[Gasification] PRECIR STIRLING ENGINES

[Bill Klein]

Dear Tom: 

I believe "little Tommy", born in 1736, had an alias: Jimmy, but he still played with his mother's tea kettle and eventually raced one of his steam engine propelled boats here, in Vermont. It sunk, but his legacy lives on. 

I hope all is well with you. At the present rate of snowfall, we might catch up with Colorado. 

My very best regards! 

Bill Klein     
JAMES WATT, the grandson of a teacher of mathematics, and the son of a shipwright merchant of Greenock, was born in 1736. On the advice of a Glasgow Professor, he was sent to London in 1755 to be apprenticed to a mathematical instrument maker.1 However, on arriving in London he discovered that the seven years' apprenticeship rule of the gild was largely insisted upon, and it was only with difficulty that he could find any one who would take him for so short a time as a year This was finally arranged, and a Mr. Morgan was to give him a year's instruction for twenty guineas. 2 

His stay in London was characterized by great frugality and occasional fears of the press-gang In a letter to his father, he writes: " They now press anybody they can get, landsmen as well as seamen, except it be in the liberties of the city, where they are obliged to carry them before my Lord Mayor first; and, unless one be either a Prentice or a creditable tradesman, there is scarce any getting off again, and if I was carried before my Lord Mayor, I durst not avow that I wrought in the City, it being against their laws for any unfreeman to work, even as a journeyman, within the liberties."3 

When Watt had completed his training,


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Thomas Reed" <tombreed at comcast.net>
To: "Tom Miles" <tmiles at trmiles.com>; "GASIFICATION" <GASIFICATION at listserv.repp.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 10:00 AM
Subject: [Gasification] PRECIR STIRLING ENGINES


Dear Tom Miles and All:

In the beginning was little Tommy Watt and his mother's kettle.  This 
generated the idea that steam from an externally heated boiler could 
apply pressure to a piston, and the age of steam was born and the Kelvin 
cycle is still used for boiler-steam power. 

Then came Mr. Stirling who wondered if yu could use gas as the pressure 
element and he invented the Stirling engine which works - sort of.

Then came Dr. Otto who wondered if you couldn't actually burn a clean 
fuel INSIDE the piston/cylinder and thus was born the internal 
combustion spark ignited engine.

Then came Rudolph Diesel who thought that with sufficient compression of 
air and injection of the fuel that you could burn almost anything inside 
the cylinder.  Mr. Diesel even ran on powdered coal. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------


There are still people who think that the advantage of *external* 
combustion of ??? can compete with the *internal* combustion of prepared 
fuels inside the cylinder/piston.  The first thing they want to buy is a 
propane torch or woodgas generator to supply the controlled amount of 
heat.  I fear they are dilusional.

TOM REED  

BEF/BEC
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