ARE STEAMERS BETTER, ENVIRONMENTALLY?

M

mitch456yui

a.k.a - Barlo, Mitch
I was lying in bed one night:sleep: , thinking about Trainz:udrool: , and something questionable popped into mind, ARE STEAM ENGINE MORE ENVIRONMENTAL?

I mean, they do use coal. But they use water aswell, steam wouldn't pollute that bad, its just evaporated water.

As for the coal, cant we use something we can burn, that we have a lot of and is renewable:confused: ? Well..... trees? no.............grass? too much moisture, wouldnt burn, but if only it was dry.......hang on a sec

DRIED GRASS! Hay! Rail conpanies can pay farmers for hay, which they then burn to make steam! I think I have it:D , or did someone beat me:( ?

Mitch456yui:wave:
 
steam engines, in a way yes, but in a way no. steam engines do produce moisture the way the water cycle does, (except the fact that this creates co2, like the power plants) except that it would come down as acid rain, which could eventualy lead the earth to be like venus, so acidy that nothing can be present there except rocks and dirt.

diesels on the other hand are easyier to maintain, but effect the ozone layer.

now if we could use something like solar power to power stuff, that would be fuel eficent, and green too.
 
The ideal locomotive to use in terms of efficiency would have to be an electric. You can get the energy to power it from renewable energy although that is usually expensive and hard to get. Electrics can also be fitted with a braking system that allows some of the energy to go back into the grid.

However, you have to account for the construction, transportation, etc...of all the things necessary to build the system for this.

Wood would be ideal as there is plenty of it and it is not as bad to burn as coal.

My 2 cents...

:wave:

Gisa ^^
 
in some cases steam is more fuel and eco friendly. aka, half those trees near the D&S get there Co2 From the steamers. In the case of the grand canyon railroad i read an article that there steamers where more fuel and eco friendly then there diesels.

Wood would be ideal as there is plenty of it and it is not as bad to burn as coal.
Click to expand...
hang on there. Wood doesn't burn near as hot as coal. which is the reason why railroads switched to coal because they got more power out of coal. plus the tree-huggers would have a fit.
 
Compared to modern diesels, I still think they would be more efficient than wood or coal but I could be wrong.

However, when it comes to wood and coal you have to take your pic of what is best and what is worst:

wood pros: cheap, plentiful, universal in a sense (could be wrong on this)
wood cons: doesn't burn as well as coal, not always plentiful in certain areas, contributes to global warming

coal pros: cheap, plentiful, more efficient than wood
coal cons: not always plentiful in certain areas, contributes to acid rain

I'd go with the former b/c acid rain is impossible to combat and expensive to rectify. With power plants, scrubbers and modern technology could help but you wouldn't find those things on a steam engine...

:wave:

Gisa ^^
 
gisa said:
Compared to modern diesels, I still think they would be more efficient than wood or coal but I could be wrong.

However, when it comes to wood and coal you have to take your pic of what is best and what is worst:

wood pros: cheap, plentiful, universal in a sense (could be wrong on this)
wood cons: doesn't burn as well as coal, not always plentiful in certain areas, contributes to global warming

coal pros: cheap, plentiful, more efficient than wood
coal cons: not always plentiful in certain areas, contributes to acid rain

I'd go with the former b/c acid rain is impossible to combat and expensive to rectify. With power plants, scrubbers and modern technology could help but you wouldn't find those things on a steam engine...

:wave:

Gisa ^^
Click to expand...

in this case your right, the railroads only switched to diesel because it was easyier to maintain and keep running.
 
didnt anyone read it?

erm... did anyone read my first post?:D HAY might be alright, but it might be like wood:( , not as efficient as coal.

the only problem with electrics is that, where does that power come from:hehe: ? coal and nuclear power, which is also bad:p .
 
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You raise a great point. No sense in electrifying something if you'll use *dirty power* to generate power.

However, as I said, more modern coal power plants are more efficient and can have scrubbers installed. Nuclear is not as bad as many think so long as it is built, maintained and operated properly.

Renewable sources such as solar, wind and hydroelectric can also be used to help compensate. The problem with electrification is that it is so expensive up front to construct and it is killer over long distances. That is why most places that do have electrified railways are in relatively small places or have high traffic that can justify it's use (Japan, NEC, Europe)

:wave:

Gisa ^^
 
If the same amount of money and effort put into internal combustion engines
had been put into steam engines then steam engines would be far more efficient and reliable than internal combustion engines. But we did not have large oil companies with a desire to promote steam, because their sales of oil products would be minimal compared to what they sell now.

Bill69
 
The vast majority of steamers were much more inefficient than diesels, which in general are less fuel efficient than electrics. Steam engines could have become somewhat more efficient than they were had investment been made, but it's highly unlikely that it would have approached the efficiency of modern electrics.

