Soaring Gas Prices and an abundance of Coal. Do you think steam will ever make a come back?!

[cwclark]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Brunton

QUOTE: Originally posted by cwclark

QUOTE: Originally posted by Brunton

QUOTE: Originally posted by cwclark

.it takes 1 gallon of water to make 8 pounds of steam ... chuck

I'm really curious where you came up with that, Chuck. Can you explain, please?

it's the way we calculate a boiler's water usage rate...i work in a power plant that produces steam as a by-product that we sell to different customers...it produces on average of 1,300,000 lbs. of steam an hour between 4 boilers so, 1,300,000 / 60 = 21,666 pounds of steam produced per minute ..21,666 pounds of steam per minute / 8.34 (8.34 is how much a gallon of water weighs) = 2,598 gallons of water and that is how much water we are putting in the boilers per minute...and if i look at all 4 of my feed water pump output flows, they are putting out at a rate of between 580 g.p.m and 750 g.p.m. respectively, add them up and it equals 2,600 gallons a minute of feedwater going to the boilers....so it takes 1gallon of water to produce 8.34 lbs. of steam ....and yes that is the way it is calculated and has everything to do with the pressure exerted against the walls of a vessel...it takes fire and water to produce the steam that produces the pressure...chuck

Thanks, Chuck.

If you know that a gallon of water weight 8.34 pounds, then getting 8.34 gallons of steam from it is kind of a no-brainer.

I thought you were implying that one gallon of water provides 8 psi of steam pressure. But of course pressure is related to boiler size (in terms of volume), as well as amount of water or steam, so while a pound of steam in a power plant boiler is really a very small amount, in a small locomotive it takes on much greater significance. Your eight pounds of steam may equate to very low to very high boiler pressure, depending on the size of the boiler. Sorry for my mis-interpretation.[*^_^*]

But now you're raised another question - how do you sell steam as a by-product? Do you pack it in UPS boxes and ship it overnight? [:D]
I suppose it must be delivered to facilities adjacent to your power plant, since packaging and shipping live steam might be somewhat impractical?

LOL...no..no UPS delivery..it's a frame 7 GE gas turbine / generator that produces electrical power and in turn, the heat from the turbine that drives the generator goes thru a duct and boils the water...it leaves the plant via a pipeline to the customers around our plant...we send it out in 850 p.s.i. superheated steam and our plant and others use it to drive steam turbine compressors to pump specialty gases down a pipeline from corpus christi, Tx. to lake charles La. which in turn reduces the steam pressure to 175 P.S.I. in which we sell that also... it's a spagetti bowl of piping in this area for about 4 square miles of different plants in the area...we're sort of an industrial utility supplier that sells steam, treated and demineralized water, electricity, oxygen, nitrogen, argon and soon hydrogen...the gas of the future...chuck

[Anonymous]

Soon we'll be the "hydrogen nation".
Water Anyone?

[Pruitt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cwclark

QUOTE: Originally posted by Brunton

QUOTE: Originally posted by cwclark

.it takes 1 gallon of water to make 8 pounds of steam ... chuck

I'm really curious where you came up with that, Chuck. Can you explain, please?

it's the way we calculate a boiler's water usage rate...i work in a power plant that produces steam as a by-product that we sell to different customers...it produces on average of 1,300,000 lbs. of steam an hour between 4 boilers so, 1,300,000 / 60 = 21,666 pounds of steam produced per minute ..21,666 pounds of steam per minute / 8.34 (8.34 is how much a gallon of water weighs) = 2,598 gallons of water and that is how much water we are putting in the boilers per minute...and if i look at all 4 of my feed water pump output flows, they are putting out at a rate of between 580 g.p.m and 750 g.p.m. respectively, add them up and it equals 2,600 gallons a minute of feedwater going to the boilers....so it takes 1gallon of water to produce 8.34 lbs. of steam ....and yes that is the way it is calculated and has everything to do with the pressure exerted against the walls of a vessel...it takes fire and water to produce the steam that produces the pressure...chuck

Thanks, Chuck.

If you know that a gallon of water weight 8.34 pounds, then getting 8.34 gallons of steam from it is kind of a no-brainer.

I thought you were implying that one gallon of water provides 8 psi of steam pressure. But of course pressure is related to boiler size (in terms of volume), as well as amount of water or steam, so while a pound of steam in a power plant boiler is really a very small amount, in a small locomotive it takes on much greater significance. Your eight pounds of steam may equate to very low to very high boiler pressure, depending on the size of the boiler. Sorry for my mis-interpretation.[*^_^*]

But now you're raised another question - how do you sell steam as a by-product? Do you pack it in UPS boxes and ship it overnight? [:D]
I suppose it must be delivered to facilities adjacent to your power plant, since packaging and shipping live steam might be somewhat impractical?

[vsmith]

QUOTE: Originally posted by edo1039

I voted no,because if you cant smoke in public in California the liberals wont want coal smoke in the air either,and they are the biggest consumers of gasoline in the world,one day the big one will hit there and they can become there own country.

