Diesel

iranuke wrote: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.

A couple of differences:

1: Gunpowder is a solid propellent. Diesels can run on finely powdered solid fuels, but there's never been a successful design put into general usage.

2: A Bullet is not contained, and a piston is. A bullet destroys something when it hits, (a piston does also if it escapes from the cylinder.)

If Charis were to develop firearms that use liquid propellent or even better, a fuel-air propellent, then a connection might be made between firearms and Diesels. In the meantime, there is a perception of gunpowder as an explosive and a connection with destruction. Not an ideal starting point for conceptualization of ICE function.

Weird Harold wrote: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.

Apparently this problem exists in your own mind.

Consider firearms and artillery, Gunpowder and lead go in the barrel and then lead comes flying out at high sppeds. No one ever sees the reaction that makes it possible. No one also has a problem with using them. Except of course for the unfortunate souls that end up getting shot.

Weird Harold wrote:1: Gunpowder is a solid propellent. Diesels can run on finely powdered solid fuels, but there's never been a successful design put into general usage.

You have previously stated that the fuel used is irrelevant. When did it suddenly become relevant again?

Weird Harold wrote:2: A Bullet is not contained, and a piston is. A bullet destroys something when it hits, (a piston does also if it escapes from the cylinder.)

True but please explain how this is a relevant distinction when it comes to introducing diesel engines.

Weird Harold wrote:If Charis were to develop firearms that use liquid propellent or even better, a fuel-air propellent, then a connection might be made between firearms and Diesels. In the meantime, there is a perception of gunpowder as an explosive and a connection with destruction. Not an ideal starting point for conceptualization of ICE function.

see statement for point 1.

Weird Harold wrote:

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.

For the second time:

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.

Please don't start with the exhaust isn't breathable again. The exhaust while it has some less than pleasant by products is less fatal to air breathers than the exhaust of a steam engine is to water breathers.

There are no insurmountable logic problems for introducing diesel engines nor are there insufficient examples of the various physical processes involved in a diesel engine to be able to justify it's use.

Charis doesn't need the diesel engine as they are still rolling out steam engines. Once COGA gets close introducing their own steam engine, Charis will need to start developing Diesels. For the moment having some of the members of the royal college start working on things like hydraulics, pneumatics and distillation will be more than enough to ensure that the neccesary knowledge is available with examples of pistons being used to do work for diesels to be developed and manufactured.

Easternmystic wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:

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.

For the second time:

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.

Please don't start with the exhaust isn't breathable again. The exhaust while it has some less than pleasant by products is less fatal to air breathers than the exhaust of a steam engine is to water breathers.

There are no insurmountable logic problems for introducing diesel engines nor are there insufficient examples of the various physical processes involved in a diesel engine to be able to justify it's use.

Charis doesn't need the diesel engine as they are still rolling out steam engines. Once COGA gets close introducing their own steam engine, Charis will need to start developing Diesels. For the moment having some of the members of the royal college start working on things like hydraulics, pneumatics and distillation will be more than enough to ensure that the neccesary knowledge is available with examples of pistons being used to do work for diesels to be developed and manufactured.

Based on the textev a gas turbine would be easier to get approved - its just a fan and a windmill (with a fire in between), windmills are approved, blacksmiths use fans to blow air into forges and windmill powered spits are medieval technology, Delthak is already using water turbine powered blowers, so arguing that you are just combining the technologies that already exist should be possible(a fluidized bed boiler / coal fired turbine may be a first step). Whether this is metallurgically possible is another question (stainless steel cutlery anyone?).
The textev suggested gunpowder required some significant bribes for approval which raised doubts about what is actually permissible. (I suspect attempting to bribe Father Peter may prove counter productive).

Easternmystic wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:

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.

For the second time:

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.

Please don't start with the exhaust isn't breathable again. The exhaust while it has some less than pleasant by products is less fatal to air breathers than the exhaust of a steam engine is to water breathers.

There are no insurmountable logic problems for introducing diesel engines nor are there insufficient examples of the various physical processes involved in a diesel engine to be able to justify it's use.

Charis doesn't need the diesel engine as they are still rolling out steam engines. Once COGA gets close introducing their own steam engine, Charis will need to start developing Diesels. For the moment having some of the members of the royal college start working on things like hydraulics, pneumatics and distillation will be more than enough to ensure that the neccesary knowledge is available with examples of pistons being used to do work for diesels to be developed and manufactured.

