Yarn-muscles, any practical way to generate electricity?

[MattM]

http://news.yahoo.com/artificial-39-yarn-muscles-39-100x-stronger-human-190539016.html;_ylt=AwrBJSAUVAZTcAwAsZzQtDMD

They are easy enough to make, but I'm struggling to see how to use them.  They are no doubt strong as advertised.  Only it's a pita to use them imho in a practical way.  Maybe someone else has ideas.

My first idea was a. Wobble plate, use a peltier to heat air pushing across them one direction while cooling the opposite.  Very simple idea, but uses way more electricity than it produces.  I'm thinking it needs to be used in a closed system, like a Sterling motor, to be net positive.

Anyone have any ideas to make it practical in a green sense?

[joestue]

given the insane tensile stresses involved for the amount of energy that is theoretically recoverable with these kinds of "muscles", perhaps one method to recover the energy would be to make a thermal wheel, or rotary heat exchanger, rotating through a heat source and a heat sink.

the thousands of fibers could then be connected to a swashplate.