Is steam power in your future?

[Pat McCotter]

Is steam power in your future?
By Skip Goebel     

Issue 43 Jan/Feb 1997

If you're thinking steam is old-fashioned, consider this: Almost a century ago, steam cars and ships attained speeds and efficiencies which are still difficult to attain, even with today's modern internal combustion engines.

Steam is one of the most powerful and the most dangerous forms of independent energy. It is so powerful that here at Tiny Power, makers of steam engines, at least once a week we get a call from someone who is going to save the world with steam. Usually, it takes only a few minutes of conversation to reveal that the caller needs more education in the basics of steam engineering.

This article is an attempt to answer some of the many questions people have about steam. And I guess the first question is: can it save the world, at least as far as your personal energy needs are concerned? That depends.

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[Read more]

[MaineShark]

Steam is great.  Actually working on a steam generator project, right now.  Hopefully, may have a turnkey solution for off-grid use, within the year.

Of course, NH has some substantial regulatory restrictions on steam boilers.  So folks either need to comply, get the regulations changed, or do it clandestinely.

Joe

[Jim Johnson]

I'll be convinced when people are putting toothpicks in their smart phones and then holding them under the faucet to refill the boiler.
It would be cool because you could have a steam whistle for your ring tone.

The commercial would go some thing like this:  There is a guy standing on the street, he sees a pretty woman walk by, suddenly steam fly's out of his pocket with a loud whistling noise.  He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his phone, looks at it...  The phone has scanned every thing on the street and the guy is able to see every bit of information that has ever been known about the people, the places and the things that it scanned.  The commercial ends with the guy looking at the girls high school sexting pictures.

All brought to you by the miracle of steam power.

[MaineShark]

More like plugging the cell phone charger into the generator

Steam is inefficient and complicated.

But, as external combustion, it will run on a wide variety of inexpensive fuels.  Like wood, which is so cheap because it grows on trees...

I don't actually like the information that Goebel has put out.  He keeps suggesting running a steam boiler on oil, which is just silly.  If you have oil, you can run an internal combustion engine, which is much more efficient.  You use external combustion when you have no other choice in order to utilize that particular fuel effectively.   Getting double-digit efficiencies on a small steam plant takes a lot of work.  Internal combustion can push 50% efficient.  If you have fuel that's suitable for internal combustion, go that route...

Joe

[Tom Sawyer]

Damn Jim you are one funny man. It would complete the whole Steam Punk theme to have a steam powered cell phone. 

Joe are the coil of stainless steel tubing type regulated like boilers... I understand they are much safer. Probably not as efficient I would guess.

Have been interested in wood fired steam, but thought the maintenance cleaning would be a drag.

[MaineShark]

Joe are the coil of stainless steel tubing type regulated like boilers... I understand they are much safer. Probably not as efficient I would guess.

Have been interested in wood fired steam, but thought the maintenance cleaning would be a drag.

It's based upon size, not construction (which, as you noted, is silly, since there are much-safer technologies available now, than were available back in the 1960's, when the law was passed).  Very small "hobby" boilers are exempted.  Nothing that would actually be of any practical use, of course.

Water tube boilers are much safer than fire tube boilers (no real efficiency difference - each can be efficient or not, depending upon its particular details).  They're substantially more likely to fail, but they fail by developing a small leak that needs to be repaired, not by exploding.  Personally, I'll fix a leak every couple years, rather than deal with an explosion, even if the explosion only occurs every decade, or even longer.  The State doesn't care, though, because they don't have to care, since they have no real accountability, being a monopoly.

Oddly, you can have larger boilers in boats, if they are running in the ocean, or any river that is navigable to the ocean, as that comes under Coast Guard regulations, not NH.  So a boiler that gets bumped around on a trailer, then rocked around in a boat, and potentially dunked into cold water while running, is exempted, but a boiler that's nicely bolted to a stationary frame, protected from the elements, is not.  "The law's the law," though...

Joe

[Pat K]

I like to say Steam= It's old school but it still powers the world.

[KBCraig]

The new power plant at work is a 400hp Hurst. It burns ground-up pallets and sawdust and other biomass, with a natural gas backup. In a few months after they get all the fine tuning worked out they're going to add waste vegetable oil to the mix.

Highly computerized, it pretty much runs itself.

[MaineShark]

Hurst makes a nice boiler, but their equipment is bloody expensive.

Even small-scale steam isn't cheap.  If you comply with all the regs, you're probably looking at $40-50k for 5kW.  I'm looking for ways to drop that price.  The boiler constitutes the largest chunk of it; I'm hoping we may be able to find a way to fabricate them locally...

Joe

[Lloyd Danforth]

Steam Shovel

[KBCraig]

Steam Shovel

I can't quite make you out in that one.

[Pat K]

Steam Shovel

I can't quite make you out in that one.

He's the one sitting down in front there. 

[Lloyd Danforth]

I always liked to play chicken with the gear teeth with my feet!

[Alex Libman]

Wow, that means I can plug it into my ears, put on Bill Maher, and have all the energy I want for free!