[neocone]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/engl ... 712796.stm

Personally I think it is awesome... except for the 1930s retro implications.

With a neo New Deal on the works as we experience a neo Great Depression I just hope we won't also have a rise of neo National Socialism to boot.

[mos6507]

Since we'll run out of coal after oil, makes sense to go back to steam trains.

[Plantagenet]

It would make more sense to move from diesel to modern, high speed electric trains rather then returning to old-fashioned coal-fired steam trains.

[vtsnowedin]

If memory serves the old steam /coal locomotives had only about a five percent efficency rating vs. about 34 percent for a recent diesel-electric model. I have to wonder what can be achieved if state of the art technology is applied to the problem.
Of course 34% efficency with a fuel you have none of is of little use so we may have to make do with whatever we can get with steam from burning some renewable fuel regardless of the return rate but we should see how much we can wring out of mbtu of fuel.

[neocone]

It is reliable means to go from A to B. India uses them as well as China and even parts of Siberia.

Low tech/rugged will trample anything of high maintenance need.

We will be happy to get anywhere in a few days as opposed to not at all. And even low grade coal can do the trick... if not coal made out of wood.

Trains have 10-50 X the efficiency of trucks and buses to transport a payload from A to B too, so in the end rail will always dominate.

And horses...

[mos6507]

It would make more sense to move from diesel to modern, high speed electric trains rather then returning to old-fashioned coal-fired steam trains.

Which would be powered by coal-fired power plants? It takes a lot of work to get off coal.

[CarlosFerreira]

:wink: If memory serves the old steam /coal locomotives had only about a five percent efficency rating vs. about 34 percent for a recent diesel-electric model. I have to wonder what can be achieved if state of the art technology is applied to the problem.
Of course 34% efficency with a fuel you have none of is of little use so we may have to make do with whatever we can get with steam from burning some renewable fuel regardless of the return rate but we should see how much we can wring out of mbtu of fuel.

Correct. As strange as it seems, we have to go forward, not backward; in a world with diminishing energy supplies, as we all believe peak oil will bring us to, we need more efficient usage of the available energy, not less efficiency.

I'm betting on electricity; almost 100% of all trains in Portugal run in electricity. It allows for several sources of production, like gas, renewables, coal, nuke...

[vtsnowedin]

:wink: If memory serves the old steam /coal locomotives had only about a five percent efficency rating vs. about 34 percent for a recent diesel-electric model. I have to wonder what can be achieved if state of the art technology is applied to the problem.
Of course 34% efficency with a fuel you have none of is of little use so we may have to make do with whatever we can get with steam from burning some renewable fuel regardless of the return rate but we should see how much we can wring out of mbtu of fuel.

Correct. As strange as it seems, we have to go forward, not backward; in a world with diminishing energy supplies, as we all believe peak oil will bring us to, we need more efficient usage of the available energy, not less efficiency.

I'm betting on electricity; almost 100% of all trains in Portugal run in electricity. It allows for several sources of production, like gas, renewables, coal, nuke...

Yes but my point was that development of steam engines stopped in the sixtys and fifty years of innovation has been applied elsewhere. When, not if, we are denied the use of energy dense liguid oil we will have to switch to the next best thing. At that time we should redesign the steam locomotive to bring it up to date. Perhaps we could achive a 10 or 15 percent efficeny using turbines vs, piston engines. Also I would think that trains could be run on compressed NG whith much less fuss than cars and that would have less conversion costs then electrifing all the rail lines inter city. A train with one or two tank cars behind the engine full of LNG or just CNG would have quite a range to it.
Someone with the computer modeling skills should be able to test the several options to direct resourses in the right direction without wasting money on a loseing idea. A luxury the 1950s designer didn't have.

[CarlosFerreira]

I see what you mean. My point is that both for the environmental and for EROEI purposes, using that coal in electricity generation is probably more efficient; I'm not sure, haven't seen any numbers on it, so it's speculation. Maybe just building more coal-fired electricity plants will be easier that build all new locos to substitute the ones we have?

Anyway, it's open for debate.

[Bytesmiths]

Steam is inefficient partly because it includes an extra transfer of energy, from thermo-chemical combustion, to heating water. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says you always lose something when you do that. Why pour a bunch of research into heating water via external combustion, when you could spend that research on diversifying feedstock for direct, internal combustion?

