Ok, I have been reading up on Stirling Engines.  It wasn't long until I found information on solar powered Stirling Engines.  Everything I watched seemed to present the material as new innovation and I thought that was a pretty cool idea.  So I was a little shocked one day when I ran across this gem at archive.org and thought I would create an account incase anyone here was interested.  (I would have posted in Solar but thought it would be better here since it is heat to mechanical energy.)

Solar heat, its practical applications
Pope, Charles Henry, 1841-1918

http://www.archive.org/stream/solarheatitsprac00poperich

It has Ericsson's Solar Caloric Engine which is pretty much the solar Stirling Engines of today.

Yes, that thing likely wasn't very viable option back then. Oil and coal was cheap and no one cared about emissions.

There's a large solar stirling farm in california desert. Brand new even, and is the only one I know of, which is surprising when you think how simple, elegant and efficient stiling engines are...gonna build me a car that has one . It is a refound innovation I'd say, far from new, heh.

I was pretty surpised.  From everything I read they made it sound like new innovation.  Kind of lousy they don't give credit to the first people to work on it back in the day.  In that book it even shows a very large dish built for a pumping station in Pasadena.  It's on Pg. 79 with actual photo on Pg. 83

Ericsson Rider Hot Air Engine Pump
http://www.powaymidlandrr.org/rider.htm

Read some of the original ads on that web site link above.
the thing could pump 100,000 gallons of water a day.
That could then be released through a turbine.
though in the day it was used to water cattle.


Some of the Amish still have these on their farm, used daily,
they heat them with burning corn cobs and such.


These could be run with a parabolic mirror back then and some were
or a fresnel lense today, as they are more available today.


Restoration of an Ericsson Rider here
http://users.zoominternet.net/~pcgray/Reeco/reeco.htm


These were quickly phased out by the Brain Police.
You see the bigger the piston, the less temperature difference you need to run it.

Ericsson also had a 300+ foot cargo ship powered by a hot air engine with huge wide pistons.  It could be run from the cool of the sea water on hot days. in fact to this day some submerines use the same principle.

Ericsson's ship was such a success, they sank it and claimed a storm toppled it. though the weather was fine that day.  Insurence refused to pay, and it was not in very deep water, so an agreement was made to salvage it and replace the engine with a conventional steam engine, so no more of this over unity talk would be floating around the harbor.


Read about the Ericsson cargo Ship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ericsson_cycle

Though most information on it is simply reproduced from other sites,
all of which originating from one source, much like all newspapers
get their feed from Reuters, owned by the Rothchilds.

So use your judgement when reading.


Now imagine this Ericsson rider heated by a Perkins Friction Heater
Spinning around the Hot peg, by a tiny toy electric motor or wind-up action.


I've also seen pictures of a small stirling engine crapping ice.
The powers that fade, worked hard to remove that article and I can't find
it or the picture anymore, but.  If you use a small electric motor to turn
the fly wheel of a Stirling Engine, the hot and cold sides of the stirling
will do just that, "become" hot and cold.  So much so that you can run your
hot water heater and your refrigerator, from it at the same time.
for a fraction of what you pay now, even from a small water wheel at a creek in Safeville.


KC