Eli5, even if they are not the most efficient or powerful things, why are stirling engines not sprinkled everywhere where there is a decent amount of thermal differential? or energy to recapture, Like in power plant cooling systems or other places where there’s lots of “waste heat” as a byproduct.

Question

Eli5, even if they are not the most efficient or powerful things, why are stirling engines not sprinkled everywhere where there is a decent amount of thermal differential? or energy to recapture, Like in power plant cooling systems or other places where there’s lots of “waste heat” as a byproduct.

In: Engineering

Answer 1

However hard your “waste” heat pushes on a turbine is exactly how hard the turbine is pushing back on whatever is making the waste heat.

There’s no such thing as free energy. It’s powered by the system before it in the chain, creating a restriction on that system, making it less efficient.