Steam is also inefficient because of the low temperature differential. The higher the temperature, the better the theoretical Carnot efficiency, and the easier it is to get high efficiency numbers. Diesels are efficient (in part) because of higher combustion temperatures. Large diesels approach 50% Carnot efficiency -- ten times what the same energy source would produce in a steam engine!

To get ~1,000 degree temperatures from external combustion requires extensive high-pressure systems, which can be dangerous if not properly maintained, unlike the relative ease of getting and controlling ~1,000 degree temperatures inside a huge hunk of cast iron.

The main advantage of steam power is that it can be produced with less technology. There is no advantage to applying more technology to systems whose main advantage is low technology!

If we want to re-direct energy conversion research, I'd say let's put 1/10th of the money that has been poured into hybrids into what I call "versatile-fuel diesel" research. With very small amounts invested, one could produce engines for agriculture and commerce that could be directly fueled with vegetable oil. (I'm not talking about heated-tank systems here, I'm talking about improved injection pumps and filtration systems. Rudolph Diesel did it over 100 years ago; why can't we do it now?)

[CarlosFerreira]

Steam is inefficient partly because it includes an extra transfer of energy, from thermo-chemical combustion, to heating water. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says you always lose something when you do that. Why pour a bunch of research into heating water via external combustion, when you could spend that research on diversifying feedstock for direct, internal combustion?

Steam is also inefficient because of the low temperature differential. The higher the temperature, the better the theoretical Carnot efficiency, and the easier it is to get high efficiency numbers. Diesels are efficient (in part) because of higher combustion temperatures. Large diesels approach 50% Carnot efficiency -- ten times what the same energy source would produce in a steam engine!

To get ~1,000 degree temperatures from external combustion requires extensive high-pressure systems, which can be dangerous if not properly maintained, unlike the relative ease of getting and controlling ~1,000 degree temperatures inside a huge hunk of cast iron.

The main advantage of steam power is that it can be produced with less technology. There is no advantage to applying more technology to systems whose main advantage is low technology!

If we want to re-direct energy conversion research, I'd say let's put 1/10th of the money that has been poured into hybrids into what I call "versatile-fuel diesel" research. With very small amounts invested, one could produce engines for agriculture and commerce that could be directly fueled with vegetable oil. (I'm not talking about heated-tank systems here, I'm talking about improved injection pumps and filtration systems. Rudolph Diesel did it over 100 years ago; why can't we do it now?)

Excellent explanation. Thank you.

I suppose your take on coal usage is to keep it to electricity generation, right? Do you have any idea of the efficiency of modern, coal-fired stations?

[Bytesmiths]

I suppose your take on coal usage is to keep it to electricity generation, right? Do you have any idea of the efficiency of modern, coal-fired stations?

Coal. Ugh. My "take on coal" is to keep it in the ground. But that ain't gonna happen!

Large coal-fired electricity generation attains about 35% to 40% Carnot efficiency, at the plant. Transmission losses can be 10%.

Thus the fallacy of electric car enthusiasts' claim that they are more efficient than internal combustion. Electric cars fired by coal are nothing but combustion vehicles with extremely long (and inefficient!) drivelines. Electric cars are still ruled by laws of physics.

That's not to say that electric vehicles don't have a place, where electricity is regionally appropriate and renewable, such as Cascadia or the Canadian Shield. But coal-powered electric cars? Forget it.

Consider that the best, most energy-dense coal (anthracite) went into decline long ago. Higher grades of bituminous coal are probably at, or slightly past peak. Soft, brown, dirty coal is pretty much all that is left on an affordable basis.

In terms of energy content, it appears that we have already reached Peak Coal, since the higher, more energy-dense grades have been tapped out and we're vigourously pursuing the lower, less-energy-dense grades. To me, this means that the cost of using coal is about to shoot up, since our energy demands are not declining in step with the declining energy contained in a unit of mined coal.

[TamilFarmer]

It is reliable means to go from A to B. India uses them as well as China and even parts of Siberia.

I have not seen a working steam locomotive on the Indian Railways, for the past twenty-five years. The exception being the legendary Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. Even on the DHR, some of the locomotives have been modified to run on furnace oil.

AFAIK, the rest of India, is serviced only by AC electric and diesel-electric locomotives.

