The upshot is that this arrangement allowed the engine to produce 400 milliwatts of power per square meter
Right.... And solar is 150-300 watts. While a neat poc it likely won't go anywhere.
this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2025
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This is enough to keep something like an ESP32 running throughout the night, but it would be way easier to just add a little battery instead.
It was invented in 1816...
Simple new engine. Right.
If you look up Stirling engines on the internet, you'll immediately find a load of toys and hobby kits for a device that runs seemingly by magic.
Don't write it off because of that, the Romans invented the Steam engine like 1800 years before trains, they just wrote it off as a child's toy.
A lot of shit generates an insane amount of heat, if we can harvest the temp differential a couple times during cooling process, it's literally free energy. Even if it just runs the fans/pumps in the cooling. It would be somewhat self regulating even, although we couldn't rely solely on this or we'd run into the same issue as nuke reactors with positive power coefficients.
Quick edit:
Even just some kind of battery tech that removes excess heat and turns it into battery cooling or even trickle charging back to the same battery.
Small shit is what's truly groundbreaking, because it can be applied to damn near everything for almost nothing.
Even just some kind of battery tech that removes excess heat and turns it into battery cooling or even trickle charging back to the same battery.
You don't need a high tech solution. A buried salt and sand pit can store enough energy to heat a house all winter in Northern Canada.
Drake landing. Sand batteries are cheap and easy but you are fighting oil and gas politicians.
The name of this engine is OPs Mom.
It draws power from the structural energy keeping our sky elevated....... /s I mean I have not read it although im guessing this is the wavelengths that pass off into space thing.