American stirling company infinia (http://www.infiniacorp.com/applications/clean_energy.htm)recently raised for $9.5M in cooperation with the Open Energy corp to make a 3 kW solar-powered, free-piston stirling engine. The unique aspect of the project is the concentrator, called a suncone:http://www.openenergycorp.com/suncone/suncone.php.
A suncone directs light down to the stirling engine, rather than up from a parabolic mirror. They plan on commercializing by 2008.
It appears that the cone idea would work better for my portable stirling notion: a big helium balloon, black, with a number of metallized cones thru its center at all directions and focused to the bottom. You blow the thing up with a cartridge of helium and attach it the the engine, which sits on the ground and anchors the balloon. No need to track the sun---there's a cone in each direction of the spherical balloon. Make the balloon as big as you want: deliver 10, 100 kW, say. Whole thing fits in a backpack, intalls with zero effort. 10 kW silent renewable power in a backpack. The military would go nuts for it.
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