Tamil Farmer

[cephalotus]

Large coal-fired electricity generation attains about 35% to 40% Carnot efficiency, at the plant. Transmission losses can be 10%.

Siemens / EON plan to build a coal fired power plant with >50% efficiency in 2014 (700°C steam temperature).
At the moment 46% have been reached in the best plants (average efficiency of coal fired plants in Germany is 38%)

Transmission loss also depends on the grid structure.

http://www.eon.com/en/unternehmen/13822.jsp

[mos6507]

Trees are getting tired of humanity, and most want to go to another planet to live there; in their next rebirths.... far away from one of the most ignorant and arrogant species that have appeared in this planet.

Is Treebeard living in your backyard or something, for you to know this?

[Bytesmiths]

Large coal-fired electricity generation attains about 35% to 40% Carnot efficiency, at the plant. Transmission losses can be 10%.

Siemens / EON plan to build a coal fired power plant with >50% efficiency in 2014 (700°C steam temperature).

Wow, that's pretty darn good. I was not aware of any external combustion technology that could surpass 50%. This internal combustion engine is also in excess of 50%, which is the best I had heard of for any heat engine.

(average efficiency of coal fired plants in Germany is 38%)

And I think Germany is far ahead of North America in that regard.

Transmission loss also depends on the grid structure.

That's certainly true. My 10% number came from a talk by some green planner for a local utility in Oregon. I think transmission lines (and thus losses) tend to be longer in North America than in Europe.

[Gerben]

New coal power plants can use gasification technology. That allows the use of a combined cycle like with natural gas fired power plants. This makes power plants more flexible and increases their efficiency to approach that of gas fired combined cycle plants. The cost however are still too high, mainly because the technology is still experimental. And coal is still too cheap.

[Revi]

I love steam engines, but I agree that a hybrid electric engine seems to be the best way to move a train. We went on a run from Brunswick, Maine to Rockland a couple of weeks ago. What a great day. The best was when we could get to the back of the train and watch the tracks recede in the distance.

They are talking about extending passenger rail to Augusta, Maine. That would be great.

There used to be lots of narrow gauges. Some are still around.

We took a ride on the Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington Railway. It's the best little railway in Maine.

http://www.wwfry.org/

We used to be able to take the train to the Commonground Fair, but they aren't in business any more. It really added to the car traffic at the fair this year.

I hope Obama pushes rail service. If he gets one thing done that would be the thing to do.

[Bytesmiths]

I agree that a hybrid electric engine seems to be the best way to move a train. We went on a run from Brunswick, Maine to Rockland a couple of week..

Keep in mind that a "hybrid electric engine" is not at all like a hybrid car, and should more correctly be called a "diesel-electric" engine, since power transmitted to the axles is not a combination of chemical and electrical power, as it is with hybrid cars.

From a workshop I took when I was a consultant to PTT Switzerland (who run the trains there), my understanding is that the diesel-electric engine design is primarily because electric speed control at high power is easier to achieve than mechanical speed control.

The diesel runs continuously at optimum RPM, driving a generator, which then goes to a switch box that controls speed by a combination of putting huge resistors into the circuit between the generator and the trucks, and switching the trucks into different winding and series/parallel configurations. (The large, flat, finned boxes with fans on the tops of locomotives are the resistor packs.)

When decelerating, the trucks do use regeneration for dynamic braking, but send their energy into the resistor packs to be dissipated, rather than into a battery.

Except when operating at full speed, this design is not particularly efficient -- at half-speed, for example, fully half the power could be dissipated in the resistor packs -- but it is cheaper to manufacture than building an automatic transmission capable of handling the peak torque of a 2,000 horsepower diesel engine. And diesels travel at full speed most of the time, anyway. (It's much more complicated than this simplistic example. You could travel at half or quarter speed at full efficiency by switching the trucks into different series/parallel combinations, but my point is that some dissipation of energy via resistor packs happens from time to time.)

Switzerland has a nation-wide electric rail system, so their trains are almost completely electric-only. They do save energy with regenerative braking, by boosting the EMF in the field winding to the point that the energy from braking is fed back into the track. But without huge, expensive, heavy batteries diesel-electric trains cannot possibly store braking energy without a mechanical "battery" using a flywheel. I'm not aware of any that do such a thing.

[JudgieReloaded]

I believe even China since it's huge growth-spurt, has had it's steam loco's moth-balled for at least a decade now.