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

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.