Diesel

Don't forget that you're going to also have to develop a substantial hydraulic transmission to go along with the diesel engine. The Kraus-Maffei was not a tremendous success...
Doable? Also, I hope that they go directly to steel rail and avoid all of the problems with predecessor rail types.

There appears to be a complete lack of evidence as to how or even whether the Orbital Bombardment System is monitoring the surface.

One obvious possibility is that the mother temple in Zion and some other churches and facilities from that period have monitoring systems to which the OBS listens. Gargoyles that can actually see also come to mind. In this case, the security issues are totally different than the issues that commenters have worried about.

The system might also recruit human spies, for example by appearing to someone who was highly pious, when he was entirely alone, by using holograms or the like in the guise of the Archangel Langhorne.

Weird Harold wrote:

n7axw wrote:Weird Harold, in his discussion with Housmyn, Father Paityr admits that the rational behind his attestation for steam is bogus. He calls it chop logic. Now if you can "chop logic" an attestation for steam, you can probably "chop logic"your way to diesel or most anything you need to do.

Don

Again, for those who missed the point:

“In my present mood, that’s actually a powerful recommendation for building the things tomorrow,” Wylsynn said dryly. “Nonetheless, we’re obviously going to have problems if we don’t prepare the ground carefully.

Pater Wylsynn could chop logic over steam engines because the archangels approved steam for pressure cookers. He felt he had to "chop logic" in order to "prepare the ground carefully." I don't see anything about internal combustion engines that will allow the same kind of logic train as he used for Steam.

Undoubtedly, ICEs can eventually be justified, but "preparing the ground carefully" when there isn't a shred of archangel approval to hang chopped logic on is bound to be a good bit more difficult.

As Pater Wylsynn said, "In my present mood, that’s actually a powerful recommendation for building the things tomorrow" (referring to Steam engines being beyond the proscriptions) but unfortunately, he doesn't work in a vacuum. He has to come up with chopped logic that will satisfy the man-on-the-street.

I didn't miss the point. I merely said that Father Paityr's logic is bogus and he knows it. As for the man on the street, both steam and diesel are incomprehensible. So if Father Paityr can chop logic his way through steam, he can probably do the same for diesel. I don't know what that would look like. But the good Father is a creative fellow. I'm sure he can manage it.

As for preparing the ground in advance, that one should be almost so obvious as to go withou saying. No argument from me there.

Don

n7axw wrote:As for the man on the street, both steam and diesel are incomprehensible.

From a 1990's documentary on The History Engines:

"Of all the heat engines, Steam is the only one where almost all the moving parts are on the outside."

The man-on-the-street can see how a steam engine works -- at least steam engines of the technological level Charis is likely to have in the near future. The same can't be said of ICEs of any type -- of necessity most of their moving parts are Internal.


As far as a typical SAfeholdian can see, a steam engine uses a relatively familiar fireplace and a relatively familiar pressure cooker to push pistons and turn wheels. Everything out in the open and almost familiar.

An internal combustion engine on the other hand occasionally spits fire out of the exhaust -- which is poisonous if it it isn't on fire -- and everything happens inside an apparently solid block of iron.

The only style of internal combustion engine that might pass muster with the man-on-the-street is a Gas Turbine which is explainable and recognizable as an extension of a pin-wheel above a lamp chimney. (or as a steam turbine with the middle-man of steam eliminated, once steam is better known and accepted.)

Steam Power is a necessary step in "preparing the ground" for ICEs and eventually electricity.

Weird Harold wrote:In a steam engine, water is heated and changes state to drive a piston (or turbine) and then changes state back into liquid water. It is in Pater Wylsyn's words, "water in another form" but still water power and within the limits of "Wind, Water, and Muscle."


An internal combustion burns (explodes) a fuel and in the process, that fuel ceases to exist and is replaced by toxic byproducts. Nowhere in the process is "Wind, Water, and Muscle" present in a recognizable form. The input isn't Water and the exhaust isn't Wind ('cause "wind" is breathable.)

As long as the Proscriptions limit power sources to "Wind, Water, and Muscle" internal combustion engines are going to be a very hard sell to inquisitors and man-on-the-street alike.

