Diesel

Castenea wrote:As for the problems with sulpher is oil, remember that there is little to no sulpher in Gasoline, and only small amounts in the diesel you buy at gas stations.

The #2 Diesel Fuel you buy at the local station today has very tightly regulated amounts of sulfur and other contaminants. That wasn't always the case; as little as thirty to forty years ago, Diesel engines were dirty, smoky, foul-smelling creations that contributed greatly to smog and acid rain.

Fire-vine oil or other bio-fuel possibilities on Safehold may well eliminate that bit of Diesel fuel history, but rock-oil has to be refined and cleaned up before it comes close to the kind of fuels we use in the real world. (Hopefully Safehold can bypass tetra-ethyl lead as the anti-knock compound of choice.)

Weird Harold wrote:
Why can't Petroleum/bio-fuels production be stepped up the same way Coal has been? The high-pressure triple expansion engines Charis is building can't be lubricated with tallow lard, and Kraken oil alone. So production of some source of lubricants is going to have to be ramped up whether Diesels are developed or not.

Starting up mass coal production is easier.

To make oil fuels, you need more industrial investments to get going. Coal is just one more thing to mine from the ground the same way you´re already used to mine other materials(or close enough at least).

So, much better longterm, but the initial difficulty and cost is higher with oil.

Weird Harold wrote:

MWadwell wrote:Until then, steam is really the only option, both because of the OBS, and because coal is that much more readily available.


At this point in time, fire vine/petroleum oil production is almost certainly small scale, limited to a few tons per week.

Why can't Petroleum/bio-fuels production be stepped up the same way Coal has been? The high-pressure triple expansion engines Charis is building can't be lubricated with tallow lard, and Kraken oil alone. So production of some source of lubricants is going to have to be ramped up whether Diesels are developed or not.

Oh - fire vine oil/rock oil/kraken oil/etc production is almost certainly already in the process of being ramped up.

But the fact of the matter is, that it is lagging way behind coal.


Coal would have had a larger base initially, and demand would have increased at a faster rate then the oils (as the market for the oils is based on consumer demand (which wouldn't have increased much) and industrial lubrication (which would have increased)).

So the coal industry is a LOT larger then the combined oil industry, would have increased at a higher rate then the oil industry - and as a result would have enough excess to be able to start supplying the increasing number of steam engines. Oils, on the other hand, currently would NOT have enough excess to be able to start supplying fuel to diesel engines.


Give it a few years though, and the oil supply problem starts to go away....

Tenshinai wrote:To make oil fuels, you need more industrial investments to get going. Coal is just one more thing to mine from the ground the same way you´re already used to mine other materials(or close enough at least).

Isn't "bunker oil" for steamships basically just straight crude? There's no reason crude oil has to be refined in any way to fire steam boilers. Refining, especially detailed refinement into the various fuel grades used in the modern world, is a requirement for fueling ICE based infrastructure, not for steam.

As for manpower requirements for Coal vs Oil, if the distribution network is initially the same -- dragon-wagons with loose coal or barrels of oil -- the ten-to-twenty man drilling crew trumps the 100-200 man mining crew.

Pipelines present most of the same problems as railroads, but once built require far fewer people and animals to maintain.

Finally, Merlin, Nimue, and OWL have the resources to advise the inner-circle on the long-term effects and cost of coal vs oil and drive a push to develop the oil industries at the expense of the coal industries.

Weird Harold wrote:
Isn't "bunker oil" for steamships basically just straight crude? There's no reason crude oil has to be refined in any way to fire steam boilers. Refining, especially detailed refinement into the various fuel grades used in the modern world, is a requirement for fueling ICE based infrastructure, not for steam.

As for manpower requirements for Coal vs Oil, if the distribution network is initially the same -- dragon-wagons with loose coal or barrels of oil -- the ten-to-twenty man drilling crew trumps the 100-200 man mining crew.

Pipelines present most of the same problems as railroads, but once built require far fewer people and animals to maintain.

Finally, Merlin, Nimue, and OWL have the resources to advise the inner-circle on the long-term effects and cost of coal vs oil and drive a push to develop the oil industries at the expense of the coal industries.

Why bother worrying over long term effects of oil and coal? Seriously, there won't be more than 2-3 decades of heavy idustrialization using hydrocarbons before everything goes nuclear. Fusion that is. Safehold won't see the centuries of heavy hyrdocarbon use that Earth saw. Use what fuel is easiest to deploy quickly and adapt new technology to those fuels until the proscriptions are removed. Once removed everything goes nuclear quickly.

PeterZ wrote:Why bother worrying over long term effects of oil and coal? Seriously, there won't be more than 2-3 decades of heavy industrialization using hydrocarbons before everything goes nuclear.

