Well first, I appreciate the compliment regarding the cell phone post!
On to our little argument here, though - the OP was talking about wanting to convert his ICE engine to steam. We weren’t looking for minute details of history here - we were looking for broad reasons why there aren’t any new steam cars being sold today, and why the steam cars went out in the first place. (Actually, we weren’t even looking for that - it was just an explanatory side-point).
For reasons as yet unknown, you picked a fight about it. My original statement ("The Stanley Steamer isn’t made any more. There’s a reason for that. ") was not only not incorrect, but wasn’t even specific enough to be considered incorrect. There wasn’t really anything to argue with there, other than perhaps plural vs. singular.
We’re arguing silly minutiae at this point. It’s akin to telling me I’m wrong when I say cars are powered by gasoline because I failed to take into account the solar energy absorbed by the plants that died and stored their carbon in subterranean oil deposits. I’ll admit it’s entertaining to argue on a web forum (although arguing politics is more fun ) but I’m not sure we should continue in light of the fact that we’re derailing the OP’s thread.
And I thought it was you who picked a fight about it when I simply made the harmless point that the actual reasons stream cars disappeared were complicated
But seriously - my intent wasn’t actually to start anything. Professionally I do stuff in the realm of how technology moves through history and I worry that people think of it as a kind of “natural” process governed only by the laws of physics and markets. (It tends to take it out of the realm of things that we think we have a choice about or any control over). What you wrote just sounded to me like it implied that kind of thing so I just threw in my $.02 about it. So I’d just modify to "The Stanley Steamer isn’t made any more. There are a lot of reasons for that, but a really important one is… " (or something). It really wasn’t meant as any barb at you.
And yes - the minutiae it devolved into has no relevance whatsoever to the post. Yet another thread hijacked by the “too much time on their hands” CarTalk crew. Although, I think that OP may have given up early.
“So I’ll just try to clarify then. My point would not be that ICE wasn’t the best thing in the long run. I don’t have the engineering saavy to say so. My point would instead be that whatever technical superiority it may or may not have - looking back from here to there - isn’t the reason that steam disappeared.”
Then what is the reason?
You never answered my question.
Your position can be summed up as follows: Steam engines disappeared not because internal combustion engines were superior, but for some unstated reason or combination of reasons, which I apparently can’t name.
Feel free to defend that outpost, since you seem to have time on your hands. You participated in the “hijacking” with a certain vigor.
Piter I have no idea why you’re here. You mostly showed up around the time the board migrated apparently to harass the moderators about the move. Since that time it still isn’t clear why you hang around since your MO seems to be useless and acidic quips. In fact, you never responded to my inquiry long ago regarding why you didn’t just go away if you thought the board format was so terrible.
In short, I will spend my time talking to shadowfax who has earned my respect. I’m not going to spend the day typing up lessons in how to think for you.
I never answered your question because it is an absurd question. “what is the reason?” You probably think wars can be caused by assassinations and that Edison invented the lightbulb too.
I’ve seen plenty of people like you come through these boards. I’ve learned that I should just ignore them. So here is me going on to ignoring you…
I remember Popular Science and the like lauding the rebirth of the steam engine as the engine of the future, clean burning external combustion solving all our air pollution problems with lots of artist’s renderings of modern steam car concepts.
Some engineering team actually built a working closed cycle steamer using a modified 2-stroke outboard engine converted to a single acting uniflow steam engine powering a VW Beetle. According to the report, they managed to get a whopping 11 mpg. I think they also used something other than water as a working fluid, probably some kind of chemical in the Freon family which is more compatible with lube oil than water is.
Most of the old locomotives were open cycle, they used the water once and then exhausted it to the air.
A closed cycle engine uses the water over and over and since a feedwater pump is constantly filling the boiler, the boiler can be very small resulting in very short start up times. The closed cycle is also known as a Rankine cycle.
One of those ‘how it works’ shows on cable recently had an episode about, you guessed it, steam engines. Jay Leno was featured, he not only has the amazing car collection, with several steam-powered cars that he demonstrated, he also has a great collection of early steam engines that were used to power factories, mines, etc. Two of the cars were a Stanley (fun getting it fired up - the ‘external combustion’ got out of hand, with flames up past the boiler and the thankfully-open hood), and another car (can’t remember the name) that recycled the water. I think he said the Stanley got 1 mile per gallon of water, while the closed cycle one got 3 miles per gallon of water.
" I think he said the Stanley got 1 mile per gallon of water"
The water is the working fluid, not the fuel of a steam engine. However, at 250 psi, it takes about 1200 BTU of heat to turn a pound of water into steam and since this car needs about 8 pounds of steam per mile, we can deduct that it takes about 9600 BTU of heat to make this car go one mile, or about 1/12 of a gallon of gasoline if the boiler had an efficiency of 100 percent. Since no boiler is 100 percent efficient, it looks like this car gets single digit gas milage at best.
In part the author suggests the ICE overtook steam and electric because. “Still, in the early 1900’s, internal combustion engines had not emerged as the dominant transportation engine, there still being significant competition from steam and battery-powered vehicles. Though these alternatives were already in decline in the 1910’s, the last nail in the coffin of these alternatives was the 1921 discovery at General Motors’ research laboratories of tetraethyl lead as a remarkably effective antiknock fuel additive. Immediately compression ratios could be nearly doubled, leading to substantial increases in both power and efficiency.”
For an idea of the problems with developing a steam powered car here is an article on Bill Lear’s 1968 attempt to build a steam powered Indy race car.
) but I’m not sure we should continue in light of the fact that we’re derailing the OP’s thread.