Mars industrial steam and stirling

Most of the power we use comes from steam generators. Almost all coal, nuclear, geothermal, solar thermal electric power plants, waste incineration plants as well as many natural gas power plants are steam-electric.

Industry needs power. Some use heat directly, others use electricity to run tools, that can come from a differential of heat. The bigger the difference the better, more efficient, power generation can be. This means the comfortable 22 celsius of your mars habitat, which every habitat will require for life support, can be used to generate power from the -55 celsius average outside, but much lower temperatures can occur. The highest outside temperature is going to be about 20 celsius. So take that day off!

Steam engines obviously require steam, but stirling engines do not. So as a bon voyage gift, you might give your martian colonist friends this book. Here's a book to go with it. Some desktop machinist tools. Some tools source links.

Here's a place where you can buy instructions to build or completely assembled engines of various sizes.

With more power, perhaps you can get the girl?...

Oh, and this is just another in a long list of gaslight era technologies.

Then again, perhaps they will just convert the heat directly to electricity? From dirt? Ni45Co5Mn40Sn10? A new alloy? A microchip? Old fashioned RTG?