decreasing the compression ratio would be a simple adjustment of the rods, fuel could be direct injected and cooling of the piston isn't a... wait a sec... those pistons would get flaming holy cow hot but that can be overcome with proper material selection and gobs and gobs of money into the inventor's pocket... yea money for patent solves all problems. still cool looking though.

^I can see where a small, de-rated version could have possible uses in ultra-lights or military UAV's, but I think a high powered unit such as they show would destroy the cylinder housing in fairly short at high power settings. Early Wankels had some similar problems that were eventually solved, so you never know. Still, it is cool looking, and I still have my doubts. It's kinda too bad that that today's engineers know so much about internal combustion. Some amazingly weird engines were built before it became known what would and wouldn't work.

sadly enough working has nothing to do with the idea working or not or even how efficient the total package is. It comes down to the total profatibility of the package and sadly enough even in todays "green" consumer desire efficient has nothing to do with it. Case in point... the turbine engine being cut from the Volt. It was going to allow the car to go some 700 miles on an 8 gallon tank all the while keeping the 50 miles of electric only option. that got killed really quick based upon BS.

^A turbine Volt? Hadn't heard of that. But 700mi on 8gals? Surely there had to be more to the system then just batteries and a turbine. I assume the turbine powered an alternator. Turbines, at least in my experience, have always been known for their high fuel consumption. If the system was as efficient as you say, then killing it was darn near criminal, IMO.

The GM turbine engine was one of the ideas that got thrown on the wall and stuck for a while... In the end it cost too much for the bean counters to approve. It would have completely blown their price point out of the water. If they were trying to compete with the Tesla then it would have flown but the Prius is the competition they are going for with the Volt so no turbine option... at least so far.