Diesel

Hi Peter Z,

My only comment to your post would be to note that the idea of steam being used for engines for power and locomotion was introduced by Merlin which would mean that it didn't take a thousand years to be accepted. The point that I am making is that Charis has gotten into the habit of accepting and even promoting change, a process that has accelerated since Merlin arrived. That mindset undoubtedly has limits. But I think it would probably carry through diesel as well. The key point is that in the EOC and probably to a lesser extent in Siddarmark, the stasis has been broken.

Don

So some people seem satisfied that diesel or other internal combustion engines could be squeezed into the Proscriptions. Others of us don't think so. At this point it is all a matter of opinion, since we've exhausted the text evidence. I think we are at an impasse until we get more evidence.

n7axw wrote:Hi Peter Z,

My only comment to your post would be to note that the idea of steam being used for engines for power and locomotion was introduced by Merlin which would mean that it didn't take a thousand years to be accepted. The point that I am making is that Charis has gotten into the habit of accepting and even promoting change, a process that has accelerated since Merlin arrived. That mindset undoubtedly has limits. But I think it would probably carry through diesel as well. The key point is that in the EOC and probably to a lesser extent in Siddarmark, the stasis has been broken.

Don

I understood your point, Don. My emphasis on steam being inherently beneficial was key. Since steam had been beneficial to Safeholdians since creation, using steam in Merlin's novel way is more an extension of an existing acceptible substance. Heating water to high tempretaures and pressures was approved by archangels since creation. Applying that in a different way is easily seen as applying the existing benefits of a divine gift in more ways. In other words the inherent benefits of steam was even greater than mortal minds knew without almost a millennia of thought to consider it.

Diesel or any other power source doesn't have that same history nor the divine approval. Without that approval, the need to innovate will eventually run up against a Charisian's basic belief in the Writ and his understanding of God's will. Diesel then has a higher hurdle to jump since it does not have that percieved divine approval.

I am not saying Diesel can't be forced through the Proscriptions, only that it will be tougher. The broken stasis isn't the only factor after all.

Hmmm Interesting discussion so far. OK one or two thoughts.
1. I think the debate about the proscriptions forbidding diesel as not a version of wind, water, or air are somewhat mute. Fire is clearly allowed for all kinds of processes, cooking, melting metal, heating air, etc. Thus using fire to heat air to do work is no problem as the blast furnaces Howysman is using attest and what, I point out, is diesel, except fuel used to heat air to do work? If a piston pushed by heated water is kosher (so to speak) then a piston pushed by heated air passes muster. We are doing nothing inside the tube except making a small fire, just like a lamp may be lit by oil to do work and produce light. And if Gunpowder which is used only to slay our fellow brothers is allowable, how then is a small explosion in a tube to safely convey people or to spare them from backbreaking toil so they might have more time to study the Holy writ not. Build the first engine to power some monasteries water pumps or some such sanctifiable process and bobs you uncle.
Honestly when it comes to such things as getting around the proscriptions what were talking about is lawyering, and that kind of hair splitting should be a piece of cake for anyone halfway decent at legal logic. OH and by the way you do see that using the argument that flames are nothing more than heated air that both the jet engine and rocket are perfectly acceptable right? After all I'm simply pushing off with my own created wind.

2. I really like the idea of using FireVine as a fuel. Since it burns so readily and is native, combustion products from burning it shouldn't trip any orbital mass spectrometer settings watching for dangerous tech developments. Always remember electrical sensors aren't the only type of sensors you can place in orbit.
On the other hand, someone clearly has a really stupid AI program monitoring the planet or the combination of Industrial infrastructure, Expanded heat signature (indicating total energy output level per area), and hydrocarbon emissions (from all the blast furnaces and steam power equipment) should already have led to dumping an orbital love pat on Charis. That trio should have been a red flag in the computer files that somebody had stepped away from the desirable societal profile.If I had Langhorn's plan it would have been on my list and something with even the brains of Watson (IBM's Jeopardy champion) would possess the ability to see this one. Something like OWL should have already shipped 'rock 1 each, terminal trajectory delivery method alpha', into it's to do list.

3. Liquid fuels to drive steam turbines is a good middle step, assuming sufficient sources exists for the fuels to be produced in any quantity. And I must admit it goes far in addressing some of the technology development that is my main reason for pushing diesel. IN point of fact its a thought that I must admit I had completely neglected to consider when I first started discussing steam verses diesel as technology progress drivers. It allows the same petrochemical developments and biochemical engineering path as using the fuel for a diesel would. I guess I have to admit I just missed that as a concept here because I always combined the words steam with coal and diesel with oil and it was oil and specifically reformatting oil for fuel that looked to me like the way to drive the chemical industry in general. On the other hand a historian friend of mine pointed out that the early chemical industry was driven by coal tar derivatives that were left from the process of converting coal to coke and didn't require anything other than steam heat or coal driven steam power to work with. Man I really hate it when I miss a trick like that, so kudos to whoever mentioned liquid fuels for steam power, that actually will work to advance the chemical engineering side of the equation. I hang my head in shame for not thinking about that dodge in advance.

