A month ago I watched the arborists come along and mangle all the huge trees along the power lines. It's a sad state where a professional tree trimmer just hacks the branches off at random to clear the power lines leaving the trees diseased and lopsided. But that's all they get paid for.
What does this have to do with external combustion? We love oil and gas. Everyone in North America loves oil and gas. Is it good for us? Not particularly but for all the yack and crap about alternate energy and alternate fuels nothing much really happens. We drive Hummers and giant Expeditions. We burn oil and gas to heat our homes. We pour it on the roads to make smooth surfaces for our cars. Can we become less reliant on oil and gas?
There's an old model which has lost all favour in our high tech society. External combustion. It used to be the primary source of mechanical energy before the internal combustion engines took over. What's the point? It's fuel independent. You can use any fuel that you can burn with external combustion: wood, garbage, straw, old houses, take your pick. As long as you can find a efficient burner you can convert any fuel into mechanical power.
It's still big in the world of large electricity generation. Steam turbines powered by coal, natural gas, nuclear fission, and even biomass play a large role in static power. Is this relevant to the little guy? I think it is. Imagine you could have a nice little 5KW generator in your garage running on whatever locally available fuel you have in abundance. You live in the country? Burn your waste wood from trimming trees. Rent a chipper. Convert compostable crap into electricity.
There are two main external combustion designs: steam and stirling. I have a dream project to make my own steam or stirling engine from reused components. We'll see how it goes.
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