Two Tiny Gas Turbines

Turbines are in the news this morning. bobtheimpossible writes to point out a BBC article on a Swiss turbine that runs at half a million RPM and generates 100 watts. It's the size of a matchbook. And af_robot alerts us to an even more diminuitive gas turbine on a chip, developed at MIT, that generates 10 watts — plenty for portable electronics — and should run 10 times as long as a battery of comparable weight and cost. A commercial version is 3 to 5 years away.

Comments

Dupe with no more info

[ryanov]

Two postings now and the obvious question is still not answered... where the hell are you supposed to get the fuel for these things? How are they supposed to be refilled? Still nothing.

Re:Power generation

[Overzeetop]

At 95% efficiency (a dubious claim, imho, given that the cold sink temp is presumably room temp), it would be a good source for constant charging and potential peaking current. You'd need a good number, though, at roughly 8 to the horsepower.

I think the future might be in portable power and backup devices - having a refillable, continuous 7-15kW power supply in a breadbox. With the right gear ratios, it could put out sinusoidal 60hz power for AC backup, though synchronizing the signals and preventing drift across the array would be a task in itself.