4. That being said there was another post somewhere in here about the metallurgical developments that are required to produce a working diesel as well as the transmission to implement it. To whoever posted it let me add, just between us of course, I think you are slightly incorrect on the transmission side of the house because again it's easy to do transmissions for fixed plant installations and belt driven power feeds where output RPM's are relatively constant. There a very nice (small but nice) Museum of Industry here in Baltimore with a display of a machine shop set up with belt driven equipment and various transmission systems to change output RPM from a constant input (among, admittedly, a fixed number of input to output ratios) but it can be done without hideously complex or exacting machinery. Just to be a nice guy, however,<yeah right> I'm going to agree with you about the difficulty because, somewhat paradoxically, I need the problem to be difficult to solve. Remember I want the diesel because to produce it and in the process of getting to it, it drives technology upward. If liquid fuels for a steam engine will create the same effect for the chemical side of the equation they do little for the metallurgical side. For that I need the diesel and the multi-gear transmission to be difficult and require solving the concurrent mechanical and metallurgical problems to drive fine engineering skills and metal processing skills that are going to be needed to produce hosts of even more precise devices for future spacecraft and science skills later.
Remember that I'm looking at this from Nimue/Merlin's perspective. This isn't about the war, it's about getting Safeholdian tech to advance, selling the idea of innovation and invention. Devices that require more tech are better from that perspective.

5. So turning around in a circle, there still exists the idea of why do Diesel if Steam especially with liquid fuels is good enough. Well try this idea and tell me what you think. One thing about a steam engine is it always requires a bleep-pot full of fairly pure water as well as the fuel to run it. The limitation on range for locomotives, for example was water supply not coal, that's why there were coal bunkers at every major rail yard but water towers at damn near every siding. Water is the problem, it has to be fresh (what salt does to metals under high temp and pressure is amazingly bad), relatively filtered (you do NOT want your feed pressure valve blocked by dirt with a high pressure boiler) and relatively plentiful (again you don't want to have no water to pump into the boiler at the wrong moment.) (Here's some numbers for general consideration again from a posting on one of the railroad sites I read

From poster J3a-614
<SNIP>
Fuel consumption was technically less with oil than with coal, because oil had more BTUs (British Thermal Units, a measure of energy contained in fuel) per pound than coal, but consumption was still enormous compared with diesel locomotives, and especially to something smaller, like your car. A large oil-burner, like a 4-8-4, would burn about 10 to 12 gallons of Bunker C per mile; a first-generation diesel would consume maybe a quarter of that, perhaps three gallons per mile. Net cost advantage was a bit less; diesel fuel in this time period went for about 10 cents per gallon, while Bunker C in some cases went for 5 cents per 42-gallon barrel. For comparison, a coal burner would get, depending on conditions and the quality of the coal, anywhere from 10 to 20 miles per ton of coal.

Water consumption was typically about 200 gallons per mile for the steam engines, and as noted in Rich G's linked story, it was best if given some sort of treatment to prevent rust, scale, and foam inside the boiler. That was another expense item for the railroads in steam days, and it could be a very notable item if you had a railroad like the Santa Fe, with a lot of desert mileage where you had to haul water in. Multiply that by a railroad with a lot of traffic, and that's an ocean of water to haul into the desert.

<SNIP>

Notice 200 gallons of water PER MILE, 10 to 20 miles per ton of coal, 10 to 20 gallons of oil per mile,
A diesel 2.5 to 4 gallons of oil and no water per mile.


Steam engines are a pain in the hind regions to fire up and cool down (here try this description http://www.sdrm.org/faqs/hostling.html for how much fun is had in starting an oil fired steam locomotive, coals even more fun (The start bank of coal had to be just right and the stoker either by shovel or by automatic version in later engines was having to very precisely adjust a chunky feed stock to keep heat even.))

You can plop a diesel down anywhere, just cart in some fuel and go. A steam engine, not so much. Needs more fuel needs lots of water.

So let's see I think I answered the proscription issue, I also think I can still show why it's a preferable answer to advance technology and I think I can show why it's preferable from a Safeholdian business perspective. So I will now cheerfully sit back and await being torn to shreds in the replies!

