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Originally Posted by ForcedInduction
The problem with stirlings is they are external combustion engines. It's almost impossible to make them thermally efficient as even a cheap gas engine.
They need a high temperature differential to make good, usable power.
Using the hot exhaust from a stationary generator/steam turbine/coal powerplant/nuclear cooling towers would be good sources of heat energy that would otherwise be wasted into the atmosphere.
A stirling alone, like a piston steam engine, is not a viable power source in the modern world.
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That might explain why they're good for subs --
cold water for cooling.
I'm telling you, I have this crazy fantasy that someone would pay good money to have a motor drive yacht developed that ran on quiet Stirling generated electricity. Flex fuel in the bargain.
The generator shown in the first link in the 1st post puts out 55 Kw. I found this conversion ratio ditty in a chat room:
3 KW = 4 HP
That comes from a little thumbrule we use in the nuclear submarine Navy that goes "3, 4, 5, 12 Kick Hymie's Ass Daily". "Hymie" being short for Hyman G. Rickover, the father of the nuclear Navy, of course. The K H A D represent KW, HP, AC amps, and DC amps (assumes 450Vac and about 270Vdc, the common voltages used in submarine electrical systems). So 165hp is about 123KW. 1200 DC amps is about 300KW. The amps to KW or HP conversions are pretty rough, but the KW to HP ratio is almost perfect.
So 55 Kw translates to 73 hp. Not huge but not peanuts either. I've been trying to find info on the Swedish sub powerplant. No luck but I haven't tried that hard. Here goes...