Ecomike,
I am aware of PEEK being used as bearings in other applications, but the loads required in the Cyclone engines are extreme. In fact, how the bearings and the piston rings hold up in the long term are my greatest concerns about the Cyclone engines. However, the "spider bearing" that connects to the piston rods has a unique design that is designed to take it long term. Try to find a pic on the web site to get an idea of what I'm trying to describe here: The PEEK in the spider bearing is contained in a steel housing that forms 6 separate bearing surfaces for each piston rod (these are "shoe bearings"). There is an additional bearing surface for each piston rod via the "pin" that secures each rod to the spider bearing itself. Basically the design doubles the bearing surface area, and also contains the PEEK under compression. The spider bearing is water lubricated via the water lubrication pump.
I actually have very little practical experience and limited formal education. I just have a mechanical mind. I was a steam plant operator for a few years in the U.S. Navy, and currently I am an undergraduate student of physics. I have a good understanding of this technology because I began researching piston steam engines during 2005 when oil prices started rising. I determined independently that the ideal steam engine for low-medium power applications would be a single-acting uniflow piston engine, would have water lubrication (or use some new high temp lubricant), use heat regeneration, keep the steam generator pressure and temp constant and control engine output with valve cutoff, solve what I considered to be the single biggest problem for a compact steam engine (the condenser), and get the power/weight down. I stopped my research when I came across Harry's work. He nailed each one of these. Other designs might optimize single features better than the Cyclone, but the Cyclone is the best overall package out there.
The reason that I believe the Cyclone exhaust will be cleaner than alternatives is the combinations of excess air (about twice stoichiometric), centrifugal combustion chamber (keeps unburned fuel particles in the combustion chamber), and low combustion temps (below 2300F virtually no NOX forms). Also, the combustion system, primary heat exchanger, and recuperator are optimized for a single firing rate (note: the Cyclone uses a single firing rate that is either fully on, or fully off according to the demands of the system).
I expect the Cyclone to be at least as good as the TTEG system with respect to multi-fuel capacity. The Cyclone has already demonstrated the burning of powdered coal among other fuels including used crank case oil from internal combustions engines, straight vegetable oil, ethanol, unrefined algae oil, and various gaseous fuels.
About the "parallel hybrid" configuration. "Parallel" hybrid means that a motor works in tandem with the engine with both driving the wheels. "Series" hybrid (like the Chevy Volt) means that only a motor drives the wheels with an engine available for powering the system indirectly (like battery charging). Another example is Diesel-electric locomotives. These are series hybrids that use electric motors to drive the wheels with a Diesel powered generator providing energy to the motors. The benefit of this configuration is derived from the fact that the efficiency of internal combustion engines vary a lot over their power range with the greatest effiency near the high end. You can see this for yourself while you drive your car. During acceleration you will notice that acceleration picks up rather dramatically as you approach and exceed roughly 4000 rpm. This occurs for several reasons, but the point is that the torque increases with speed.
The steam engine is opposite. The highest torque is at low speeds. This is ideal for motive power applications like cars, trucks, and locomotives. Cars and trucks need something to overcome this feature (conventional cars use mechanical transmissions, and series hybrids use electric motors). The steam engine simply doesn't need anything here. I realize that I'm going on at great length on this point, but it's only because I think it's so important. Consider that the battery on the Chevy Volt, the cutting edge lithium ion battery capable of taking the car 40 miles on a single charge (assuming no auxilliary loads are used like air conditioning), WEIGHS 400 POUNDS! The Cyclone Mark V weighs 330 pounds COMPLETE! But let's not forget the Volt's electric motor, the inverters, and of course we can't forget the internal combustion engine, generator, and emissions controls equipment. What a technological terror that Volt turned out to be!
Finally, I want to point out that the design of the small Cyclone engines are different in many respects from the larger automotive systems. This allows the cost of the smaller Cyclone engines to be a lot less.
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