Larry
<Oh and apologies for any remaining spelling, grammar, and language errors. On a post as long winded as this one it would be miraculous to not have one or two. Also for the length, the older I get the more garrulous I become. Sorry!>

Larry wrote:1. I think the debate about the proscriptions forbidding diesel as not a version of wind, water, or air are somewhat mute.

The word is moot, not mute.

Larry wrote:Fire is clearly allowed for all kinds of processes, cooking, melting metal, heating air, etc. Thus using fire to heat air to do work is no problem as the blast furnaces Howysman is using attest and what, I point out, is diesel, except fuel used to heat air to do work?...

Honestly when it comes to such things as getting around the proscriptions what were talking about is lawyering, and that kind of hair splitting should be a piece of cake for anyone halfway decent at legal logic.

There's "getting around" the Proscriptions, and there is violating the proscriptions. Steam has a hook to get around the proscriptions, ICEs, not so much.

Larry wrote:2. I really like the idea of using FireVine as a fuel. Since it burns so readily and is native, combustion products from burning it shouldn't trip any orbital mass spectrometer settings watching for dangerous tech developments. Always remember electrical sensors aren't the only type of sensors you can place in orbit.

Diesels use combustion under high pressure. That produces compounds that burning a normal pressures don't produce. A jump in high-pressure combustion byproducts is a possible Rakuri trigger you don't want to trip.

Larry wrote:On the other hand, someone clearly has a really stupid AI program monitoring the planet or the combination of Industrial infrastructure, Expanded heat signature (indicating total energy output level per area), and hydrocarbon emissions (from all the blast furnaces and steam power equipment) should already have led to dumping an orbital love pat on Charis. ...

That would be why Merlin set up an obvious steam economy on a remote group of islands as a test of the OBS parameters. I don't think the blast furnaces even stretch the proscriptions and hydrocarbon emissions from steam boiler fires wouldn't trigger the OBS any more than a forest fire would. It was only the steam that worried Merlin.

Larry wrote:3. Liquid fuels to drive steam turbines is a good middle step, assuming sufficient sources exists for the fuels to be produced in any quantity. And I must admit it goes far in addressing some of the technology development that is my main reason for pushing diesel.

Steam technology at the level Charis is developing (300 psi triple-expansion) needs lubricants as well as fuel. Diesels need those lubricants even more than Steam does, and you can't really develop ICE technology using Lard as your primary lubricant.

Larry wrote:4. ...I think you are slightly incorrect on the transmission side of the house because again it's easy to do transmissions for fixed plant installations and belt driven power feeds where output RPM's are relatively constant. ...

Transmissions/Belt feeds are pretty much standard tech for water power and should be no big deal to migrate the tech to fixed plant installations of Steam or Diesel. A clutch and gear transmission for mobile applications shouldn't be much of a challenge either. The problem is the metallurgy required to to make small clutch and gear transmissions.

Larry wrote:...If liquid fuels for a steam engine will create the same effect for the chemical side of the equation they do little for the metallurgical side. For that I need the diesel and the multi-gear transmission to be difficult and require solving the concurrent mechanical and metallurgical problems to drive fine engineering skills and metal processing skills that are going to be needed to produce hosts of even more precise devices for future spacecraft and science skills later.

Steam power at the level of technology being used (~~ late 20th century) will push metallurgy and mechanical progress just fine -- insofar that OWL and Merlin don't just leapfrog things they need.

Larry wrote:Remember that I'm looking at this from Nimue/Merlin's perspective. This isn't about the war, it's about getting Safeholdian tech to advance, selling the idea of innovation and invention. Devices that require more tech are better from that perspective.

You're getting ahead of the story, though. Charis has the capability to build Diesel engines now. They even have the metallurgy skills to make them reasonable sized -- maybe not your VW TDI Rabbit just yet, but definitely WWII vintage bulldozers and excavators. The reason they don't is because of the OBS and Proscriptions; Once they remove those two stumbling blocks they may just bypass ICEs and fossil fuels and go straight to Electric and Nuclear generation.

Larry wrote:One thing about a steam engine is it always requires a bleep-pot full of fairly pure water as well as the fuel to run it. The limitation on range for locomotives, for example was water supply not coal, that's why there were coal bunkers at every major rail yard but water towers at damn near every siding. Water is the problem, it has to be fresh (what salt does to metals under high temp and pressure is amazingly bad), relatively filtered

Yep, Steam has a LOT of drawbacks. The one drawback they don't have is the OBS and Rakuri provably ignore them.

Steam can do what is needed for the near future -- to the end of the war. Once the war is won and the OBS disabled, the proscriptions can be overturned and Katy-Bar-The-Door on all previously proscribed technology -- possibly with OWL openly providing plans and instructions.

