Tag: engines

Dean Kamen Thinks His New Stirling Engine Could Power The World

For the new issue of Forbes Magazine I wrote an article about David Crane, the visionary CEO of NRG Energy. When I met Crane for lunch a couple weeks ago, no sooner had we sat down than he began singing the praises of this new contraption he had in his basement. The machine — which can generate 10 kilowatts of continuous power, fed by Crane’s natural gas line, is a new iteration of an old creation, the Stirling engine. This version, called the Beacon 10, was created after a decade of engineering by famed inventor Dean Kamen. I caught up with Kamen (who is best known for creating the Segway scooter) over the phone last week to ask him about the device. We’ve turned his …

Original Article Can Be Found Here:

Dean Kamen Thinks His New Stirling Engine Could Power The World

No Crankshaft, No Problem: Toyota’s Free Piston Engine is Brilliant

Let’s get one thing straight: The variable-valve-timing, direct-injection, turbo-wonderful powerplant in your new car is not cutting-edge. Despite the complexity of the modern engine, the fundamentals haven’t changed since Grover Cleveland was in office. Pistons turn a crankshaft that eventually spins your car’s wheels. Yawn. Electrically driven cars are the future. But until we have cheap, 1000-mile batteries, we still need range-extending fossil-fuel engines. Those devices don’t need to turn wheels, just generate juice. The simple solution is to strap a generator to a piston engine, as BMW did with the two-cylinder range extender in its i3 EV. But if the engine never turns a wheel, there’s no need for it to rotate anything. Why not cut out the …

Original Article Can Be Found Here:

No crankshaft, no problem: Toyota’s free piston engine is brilliant

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