I tend to agree with your logic here. But I'm not sure how much logic has to do with the situation. When people react to both steam and diesel, at least at first, a more primitive part of the brain will be at work. Harold is right to suggest that familiarity will help with steam, but I suspect that in Charis the fact that Father Paityr is loved and trusted is more important to the credibility of his attestations. That is reinforced by the reality that everyone understands that if Charis to win, she must keep scrambling for every possible advantage.

One other comment... due to the primitive state of the church's manufacturies, I don't believe that the church will be able to come up with useful steam engines.

Don

Easternmystic wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:1: Gunpowder is a solid propellent. Diesels can run on finely powdered solid fuels, but there's never been a successful design put into general usage.

You have previously stated that the fuel used is irrelevant. When did it suddenly become relevant again?

When comparing firearms to Diesels.

The fuel is irrelevant when it comes to justifying Diesels under the Proscriptions. If ICEs can be justified with one fuel, they can be justified with any fuel. They cannot be justified based on a "fuel" they cannot use.

Weird Harold wrote:When comparing firearms to Diesels.

The fuel is irrelevant when it comes to justifying Diesels under the Proscriptions. If ICEs can be justified with one fuel, they can be justified with any fuel. They cannot be justified based on a "fuel" they cannot use.

I'm calling B.S.. You are simply using a change of fuels as an obstacle when it suits you and then hand-waving it away when it's an impediment to your position.

F.Y.I. The reason I suggested starting with fire vine oil is that it has a long established usage and so won't need a dispensation for it's use. Starting with a diesel fuel refined from crude oil adds unnecessary complications into the process of getting a diesel engine approved. After, The engine is approved and established, getting fuel refined from crude approved becomes far easier by using the simple argument that if you can't tell the difference between them then their isn't any difference and they are the same thing.

Easternmystic wrote:F.Y.I. The reason I suggested starting with fire vine oil is that it has a long established usage and so won't need a dispensation for it's use.

The reason fuel is irrelevant for approval is that the same arguments can be made for City Gas (Coal Gas,) Whale Oil or for any other "bio-fuel" -- like the peanut oil the original Diesels ran on.

That irrelevancy can only be stretched so far; it applies to plausible fuels only, not implausible fuels, like gunpowder and other solid propellents.

n7axw wrote:

Easternmystic wrote:

For the second time:

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.

Please don't start with the exhaust isn't breathable again. The exhaust while it has some less than pleasant by products is less fatal to air breathers than the exhaust of a steam engine is to water breathers.

There are no insurmountable logic problems for introducing diesel engines nor are there insufficient examples of the various physical processes involved in a diesel engine to be able to justify it's use.

Charis doesn't need the diesel engine as they are still rolling out steam engines. Once COGA gets close introducing their own steam engine, Charis will need to start developing Diesels. For the moment having some of the members of the royal college start working on things like hydraulics, pneumatics and distillation will be more than enough to ensure that the neccesary knowledge is available with examples of pistons being used to do work for diesels to be developed and manufactured.

I tend to agree with your logic here. But I'm not sure how much logic has to do with the situation. When people react to both steam and diesel, at least at first, a more primitive part of the brain will be at work. Harold is right to suggest that familiarity will help with steam, but I suspect that in Charis the fact that Father Paityr is loved and trusted is more important to the credibility of his attestations. That is reinforced by the reality that everyone understands that if Charis to win, she must keep scrambling for every possible advantage.

One other comment... due to the primitive state of the church's manufacturies, I don't believe that the church will be able to come up with useful steam engines.

Don

I'm with Don more or less. I am more with Don on the emotional importance of steam over any other new type of powered contraption. Father Paytr began his rational with the assertion that Steam has been part of Safehold since creation when the archangels roamed the planet. That means the archangels accepted steam as a beneficial element of creation. Whatever rationale follows largely well be irrelevant because of this implicit acceptance. So, chop logic works because the emotional appeal is sufficient to overcome any logical flaws in Paytr's reasoning.

I'm less with Don where diesel might gain that same sort of acceptance with time. In theory, I agree. However, it took darn near a millennia and implicit archangel approval for the concept of using steam in this apparantly inappropriate way to be accepted. We haven't seen many non-military Charisians' thoughts about steam power and so cannot really extrapolate too far afield.

Bottom line is that everyone is focussing on the logic based what might be written in the Writ. IMHO, more focus might be placed on squeezing the most out of an already acceptible (emotionally) power source and far less on introducing tech for its own sake. Btw, introducing tech for its own sake strikes me as what worried pre-revelation Father Paytr. He mentions the sheer volume of innovation as breeding more and THAT might drag Godly men into Shan-wei clutches.