From Thomas Edward Groves
One thing has been puzzling me about the hybrid cars being rolled out by the car industry (20 September 2008, p 26): why don’t they use Stirling engines to drive the generators?
The point is that this would be much cleaner than any internal combustion engine, much more fuel-efficient and perfectly capable of running on just about anything that would burn.
I can understand why a Stirling engine cannot be used directly to drive a car – it’s the world’s worst possible prime mover – but that does not explain why it cannot be used to drive a generator.
Ashford, Kent, UK
