On 2010-05-06 20:31:01 -0400, Morris Dovey said:

And what's the action of the solar component? Heatin' stuff up?

Yuppers. Any source of heat will do, but I like solar heat because it's
really, really inexpensive. Stirling engines operate on a temperature
differential between a "hot head" and a "cold head".

Stirling cycle engines also operate in reverse. If you apply mechanical
energy instead of heat, they operate as heat pumps and one part of the
engine will get cold while another gets hot.

If you visit http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/Projects/Stirling/ and click on
the globe image, you can see photos and videos of some of these things
working (and sometimes not working).

I understand the heating part of it, but what provides the cooling?
Increasing pressure should just heat things up further (if I remember
how Superman turned coal into diamonds), right?

BTW, that parabolic mirror is impressive!