Weird Harold wrote:You grossly overstate my position.
I object to ICEs mostly because they foster a reliance on fossil fuels and irrevocably destroy a finite resource.
One of the problems that the real world faces in adopting renewable energy technologies is the cost of replacing or converting the huge installed base of ICEs. Safehold doesn't need to head into that kind of economic stranglehold by allowing a dead-end technology like ICEs to become dominant.
The Terran Federation's technology seems to have developed cheap, clean, portable power so why can't Merlin minimize the turmoil of replacing one technology with another by skipping over at least one iteration of the cycle? Once the Proscriptions are overturned, Steam will either get refined and/or replaced; the question is, will it be replaced by ICEs, whatever follows ICEs, or some alternative passed over in our history?
SWM wrote:Zakharra wrote:
The dependance is going to happen anyways. Steam engines will be powered by oil fuels in a few years and if it takes decades or more to develop the technologies to make the 'cheap and safe' power sources the Federation uses, that's all of those ill effects being spilled into the atmosphere and the use of a finite resource. IC engines would help develop technology and infrastructure, it would also help establish the idea of the average person using modern technology. So its not a strange thing to most of the world. It also allows people to get used to the idea (assuming private automobiles are developed) that they can go where and when they want, however far they want without having to rely on large scale forms of transportation that could limit when and where they go. Unlike anything else that might replace the steam engine, there is a long and well documented history of IC engines, including how to make them more effective and less polluting.
Not completely true. Steam boilers can use any kind of heat source. As technologies develop, they can be adapted to use whatever heat source is available. Internal combustion engines can only operate using liquid fuels. Yes, there would still be some disruption during widespread changeover in steam heatsources. But it is not quite the level of disruption when changing from IC to something else.
And that is assuming that steam itself is not made obsolete by some other energy source within a few decades of the end of the Proscriptions.
If you have something like a car/truck made, using coal or wood as a fuel source is inefficient since that requires a lot more volume and weight taken up by hauling said fuel in a second car. Oil based fuel can be held in a much smaller tank and be delivered in a smaller boiler, and oil has a much higher energy content than wood or coal. I believe it mentions that oil fired boilers are in the plans sooner than later (at the least it gets rid of the black gangs and opens up a lot of extra space and weight that can be devoted to armor and/or weapons on ships).
I do have to wonder though, if steam engines of all types (from ships and trains to smaller automobiles) are common, why wouldn't that be a large disruption when changing to a different engine type? If the steam technology is widespread, whether an IC or other type of engine, like electric is introduced, it's still going to disrupt (ie ruin) the steam infrastructure and require building a new one based on the newer engine type. With an IC engine, you use much the same type of fuel (oil based) with better and more efficient performance in a good number of areas, planes for one. It just seems like too many here are flatly dismissing the advantages IC engines give and overplaying the disadvantages.
*stabs the quote limit* From Hell's heart I stab at thee!
