The article concerning USNRL developing a catalytic means of liberating CO2 and H2 from seawater to serve as liquid hydrocarbon fuel feedstock is indeed interesting. Guess it will be necessary to look up the patents mentioned in the article to see exactly what is going on. It does seem to be something that we won't find in production in the relatively near future.
Just to inject a tone of practicality, reciprocating steam engines are, at best, a niche market and certainly not the best fit for all uses. There was never any chance the navy would have any interest in Cyclone engines. For one thing, Naval Sea Systems Command has so much greater expertise in the steam power field than Cyclone that you really can't even compare the two. They've been running steam systems for well over 150 years.
To give a feel for the level of experience, just one of the steam turbine driven pumps in an aircraft carrier engine or reactor room undoubtedly has many times more non-stop, trouble free run hours on it than the cumulative total of all Cyclone engines built to date....and some are far more powerful than anything Cyclone has built. Just one carrier probably uses more steam turbines than the aggregate number of engines built by Cyclone for all customers. Lessee...just based on published data and typical USN engineering we can tally 4 main engine turbines, 8 turbo generators, 8 feed pumps, 4 main circulating water pumps, 4 standby lube oil pumps, at least 4 fire pumps.....
As for Cyclone teaching the USN about steam, the carrier and submarine main engines are highly efficient, highly compounded steam turbines exhausting into almost a pure vacuum...such a system is far more durable, powerful, smooth and compact than any reciprocating engine a company like Cyclone can build....or anyone else for that matter. This is no new observation, way back more than 100 years ago HMS Dreadnaught proved the superiority of turbines over recips in this size range.
Piston engine steam is and is likely to always be, at best, a niche market. It's "One World, Many Power Sources" with a large number of very effective competitors that are going to be superior in their own corners of the market. Success might be possible by finding niches where light steam has some kind of competitive advantage and then skillfully exploiting it. Assuming it is a one size fits all band aid isn't realistic.