Hi Larry,

Good post. In the main I agree with your logic. However what Harold and I are discussing has less to do with logic and more to do with perception. He is emphasizing steam's familiarity as making its introduction easier and is a bit more pessimistic than I about introducing diesel. My point of view on the other hand, is that the trust that Father Paityr has developed in the EOC along with the need for the EOC to stay ahead of the game to survive is probably more important than the familiarity issue. Also, Charis has developed a mindset of accepting change which makes accepting both steam and diesel possible in spite of the fact that both are against the prescriptions.

Where I think Harold and I firmly agree is that for both steam and diesel, the receptive mindset has to be there. Otherwise there is no amount of logic that can break the barrier. However logic can provide the rationalizations and grease the path once the mindset is there.

Don

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.

Do you actually read what you write? This is complete garbage. If the the fuel used is irrelevant then there is no justification needed for any fuel. I can only assume that your your throwing any argument up that you can think of and seeing what sticks.

Weird Harold wrote:

Larry wrote:One thing about a steam engine is it always requires a bleep-pot full of fairly pure water as well as the fuel to run it. The limitation on range for locomotives, for example was water supply not coal, that's why there were coal bunkers at every major rail yard but water towers at damn near every siding. Water is the problem, it has to be fresh (what salt does to metals under high temp and pressure is amazingly bad), relatively filtered

Yep, Steam has a LOT of drawbacks. The one drawback they don't have is the OBS and Rakuri provable ignore them.

Steam can do what is needed for the near future -- to the end of the war. Once the war is won and the OBS disabled, the proscriptions can be overturned and Katy-Bar-The-Door on all previously proscribed technology -- possibly with OWL openly providing plans and instructions.

You need a lot of water if you work open circuit (like most traditional steam locomotives), closed circuit (where all the water is recovered not vented) has a number of advantages (not using external water sources is one of them). All ships with steam propulsion run closed circuit as do most fixed land based applications, because it is more efficient, you recycle your water, you recycle your water treatment chemicals, you recycle the heat needed to get the water to 60C and you can relax about most contamination. The downside is that you (like James Watt) need a condenser (a steam vapor heat exchanger) or a direct contact condenser. Heat exchangers (particularly air cooled exchangers)are large hence steam locomotives don't generally have them but rather use direct contact and they are used if they are working in special environments - like tunnels (yes steam locos have been used underground - or more correctly the London Underground). Generally condensing loco's use saddle tanks and vent the cylinders into the tank.
(BTW your car radiator has about twice the load so putting it on a vehicle is not a major problem).

Weird Harold wrote:There's "getting around" the Proscriptions, and there is violating the proscriptions. Steam has a hook to get around the proscriptions, ICEs, not so much.

If anything the logic behind diesels is less contrived since the air used is a gas coming in and is a gas coming out. The water changes from a liquid to a gas. This argument has been thoroughly discredited. Perhaps you should stop using it!

Weird Harold wrote:Diesels use combustion under high pressure. That produces compounds that burning a normal pressures don't produce. A jump in high-pressure combustion byproducts is a possible Rakuri trigger you don't want to trip.

If diesels are going to trip the Rakurai from exhaust emissions, Howsmynns steel fuenaces wouyld arleady have done so, not to mention various natural geological processes like volcanism.

From orbit finding the sources of trace gases in the atmosphere is at minimum several orders of magnitude mor difficult than seeing thermal signatures.

Weird Harold wrote:Steam technology at the level Charis is developing (300 psi triple-expansion) needs lubricants as well as fuel. Diesels need those lubricants even more than Steam does, and you can't really develop ICE technology using Lard as your primary lubricant.

A triple expansion steam engine has moved beyond the point of using lard to lubricate it.

Weird Harold wrote:You're getting ahead of the story, though. Charis has the capability to build Diesel engines now. They even have the metallurgy skills to make them reasonable sized -- maybe not your VW TDI Rabbit just yet, but definitely WWII vintage bulldozers and excavators. The reason they don't is because of the OBS and Proscriptions; Once they remove those two stumbling blocks they may just bypass ICEs and fossil fuels and go straight to Electric and Nuclear generation.

Finally right about something but for the wrong reasons, They aren't moving to diesel yet because they can still get a lot more out of steam. From a technology point of view this story is essentially about first bringing a knife to a fist fight and then when the other guy also starts bringing a knife, to start using your gun. At the point that COGA starts introducing there own steam engines, Charis will be introducing Diesels.

We aren't getting anywhere with this. I haven't seen a new argument or angle posted in the last week. There are people who think that diesel and internal combustion engines can be squeezed into the Proscriptions, and some who don't, and no one has managed to convince anyone to change their minds. I'm not sure there is anything useful left to be said on the topic for the moment.