engine can convert solar energy to electricity with an efficiency better than non-concentrated photovoltaic cells, and comparable to Concentrated Photo Voltaics.<p>That's cool, and I'm startled that it isn't mentioned at all on this kickstarter page, especially considering the first paragraph of the pitch.

Seems like a huge long shot. Even if you wanted to get one now, it's $250.<p>I guess I've never seen this yet, but what happens when they can't' deliver you the working product? Do you get your money back?

Hmm. I see a few practical issues with this. I need to keep a fire burning the whole time? Not practical for many (most) homes and also will result in a lot of wasted heat.

Great, if I had enough space I would build one.

Robotics.