Dont hold your breathe waiting for Sin City to become beachfront property[8D].

BTW we'd love to be our own country, but we dont want to be resposible for turning the rest of the lower 48 economicly into a third-world country [:0] plus it would only be a matter of months before a Civil War broke out between Los Angeles and San Francisco[;)], and we'd only seriously consider doing it if soemone else, anyone, will take Ahh-noold in return...we'd be better off with Jay Leno as Governator[:D][}:)][:o)]

[cwclark]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Brunton

QUOTE: Originally posted by cwclark

.it takes 1 gallon of water to make 8 pounds of steam ... chuck

I'm really curious where you came up with that, Chuck. Can you explain, please?

it's the way we calculate a boiler's water usage rate...i work in a power plant that produces steam as a by-product that we sell to different customers...it produces on average of 1,300,000 lbs. of steam an hour between 4 boilers so, 1,300,000 / 60 = 21,666 pounds of steam produced per minute ..21,666 pounds of steam per minute / 8.34 (8.34 is how much a gallon of water weighs) = 2,598 gallons of water and that is how much water we are putting in the boilers per minute...and if i look at all 4 of my feed water pump output flows, they are putting out at a rate of between 580 g.p.m and 750 g.p.m. respectively, add them up and it equals 2,600 gallons a minute of feedwater going to the boilers....so it takes 1gallon of water to produce 8.34 lbs. of steam ....and yes that is the way it is calculated and has everything to do with the pressure exerted against the walls of a vessel...it takes fire and water to produce the steam that produces the pressure...chuck

[DigitalGriffin]

It so turns out that they are now experimenting with cars that take the exhaust heat to turn water to steam. This HP steam is then sent to a piston. The additional power was modest (on the order of 12%) But still, it is recovered energy of waste heat.

So who knows, one day a diesel, electric, steam hybrid will rear it's head!

[cacole]

Back in the late 1980s or early '90s, Ross Rowland conducted an experiment with a highly modified Chessie System steam engine that was documented in a Machines of Iron video entitled, "The ACE of Diamonds." ACE stood for American Coal Enterprise. The goal was to design a more efficient steam engine. Nothing ever came of this.

Railroads today would be very reluctant to switch back to steam power because of the need to rebuild coaling and water facilities and the number of employees required to maintain a steam fleet and crew.

At Cheyenne, Wyoming, for example, the swtichover from steam to diesel power eliminated nearly 2,000 railroad jobs. When you multiply that times the number of steam facilities there used to be throughout the United States, you're talking about close to a million more employees that would be required -- plus the additional people who would have to be hired to build steam engines. So economically, there's no way this will ever happen in our lifetime.

[beegle55]

I would like to see the Ethenol or Flex fuel or corn oil, whatever work good and catch on so we can all live normally again, and I doubt steam will come back entirely, but a steam based something, maybe!

[Anonymous]

NO!

[Pruitt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by whitman500

1 gallon of water weighs 8 pounds (1 pint = 1 pound; 8 pints in a gallon).

But the weight of the steam has nothing to do with the pressure steam exerts on the walls of a pressure vessel, although Chuck's post seemed to infer that it did. That's why I asked. You can take a very small amount of water and get over a thousand pounds of pressure in a boiler pretty easily (if your boiler can handle that pressure)......

[andrechapelon]

QUOTE: Originally posted by warhammerdriver

Between the tree huggers and the EPA, I regret to say that steam as we knew it is gone for good.

You'd need the frame of a Big Boy or a Challenger to carry all the pollution controls and only get the power of a Mike out of it.

Apparently, you've never heard of L.D. Porta, David Wardale and the gas producer firebox.

Check out The Ultimate Steam Page. http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/

Andre

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by underworld

I would be looking at producer gas (gas made from plant waste, garbage, etc) it's far from a new technology and any gasoline engine can run on it (at reduced power)
and diesels can be made to run on it with modification.

underworld

aka The Violet

[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]

Then again... if they went back to running (live)stock trains they could plumb in the produced gas... Some sources reckon that the cattle that make ronald's burgers produce more greenhouse emmisions than all our cars and trucks put together.
This got me thinking...
Most dinosaurs were herbivors... and a bit bigger than the average steer...
So I asked a paleontologist friend who works at the Natural history Museum in London. He reckoned that most departments have worked it out (but would never admit it) and that, yes, the dinosaurs could have produced their own downfall. Which could explain why no one's ever found the crater from the meteor that is supposed to have caused all the trouble.
That is, of course, if Dinosaurs really existed... but I'd better not go there.
[;)]

[selector]

Steam is dead....long live steam!!

Even if the price of gasoline were to surpass the costs of mining coal to such an extent that coal became much cheaper, and even if no other fuels could be derived/mined in economies of scale, designing and building steam locomotives that would meet with existing regulations would put the cost right up there with diesels. Then, even with automation, there is the infrastructure to go with it. Even if we could get them 100% more efficient, we'd still need the water and fueling facilities.

But, who knows, maybe a super-efficient steam turbine could be made that would do what we need..

