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An updated version of a two-hundred-year-old invention is turning sunlight into electricity. Promising new solar technology to generate electricity is almost a cliche these days. Let's look at some promising old technology. Today, on Engineering Works! Listen to the podcast. When people talk about solar energy, they usually mean one of two things. Photovoltaic panels or solar concentrating plants. Some engineers are trying something else. An updated version of a two-hundred-year-old invention to turn sunlight into electricity. This old technology is something called a Stirling engine. A Scottish clergyman named, you guessed it, Stirling, invented it in 1816. The idea...

ROSEMEAD, CA, USA -- A Stirling engine is commonly referred to as an "external combustion engine" in contrast to the "internal combustion engines" found in most vehicles. Combine a Stirling engine with solar as the source of heat, and you have a highly efficient means of converting solar power into usable energy. That is what Stirling Energy Systems has been perfecting for the past 20 years. On Aug. 8, 2005, President Bush toured the DOE's National Solar Thermal Test Facility at the Sandia National Laboratories complex, situated on Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M., where he signed the energy...