Solar Energy

Where Can I purchase one of these engines .
I hade one the same that was purchased in 1960s .
It is all warn out now & I want to replace it .

Regards
Bob C

how efficent is this compared to solar panels if we set up a feild of these mirrors and turbines and a feild of solar panels which one make more energy

Are you Andrew C. Kadak? If not, I'd give it a 0 since it was copied word for word from the World Book Encyclopedia (2008).

"Reconsidering Nuclear Power

Improved designs for nuclear plants, rising fuel prices, and concerns about air quality are prompting many people to take a fresh look at nuclear energy.

By Andrew C. Kadak

With growing numbers of people in the United States purchasing computers, televisions, appliances, and many other electricity-gobbling devices, the demand for electric power has been surging. Between 1991 and 2000, Americans' electricity usage jumped more than 30 percent. Meanwhile, power plants became extremely difficult and expensive to build, requiring exhaustive and time-consuming scientific studies to determine how the plant would affect the surrounding environment. As a result, relatively few new plants were constructed."

There's a bunch more, but yahoo won't let me post it all here. I don't know why. Trust me, the whole thing's there plus MANY more pages.

"About the author:

Andrew C. Kadak is a professor of nuclear engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

World Book© 2008 World Book, Inc. All rights reserved. WORLD BOOK and the
GLOBAL DEVICE are registered trademarks or trademarks of World Book, Inc."

WE shouldn't, I am not a great fan of nuclear energy, on A recent question I mentioned the waste from the nuclear plant and was told I needed to study nuclear waste because it was recyclable, well of course it is recyclable, into plutonium whit is still radioactive, and even those countries that are mixing it with inert ingredient so that it cannot be used in Atomic bombs, are still coming out with a radioactive product that can be converted back to plutonium.
Geothermal is a great way to go, where it is available, but is restricted to a few geological areas.
Solar power is limited to day light hours but can be stored for night time use, except in the northern hemisphere, where the only get a half hour of day light in the winter,
And you forgot to mention Wind generation, with the Vertical wind generators that are being developed, but do need wind speeds of 4 to 6 miles an hour to produce power.
By combining those 3 sources, we can come up with a balance of electric output that would supply all of our power needs.

If only you could build a car size (Stirling Engine) with a Fresnel Lens to produce electrical power maybe 55KW to start cheaply

Your problem with all these ideas is a value called "delta v" which represents the velocity needed to escape Earth's gravity. So far humans have only been able to use chemical energy to create enough thrust to achieve this amazing feat.

Then after this is achieved comes the problem of human consumables and while a lot of good ideas have been raised the amount of consumables needed still means we will be stuck raising them off the ground to keep humans operating in space or you would need an immense structure to supply all the needs to a human who would live in space.

To propel a craft and humans in space takes little energy, solar cells and an ion engine would work well BUT you have to get it all there in the first place.

How efficient would one of these be compared to a solar panel ?

All the models of the same power rating are pretty much the same. You can save a little bit by buying the ones without clocks and other extras if you can find them. The big difference will be in the power rating. You can get microwaves from 300 watts to 1200 watts. The smaller the wattage, the less the draw. Of course, it takes longer to cook something. Still, the slower you draw from your batteries, the better off you are. So I would suggest a smaller watt oven. Batteries can deliver more watt hours at lower current draws than they can at higher current draws as the internal resistance of the battery has a bigger effect at higher current draws. Also, the lower current draw has less chance of shutting down your system.

It will also help if you unplug appliances when you are not using them. Many appliance have small power draws even when not being used. While each appliance is not much, when added together over time it will add up.

Congratulations of being off the grid.