In terms of CO2 and other pollution, even coal fired power stations and electric traction score over individual steam engines (and even diesels) because of the relatively higher efficiencies of power plants and electric motors.

The wood (or any other biomass) vs coal argument is a little different. The largest disadvantage of coal here is that it releases huge amounts of buried fossil carbon into the carbon cycle, whereas wood (so long as it is replanted) sees the CO2 being re-absorbed by the new growth. The downside of wood is the lower energy density (so you have to carry more), and lower burning temperature. I don't know about hay, but sugar cane railways (for example on Java) were always fired by waste cane products.

Paul
 
It's efficiency vs. environmentally acceptable. Steam engines are more efficient at converting carbon products (Coal, wood, etc) to a usable compressed substance (steam). The heat directly causes the water in the boiler to evaporate. In the internal combustion engine, heat is a useless byproduct, because the force of exploding fuel is what drives the cylinder downward. This is why work is being done to try to time water injection into the internal combustion cylinder that would instantaneously vaporize causing a significant rise in pressure.

Though steam engines are thermally more efficient (especially with the addition of a superheater), they produce Carbon Dioxide like any coal or oil fired powerplant. It's just a natural byproduct. CO2 is the only concern of steam locomotives. Smoke particles, like those you consistently see from big-rig tractor trailers, is too heavy to be carried into the air.

Cheers,
John
 
I think diesel is gonna be the way to go for quite some time. Bio and synthetic diesels can be made very easily out of just about anything and have very very low sulfur contents. The only issue with them is it is more prone to gelling in low temperatures (however this can be fixed through an additive).
 
Just for the heck of it my two cents you either need to carry fuel or pick it up on the way.

Using electricity means no fuel to carry on board so you get lighter locos etc. Static power engines are usually more efficient than moving ones, they also have lower problem emissions. Both wood and coal burning stoves are banned in most big cities of the world because of pollution problems. The UK for example has smokeless fuel areas to improve air quality.

Electricity generation and power losses over transmission lines vary from place to place. Where I live here in Canada most is hydro but we have a fair chunk of nuclear. Nuclear waste, well different designs of nuclear power plants turn out different types of waste. One of the Canadian designs can actually run on the waste from other power plants. Politics get involved here especially over what is considered radio active waste and what you can do with it. Smokers for example are exposed to higher background radiation levels than none smokers but smoking isn't seen as a radioactivity problem. There is a bit of background here: http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/rp/factsheets/factsheets-htm/fs10bkvsman.htm

Since coal and oil are basically made from wood which has been compressed and aged I don't see that burning wood is more environmentally friendly than coal. Make wooden framed houses and burn coal would seem to lock up much the same amount of carbon but the environmental impact of wooden houses appears to be less than other methods of construction and they offer higher levels of insulation so saving energy.

You have to get the fuel into the engine so hay wouldn't really provide enough energy compared to its bulk.

Diesel unfortunately has a pollutant particle size that is just the wrong size for babies lungs, so it strikes at babies rather than older people who get hit more by "normal" air pollution from petrol or "gas" to use the North American term. This is separate from the sulphur issue.

By the way in Europe more people are killed from the pollution from cars these days than are killed directly in "accidents".

So then you get to what is least bad? In general trains use less energy to transport goods and people than other forms of transport so they are less bad, except when they aren't full.

Cheerio John
 
To give you an idea where we are going, in front of my house in PA the road carries about 6 wind turbine fan blades a day. 70ft long headed for new wind farms here.

Electricity is probably the way to go, with the maglev principal.

Dont worry too much about pollution, the heaviest polluters in the last 300 years were horses and horse transport. Imagine how much horse manure there was in say London for a day ?

Coming back to HAY, there is no reason why hay cant be compressed and used as a fuel for steamers.
 
Have you ever ridden on a steam train in an open car, I have I had gunk on my glasses and it was a week before I got all the soot out of my hear. N.Y.N.Y. band steam from the city in 1905 do to pollution.
 
gisa said:
You raise a great point. No sense in electrifying something if you'll use *dirty power* to generate power...
:wave:

Gisa ^^
Click to expand...
The best calculations are that if everyone converted to electric transportation and all the new power plants were coal powered, it would reduce the CO2 from transportation by at least 30%.
Catenary is the most common means of transmitting power on high speed lines, but is a maintenance nightmare for long distance routes. We need a new method for transferring the power to the trains. Until then, Diesel-electric multiple unit trains would be the most cost effective and efficient way to run trains in the US. Run the power units on hills, shut down the extra power in the flat places.

:cool:Claude
 
To answer the question of of your thread, of course not. They are terrible for the envoirnment. Huge billows of noxious smoke? I'll stick to electric trains thanks.:o

cam
 
An Idea !!!

Maybe battery powered, recharge the batteries at intervals along the track, say every 10 miles, can be done on the fly, from catenary.

Gotta rush - have to go to Patents Office right away
 
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