NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/sci/energy/5448

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-15 | 3.7 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!mmm
From: [e-mail] (Mark Robert Thorson)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: More External-Combustion Info
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 92 16:14:46 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
References: <1992Nov13.125119.11873@bsu-ucs> <[e-mail]>
Lines: 59

Quoting from Vannevar Bush's autobiography _Pieces_of_the_Action_
(Morrow, 1970) page 213:

But I was convinced then, and still am, that the steam engine is a
better automobile engine than the things we now use.  One reason,
which we are just now beginning to take seriously, and which the
automobile industry ignored for two generations, is that a steam car
does not pollute the air the way an internal combustion engine does.
With a properly adjusted flame it does not create carbon monoxide to
leak into the car and asphyxiate the passengers.  Moreover, it has
natural characteristics that fit.  It is inherently a variable-speed
engine and the automobile certainly provides a variable-speed load.
The internal combustion engine is inherently a constant-speed engine,
and all sorts of gadgetry have hence been necessary to fit engine and
car together.

The steam engine went out for a number of reasons.  The Stanleys,
who held important patents, became old and quit vigorous development
Perhaps there is a lesson here--that old men should not hold
controlling patents.  A second factor was this:  The gasoline engine
developers got legislation enacted in various places which prohibited
an open flame in a garage, and the steamer had a pilot flame that
generally was kept alight.  To keep steam cars, with their pilots
burning, out of garages was fairly easy to do because of course town
fathers generally were afraid of fire.  But so far as the technical
aspects went, it would have been possible to prevent flame hazards.
One could have enclosed the flame, electric ignition was possible,
and in some cases one did not need to have a flame in the garage at all.
As I have said, after the fire went out on a steam automobile, you
could run it for many miles on the steam still in the boilers.  In fact,
I used to leave my car in the garage overnight, come out in the morning,
run out of the garage on the steam that was still in the boiler, and fire
up after I was on the road.  Hence though it was possible for a steam
car to be developed that would not have any open flame in the garage,
this legislation was one thing that finally killed off the steam
automobile.

Quoting from page 215:

But the steam car is now again on its way.  The engine will probably
be hermetically sealed, requiring no lubrication, no makeup water.
Its condenser will operate with vacuum.  It will use diesel oil as fuel
and will cause very little pollution.  It will be quiet, flexible,
powerful.  It will get off from a cold start in thirty seconds.
It will contain so little water that the danger of explosion will be made
negligable.  It will have a fire, in a furnace instead of inside
cylinders, but this will be so shielded, in the manner of a miner's lamp,
that it will not present a fire hazard in a garage.  The engine itself
will be so light that one mechanic can pick it up in his arms.  It will
last for years without attention.  When in full production it will be cheaper
to build, and to operate, than present cars.  The steam car will not
be built by the present automobile industry unless some unit of that
industry suddenly sees a great light, or government orders subsidize a
new unit in the industry.  It will have competition, as I will discuss below.
But in fact, if I were disinterested, and had to bet, I might bet on
steam.

[There reasons why Bush believed all this are discussed at length in
this chapter, which also covers electric cars, fuel cells, etc.]