Listers,
I have to agree with Art Gibson. It is still a steam locomotive and as long as you are boiling water in a moving machine, you will have all of the problems associated with past examples. They were labor intensive machines and they will be in any future incarnation! Fuel is only one of the many problems encountered with a steam locomotive. These people aren't the first to try powdered or processed coal and when you started processing coal, you start raising the cost. Coal was a great fuel because it didn't need processing. Power plants don't have to worry about movement or space, but haven't been able to use coal in a manner satisfactory to the EPA. Instead, with the increased availability of natural gas, they are switching to that fuel.
L.D. Porta did some fine work, but even with his work, you don't see anyone or any country building a bunch of modern steam locomotives. The best approach would be to start from scratch instead of nostalgia. A modern version of Norfolk and Western's Jawn Henry would be a better approach, but do you really think that such a locomotive is going to compete with modern diesels from GE and EMD? The efficiency of current model diesels is phenomenal, even when compared to diesels from just 10 years ago. For any locomotive, cost of operation is the bottom line.
William Barber Gravois Mills, MO
Mon Oct 1, 2012 10:43 pm (PDT) . Posted by:
I have been following this project for a few years as well as a plan to build a brand new diesel style powdered coal fired AC generation system. The limit to that one was the problem of getting enough scrubbing capacity on
board for the combustion residue from the powdered coal. The powdered coal was much cleaner than the last steam engines and the first few generations of diesels, but still not clean enough. The bio-coal is a hydrocarbon rich and very clean alternative to coal and thus the use of bio-coal in a system originally designed for a fairly dirty and incomplete burning of various types of coal or petroleum would prove that the bio-coal fuel and the modifications to use it can make a 70 year old piece of technology compatible with the current clean air laws and the projected new standards.
The technical papers had some math that I had to ask my older son to explain to me. Fortunately he has a love of steam and is a modern technology person and thus sends me the articles he runs across. I was able to read not only some of the technical papers, but the popular versions such as the one or two that the appeared in Scientific American and in another popular science publication.
So I hope they succeed and I think they not only know what they are doing, they have the boiler and steam engineering students and faculty to over see the reconstruction of the locomotive. The budget also appears to have attracted support from a few foundations and the bio-fuels industry that will likely provide not only the starting funds, but also the finishing funds due to the soundness of the research. I know that proof is in the pudding, but if you have all the ingredients it is likely to be a successful pudding.
Ed
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