[Anonymous]

[
Maybe someone could come up with a way to pick up water while running at speed. [;)]

Jon

[Anonymous]

Bio fuel? You can run your auto on cooking oil if you don't mind it smelling like a fast food joint when someone got the fryer wrong... and (here at least) you don't mind the Excise men being on your tail for evading the (massive) duty on road diesel.
But the Brazilians run there cars on ethanol so...?
Then again, if we want renewable fuels... why not replace the dynamic brakes with wind turbines... if they come down hill faster they will charge up the batteries fast to get up the next rising grade...

[jondrd]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cwclark

I doubt steam will come back because not only the sulphur air polutant in the coal is one deterant but the water issue to make steam is another...the trains have to stop more often to fill up with water..it takes 1 gallon of water to make 8 pounds of steam and most tenders carried only 30,000 gallons of water...that's a lot of stopping for a steam locomotive to run on average of a 200 psi steam load....I did pick alternative because the railroads are trying to experiment with a diesel powered generator that switches to battery powered electricity when they are fully charged...I believe there was an article on it in an MR mag just a few months ago...chuck

Maybe someone could come up with a way to pick up water while running at speed. [;)]

Jon

[warhammerdriver]

Between the tree huggers and the EPA, I regret to say that steam as we knew it is gone for good.

You'd need the frame of a Big Boy or a Challenger to carry all the pollution controls and only get the power of a Mike out of it.

[tomikawaTT]

The one thing that made diesels win out was, and is, electric traction. All rotating parts, perfectly balanced, no dynamic augment, all equating to more tractive effort at the railhead - especially at start and at very low speeds. Note that the significant advances in railroad motive power relate to the parts between the alternator and the wheels. AC in a locomotive doesn't mean house current. It means a very sophisticated, computer controlled motor input, adjusted to load and speed literally every microsecond.

Exactly what powers the alternator isn't all that important. It could be a diesel engine, steam turbine, gas turbine, reciprocating steam engine (Google 'Heilmann' for sample) or even a (very) big drum full of hamsters. As long as it can spin an alternator and develop sufficient power to drive the traction motors, it'll work.

It's a safe bet that any new North American locomotive will have electric traction, so let's look at steam driven alternators. The best term available for the relationship between steam-electric power and American railroads is 'unhappy.' Both the C&O and the N&W discovered that the slam-bang of railroad operations was incompatable with the marine type power plants they had adapted. (Ships may pitch and roll, but the motion isn't abrupt.) Also, coal dust got into EVERYTHING! Could you imagine the havoc that getting abrasive, conductive, acidic dust into the computerized controllers of a modern AC locomotive would cause?

As for any rebirth or resurgence of reciprocating steam locos - fuhgeddaboudit!

Chuck

[underworld]

I would be looking at producer gas (gas made from plant waste, garbage, etc) it's far from a new technology and any gasoline engine can run on it (at reduced power)
and diesels can be made to run on it with modification.

underworld

aka The Violet

[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]

[Anonymous]

I voted No, and my reason seems to be the same as others, the pollution factor. Air quality is already at it's worst ever and continues to get worse. Perhaps if science found a way to burn coal cleanly then it might come back, but not with current technology.

Trevor

[Tilden]

It would still be more efficient to convert the coal to fuel and run diesels.

[myred02]

Ever heard of Ethanol? That's what I put in my Corvette-engine-powered Camaro. (It's a Chevy LS1that runs on premium unleaded usually, but I have found that Ethanol runs as good as premium if not better). I think Ethanol will catch on eventually. [:)]

-Brandon

[Anonymous]

Not in the classic sense. Perhaps coal liquification or gasification. In distant future perhaps coal fired generators for electric trains.

[Anonymous]

LOL... Man what are you smokin!

[whitman500]

1 gallon of water weighs 8 pounds (1 pint = 1 pound; 8 pints in a gallon).

[Jetrock]

MR did a story during the oil crisis before last (seventies or eighties) about a modern steam locomotive using modular coal packs and a high-efficiency water system. Diesels replaced steam because they are much, much more efficient in their use of fuel: in order for steam to return, it would have to be more efficient than gas/diesel power.

[Pruitt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cwclark

.it takes 1 gallon of water to make 8 pounds of steam ... chuck

I'm really curious where you came up with that, Chuck. Can you explain, please?

[Anonymous]

Most likely not. Now that we're going to start producing cars than run on an ethanol/gas mix (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline), they'll probably develop a locomotive that can run on that stuff too.

[Anonymous]

No way steam will ever come back. Too expensive to wire all the track for electric operations. They will stay diesel for the foreseeable future with possible tricks installed as regenerative braking, computer efficency controls, and even remote or computer operation. They could save some fuel by slowing them down if not for the increase in cost for operators, so I see them slowing them down and letting a computer drive them from point a to b. Any other changes are probably cost prohibitive. Now if fusion comes on line all bets are off. Fred

[Anonymous]

Sure it's coming back. I hear BNSF called ALCo and ordered 100 4-8-4s[;)]

Actually it's not coming back and I voted "no".