Smog -- a term purportedly created in 1905 -- isn't a long-term effect of oil and coal, it is an effect of concentrated hydrocarbon fires and weather conditions. It can start the day after an industrial plant opens.

It is a problem that gets worse the longer it is allowed to persist, and the greater the industrialization, but it is a problem as soon as conditions permit its formation.


There are three types of "smog" one caused by soft-coal fires and two caused by "vehicular exhaust" -- eg ICEs. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smog

Weird Harold wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Why bother worrying over long term effects of oil and coal? Seriously, there won't be more than 2-3 decades of heavy industrialization using hydrocarbons before everything goes nuclear.

Smog -- a term purportedly created in 1905 -- isn't a long-term effect of oil and coal, it is an effect of concentrated hydrocarbon fires and weather conditions. It can start the day after an industrial plant opens.

It is a problem that gets worse the longer it is allowed to persist, and the greater the industrialization, but it is a problem as soon as conditions permit its formation.


There are three types of "smog" one caused by soft-coal fires and two caused by "vehicular exhaust" -- eg ICEs. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smog

Just as you said, these are immediate problems. We already have text suggesting Howsmyn is concerned about those polution effects right now. The long term effects are non-existant because those fuels will not be used long term. Either Charis looses and industrialization stops or Charis wins and everything goes nuclear. Setting up restrictions on fuel sources when Charis is fighting for its life strikes me as a bit myopic.

The only way polution seriously becomes a long term problem is if Charis loses and the CoGA decides to keep steam technology using hydrocarbons as a mainstay. Otherwise, nuclear solves the carbon output issue.

MWadwell wrote:Oh - fire vine oil/rock oil/kraken oil/etc production is almost certainly already in the process of being ramped up.

But the fact of the matter is, that it is lagging way behind coal.


Coal would have had a larger base initially, and demand would have increased at a faster rate then the oils (as the market for the oils is based on consumer demand (which wouldn't have increased much) and industrial lubrication (which would have increased)).

So the coal industry is a LOT larger then the combined oil industry, would have increased at a higher rate then the oil industry - and as a result would have enough excess to be able to start supplying the increasing number of steam engines. Oils, on the other hand, currently would NOT have enough excess to be able to start supplying fuel to diesel engines.


Give it a few years though, and the oil supply problem starts to go away....

Uncertain about fire vine, but Kraken oil would have a fairly low max sustainable production (go above that amount and production will decrease despite increased effort within a few years) and will compete with the Navy for skilled personell. All biofuels have fairly low input to output ratios, traditionally Ethanol is actually less than one.

Castenea wrote:Uncertain about fire vine, ...

Fire-Vine strikes me as just too convenient not to be a gene-engineered part of the terraforming process expressly to provide a renewable fuel/lubrication source.

ETA: From LAMA Glossary

Fire vine—a large, hardy, fast-growing Safeholdian vine. Its runners can exceed two inches in diameter, and the plant is extremely rich in natural oils. It is considered a major hazard to human habitations, especially in areas which experience arid, dry summers, because of its very high natural flammability and because its oil is poisonous to humans and terrestrial species of animals. The crushed vine and its seed pods, however, are an important source of lubricating oils, and it is commercially cultivated in some areas for that reason.

Oil tree—a Safeholdian plant species which grows to an average height of approximately thirty feet. The oil tree produces large, hairy pods which contain many small seeds very rich in natural plant oils. Dr. Pei Shan-wei’s terraforming teams genetically modified the plant to increase its oil productivity and to make it safely consumable by human beings. It is cultivated primarily as a food product, but it is also an important source of lubricants. In inland realms, it is also a major source of lamp oil.

Bunker C is not crude oil! Bunker C was used in US naval vessels thru the 70's to power its steam plants. Originally it was used because it was cheap. Oil is refined to get the real useful stuff out of it. Originally oil was refined to get kerosene out of it for things like lighting and cooking. This was done long before the widespread adoption of the internal combustion engine for transportation.

Weird Harold wrote:

Tenshinai wrote:To make oil fuels, you need more industrial investments to get going. Coal is just one more thing to mine from the ground the same way you´re already used to mine other materials(or close enough at least).

Isn't "bunker oil" for steamships basically just straight crude? There's no reason crude oil has to be refined in any way to fire steam boilers. Refining, especially detailed refinement into the various fuel grades used in the modern world, is a requirement for fueling ICE based infrastructure, not for steam.

As for manpower requirements for Coal vs Oil, if the distribution network is initially the same -- dragon-wagons with loose coal or barrels of oil -- the ten-to-twenty man drilling crew trumps the 100-200 man mining crew.

Pipelines present most of the same problems as railroads, but once built require far fewer people and animals to maintain.

Finally, Merlin, Nimue, and OWL have the resources to advise the inner-circle on the long-term effects and cost of coal vs oil and drive a push to develop the oil industries at the expense of the coal industries.