Actually, in an internal combustion engine, Fuel burns in air contained between the piston and cylinder heating it which raises the pressure and temperature. The increased pressure drives the piston back which cools the air and lowers the pressure.

By the same logic used to justify the steam engine as water power the Internal combustion engine is wind power.

Also by starting wit fire vine oil you are using a fuel that is already accepted an used widely in the bastion of orthodoxy known as Harchong.

Finally, the steam does not condense in the steam engine back into liquid form. It is either released intothe air as relatively low pressure and temperature stram or fed into a condenser to be converted back into liquid form and then returned to the water reservoir.

It is not a lack of precedents or logic holding back diesel engines. They are not simply needed yet. Steam engines have barely started making inroads in Charis.

When COGA, gets close to implementing steam engines, Charis can start rolling out diesel. They may actually move straight to diesel turbines for shipboard use since both will require some kind of transmission and turbines are more efficient, more powerful on both a volume and weight basis and simpler mechanically. all of which adds up to ships with greater rang and reliability.

Easternmystic wrote:Also by starting wit fire vine oil you are using a fuel that is already accepted an used widely in the bastion of orthodoxy known as Harchong.

Finally, the steam does not condense in the steam engine back into liquid form. It is either released intothe air as relatively low pressure and temperature stram or fed into a condenser to be converted back into liquid form and then returned to the water reservoir.

It isn't the fuel that is problematic with Diesel, it is the lack of visiblity. Almost everything about the operation of a steam engine is visible. You can show a steam engine to an elementary class and with minimal explanation they'll understand how it works.

To get the same level of understanding regarding an ICE, you'd need a cutaway or transparent model.

It can be demonstrated fairly simply that Water goes into the boiler and water exits the engine as steam. The boiler fire is easily shown to be the same as a fireplace or cook-stove. Properly tended, the exhaust is mostly Carbon Dioxide and water vapor.

There is no such simple demonstration of the benignity of ICEs. Fuel and air go into an apparently solid block and motion, excess heat and noxious fumes are produced. (Nitrous and Sulfurous compounds plus carbon monoxide. with petroleum distillates.) High pressure combustion produces some really noxious compounds that possibly have never been seen on Safehold.

Weird Harold wrote:

Easternmystic wrote:Also by starting wit fire vine oil you are using a fuel that is already accepted an used widely in the bastion of orthodoxy known as Harchong.

Finally, the steam does not condense in the steam engine back into liquid form. It is either released intothe air as relatively low pressure and temperature stram or fed into a condenser to be converted back into liquid form and then returned to the water reservoir.

It isn't the fuel that is problematic with Diesel, it is the lack of visiblity. Almost everything about the operation of a steam engine is visible. You can show a steam engine to an elementary class and with minimal explanation they'll understand how it works.

To get the same level of understanding regarding an ICE, you'd need a cutaway or transparent model.

It can be demonstrated fairly simply that Water goes into the boiler and water exits the engine as steam. The boiler fire is easily shown to be the same as a fireplace or cook-stove. Properly tended, the exhaust is mostly Carbon Dioxide and water vapor.

There is no such simple demonstration of the benignity of ICEs. Fuel and air go into an apparently solid block and motion, excess heat and noxious fumes are produced. (Nitrous and Sulfurous compounds plus carbon monoxide. with petroleum distillates.) High pressure combustion produces some really noxious compounds that possibly have never been seen on Safehold.

I think you are assuming a bit much here. Oh, I agree that the familiarity created by visibility will help. But the church is busy creating superstition, not the sort of reasoned process you seem to be envisioning. On Charis both steam and desiel will probably fly simply beccause Father Paityr is trusted. On the mainland? Much more difficult. The inquisition will denounce both steam and diesel as the inventions of the infernal, Shanwei worshiping heretics. And of couse they're against the prescriptions. And the heck of it is, by their own lights, they're right.

Don

Weird Harold wrote:Google "Steam Trucks." In England at least, steam powered trucks, from VW beetle sized delivery vans to five and six ton heavy trucks remained in common use from the late 1800s through the early 1940s.

Note that this was a UK only phenomena. For good reason.

