"Doug White" wrote in message
. ..
"Ed Huntress" wrote in
:
snip
The burner and stoker (for solid fuels) and the control systems are
the big bugaboo that will take some serious work. Triple expansion
motors and Condensers are easy, but getting the cylinder oil out of
the water before you feed it back to the boiler it is always a
challenge.

Modernizing the controls and sensors so it can run automatically and
unattended isn't bad, they have continued building steam boilers -
you just have to miniaturize control gear built for a 100MW power
plant down to the proper size to work on a car.

To modernize the handling of solid fuel, you'll need a little robot
with a shovel, who sings "16 Tons" while he's stoking the boiler.

Why not base it on pellet stove technology?

Eh, it's possible, but you'd need a big hopper -- maybe you'd want to tow a
tender. g Its energy density is roughly 1/3 that of gasoline, per unit
weight; energy density per unit volume is slightly better. So a 55-gallon
hopper would be equal to a 20-gallon gas tank, not including the screw or
other feed mechanism.


A friend of mine uses a pellet stove for heat. He has a big hopper in
the garage labeled "Purina Stove Chow".

Can he put wheels on it? He might get across the state line with that. g

Steam engines without recuperators and other complexities aren't very
efficient to begin with. And starting up in the morning would be a bit...er,
slow.

However, they're fun to think about.

--
Ed Huntress