Why are you interested in Stirling engines? (Or why are you here?)

[Alphax]

I like making things, preferably things I've designed or adapted from other people's designs. I also like the notion of making something that works as simple as possible. Stirling engines offer a wide range of scope to inveterate tinkerers!

[matt brown]

I've been interested in alternate energy since the first 'Green Movement' of the early 1970s. At that time, I was in high school and California, so I was at the right place at the right time. Unfortunately, inflation took its toll, and energy solutions fell off the radar...until oil went over $100/bbl prior fin'l meltdown. So, I was bitten by the bug at a tender age, but clueless what I was getting into. Like James Watt, I had a childhood fascination with steam which morphed into an absorption scheme in the late '70s, just like Alex Kalina. However, single phase gas became my primary focus, suckered in by its apparent simplicity. I acquired a copy of Walker's first book, and somehow thought that if I could only decipher all that thermo mumbo-jumbo, I could crack this nut (James Senft later told me that this was the book that also 'did him in').

Over the intervening decades, I learned a ton of thermo, and became comfortable with chasing the Holy Grail. By the early 2000s, I had reduced most classic thermo to GA (graphical analysis) where I had a more 'visual' handle on thermo vs conventional 'hieroglyphic' thermo. About 2002, I stumbled upon an interesting Stirling mechanical solution that solved most of the conventional problems, but then discovered some oddball thermo issues about regen cycles that had been under the radar.

So, I joined the 2 yahoo energy groups: HAES (Hot Air Engine Society) and SESUSA (Stirling Engine Society USA). These groups were loaded with professionals, and lively for years (I was at the right place at the right time, again).

My current project is a simple scheme that exposes numerous isobaric failures like the Stoddards, most Ericssons, ECE piston Braytons, etc. Yikes, only 20 yrs to finally recognize_exactly_why the 1919 Stoddard can't work...

[emmanuel]

I am a homeless bum and I'm DESP.ER.ATE. for power.

[Engineire]

Energy independence. The globalists are pretty adamant that fossil fuels are to be phased out, they don't want nuclear energy and renewables aren't shaping up to the task of replacing existing infrastructure, so that's going to leave a lot of people lacking energy.

Stirling engines are attractive in the wide variety of energy sources they can run on and how incredibly simple they are. Next best option would be a wood gasifier engine in my mind, but that's a lot of complexity.