Mostly because British coal was ultracheap while imported fuel for ICE was expensive and taxed extra up until the mid 1930s.

It should also be noted that the taxation that over time hurt "steam on roads" usage in UK, was effectively a normalisation for UK to the rest of the world, as similar taxes already existed elsewhere, because the taxation realistically reflected that steam vehicles were substantially more damaging on the road network due to weight.

Steam does have drawbacks like slow starting and generally short range, but it is far from the massive cumbersome technology of popular imagination.

If it competes on equal terms with ICE, it looses BADLY in the vast majority of cases.
And it can be argued that it always looses against ICE.

Are you including the boiler as part of the engine? From what I've seen, the actual engine is comparable to ICE engines in size and torque.

A steam engine without the boiler isn´t an engine. It´s parts of an engine.

The size of the boiler/steam source is variable. Most smaller steam engines will run fine on compressed air, and Charisian factories are already making far more extensive use of compressed air/pneumatic tools than historical examples.

Compressed air is VERY ineffective for use as motive power though. In the real world it was only used in locations where electricity (and the risk of ANY kind of sparks) or any kind of fire were a strict and big NO-NO!

However, even there it was found that it worked better to use a "bunkerage" steam engine(sorry never seen one of these with the English name for it), ie one that goes off a short distance from the workplace to a fixed location boiler, where it fills up with steam at high pressure to a large tank(looks like a boiler but tend to be optimised for high pressure and lower heat(no fireplace)), which then allows it to maintain working pressure for about a day, half a day if it´s very busy.
Then it goes back to the fixed boiler and refills.

Larry wrote:Best part of them is the little side power take off wheel that many of them have that lets you hook up a long leather belt to power auxiliary equipment such as small sawing equipment, rotary digger systems (for digging wells) and sundry other devices. Their capacity to be portable power plants as well as field tractors is one of their best points.

You´re aware that many diesel tractors had the same feature for a long time(some models still have it).

My grandmothers sister had a farm with 2 tractors like that(70s-80s). However, in my lifetime i never saw them used in that role, because they had a pair of portable diesels taking that role, a small one that when broken down in its 3 parts could be carried by a single person (or operated from the back of their SAAB 95 car(miniature 7 seat station wagon, which when properly equipped and lightly loaded could get through terrain surprisingly well)), and a larger one moved around on a small "cart".

by either diesel or ICE

A diesel IS an ICE engine.

(This was one of the major factors in why the Railroads switched to Diesel from Steam)

Or to electric engines. And note that a lot of the "dieselsengines" on railroads are in fact dieselelectric.

And despite dieselelectric using dual engine systems and the loss of efficiency from that is BIG, it was still vastly cheaper than steam.

n7axw wrote:I think you are assuming a bit much here. Oh, I agree that the familiarity created by visibility will help. But the church is busy creating superstition, not the sort of reasoned process you seem to be envisioning. On Charis both steam and desiel will probably fly simply beccause Father Paityr is trusted.

I'm basing my assumptions of Pater Wylsynn's expressed doubts about approving the steam engines and the chopped logic he finally came up with for them.

if I simply borrowed a page from their book, the steam engine problem might not be so insurmountable as I’d first thought.”

“Indeed?” Mahklyn leaned back and raised his eyebrows hopefully.

“Of course not!” Wylsynn assured him. “It’s very simple, Doctor! We’ve used steam and pressure cookers since the Creation in things like food preparation and preservation. There’s nothing new or tainted about generating steam! Who could possibly object to someone’s doing that?

I simply don't see any such hook to hang an approval of ICEs onto. I think Pater Wylsynn pushed his chop-logic as far as he could for the immediate future. Steam engines are going to have to become accepted and common place before Pater Wylsynn will have an accepted technology to hang more chop-logic on.

The discussion about the proscriptions regarding diesel and steam is fascinating. What I want to know is from the standpoint of the uneducated layman, what precisely is the difference when you shoot a rifle and when you inject fuel into the cylinder of a diesel engine? Yes the rifle bullet reaches out to touch someone, and the energy from the diesel is captures by the crankshaft, but from the layman's perspective, what is the difference.