Michael Galloway

Hi Nancy
The engine can certainly function as a generator/home heat source and tractor without changing the setup, in the way you describe. The versions pictured in the video are the fully one or the other setup's.

And we've got another video out: https://youtu.be/_Wha26WjM14

Joel I can only echo what Paul said. I'd agree that causing even more deforestation is the LAST thing we would want. Rather making use waste and planting more trees close to where they're used to give individuals greater energy independence.

Steve Zoma
I would certainly agree that it's not something that you would do if you have an easier form of energy like the grid. On the other hand if you're cutting your own wood to run it that would be one solid incentive to reduce usage.
Using the numbers I gave eariler: "2.48 kg of wood per kWh or 9.9L of wood chip per kWh (250kg/m^3) and 5.8L of water per kWh"

So I whipped out a spreadsheet and looked up some numbers

total energy consumption (current average lifestyle, total energy)
country name W        kWh/y L wood /y kg wood /y Cord m^3 Ton
Ukraine           3787.7 33180.3 328484.5 82287.0   90.7 328.48 82.29
UK                     4332.5 37952.7 375731.7 94122.7        103.7 375.73 94.12
NZ                     5547.2 48593.5 481075.4 120511.8 132.8 481.08 120.51
Australia           7446.8 65234.0 645816.3 161780.2 178.2 645.82 161.78
US                       9538.8 83559.9 827242.9 207228.5 228.3 827.24 207.23

household electricity (
country name kWa/y L wood /y kg wood /y Cord m^3 Ton
Ukraine               2902 28729.8   7197.0     7.9   28.73 7.20
UK                     4496 44510.4   11150.1   12.3 44.51 11.15
NZ                     8372 82882.8   20762.6   22.9 82.88 20.76
Australia           9502 94069.8   23565.0   26.0 94.07 23.56
US                   12154 120324.6 30141.9   33.2 120.32 30.14

household electricity without space heating, (take off 60%, EU fraction)
country name kWa/y L wood /y kg wood /y Cord m^3 Ton
Ukraine           1160.8 11491.9   2878.8     3.2   11.49 2.88
UK                   1798.4 17804.2   4460.0     4.9   17.80 4.46
NZ                   3348.8 33153.1   8305.0     9.2   33.15 8.31
Australia         3800.8 37627.9   9426.0     10.4 37.63 9.43
US                   4861.6 48129.8   12056.8   13.3 48.13 12.06

You're quite right that replacing our current lifestyle with wood fired steam is totally impractical, but that's not the goal.
And we're getting a lot of heat that would be wasted if we're heating with electricity. Using the waste heat from the exhaust steam to heat the space and cut's it down substantially.

John you talked about heating your cabin with 10 cords of wood a year. I'd hazard a guess that you'd be using less electricity than average so that puts this into the right range for you.

It looks like powering the essentials and heating with the waste heat would be well within the capabilities of an off grid household with a few acres of trees. Even just getting the incoming air up to "cool room" from below freezing would be a massive improvement and reduce other heat needs. A lot more can be done of course with insulation, hot water heating, removing un-needed appliances, absorption refrigeration from the waste heat.

You could even run it off the same steam tractor you use for mobile work. Plug it into the house once you're back from whatever you needed to do elsewhere.

Returning the ash to complete the nutrient cycle would be needed too of course.

Refferences:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37433
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Energy_consumption_in_households

Zaratustra

I definitely agree that there will be many situations where a steam engine won't be the best option but as a next step down the road from the heights of our current energy usage it seems like a good fit to me. The technology is relatively simple and so easy to manufacture compared to most other alternative energy sources. I'll admit that bad management could lead to reducing tree cover but the chance to secure future fuel for a low cost creates an incentive to plant more trees and make better usage existing waste streams.

In 100 years or more most of the world may be using horses instead of steam engines for most things; but for land based bulk cargo or passenger transport and running necessary industrial plant at the farm scale I think this would have a place as we saw 150 years ago.

R  John
Steam is more efficient that I suspect you think. A typical diesel converts about 30% of the energy in the fuel to shaft energy while we're expecting to achieve over 10%. Old steam engines were around 3-4% which would fit the relative land usage of 10% that you mentioned; and in very land restricted areas what you're describing may be better. But if labour is more of a restriction than land then a diverse coppice used for a combination of yields including lumber and fuel wood would be more labour efficient.

Like Jordan I would also propose that there may be unknown issues with this kind of diesel, and while there are certainly issues with steam we already have a fair idea what they are.

Thanks all for the conversation!

R John, ok that's cool. I wonder what the land area to power a charcoal slurry diesel would be including the resources to power the fuel processing. The simplicity of chop up the wood and put it in the firebox appeals greatly to me. You could use a small steam generator to run an electric chain saw for that too.

David, take it as shaft power though electrical would be pretty close considering that an electrical generator can be over 95% efficient. In saying that generators in a non-ideal situation could be much less than that.

R John: I'm not familiar with running a diesel engine on charcoal slurry so I can't compare them in detail but I suspect there would be issues affecting the important seals in the cylinder. What I can say is that the steam engine was widespread enough for it's issues and weakness to be known, so we know where we're starting and where we're going.

David: old steamengines were normally 3 or 4% efficient at converting the energy in wood to useful crankshaft work, we're expecting to be over 10% based on what was achieved at the end of the steam age but not widely applied.
For some harder numbers how does 2.48 kg of wood per kWh or 9.9L of wood chip per kWh (250kg/m^3) and 5.8L of water per kWh (assuming no condensing which would add complication) sound?

Douglas: I totally agree with you on the dangers of high pressure steam technology. The boss is certified to issue steam certificates for heritage style steam locomotives and I'm a mechanical engineer with healthy fear of death from steam explosion.
Recently I got to operate the prototype boiler that we've used to prove the key differences with our technology; when I was operating it I commented that I felt much safer operating it than I would have an old style boiler. I could describe it as the pressurised tubes being contained in a mobile bunker, the outer shell is only containing exhaust gasses. I've also done the calculations proving that the worst case scenario of stuff blowing up (which it's designed not to do!) will only result in a lot of steam blowing out the funnel. We're not amateur's playing around, we're young professionals changing the world! (cynicism hasn't set in yet!).

Thanks all

Steve:
There are definitely areas where diesel engines powered by either fossil fuel or bio-diesel make a lot more sense and in those areas I wouldn't expect us to displace them.

The advantage of steam is the ability to burn solid fuel which can be bits of tree or a waste stream, or even waste bit's of tree in the form of forestry slash. We've had a lot of problems with that causing damage in recent floods. Of course the ecological sustainability of large scale pine plantation rotation is another issue!

Ideally the steam engine would run off an on site coppice yielding many useful products. Of course that isolates you from fuel shocks too!

Matt:
Some internal details are shown here: https://mackwell.co.nz/replacement-boilers/

Regarding safety the water tube boiler only has 2-3% of the water of an equivalent old style boiler. It less likely to fail than an old style boiler and if it did it would be safe to stand next to.

Regarding efficiency old steam was not as good as it could have been. A lot of design work was " we need more power, make it bigger!" rather than getting more work out of the same fuel. We're working from the material left behind by people who actually made that effort in the 1970s but didn't get it adopted because everyone had already decided that steam was going away so why bother.
We're fully burning the fuel same as a RMH, once it's up and running the exhaust is clear, like an RMH.

Hi Phil

That's great to hear! I'm not sure of the exact date but we'll be updating progress on the youtube channel and I'm hoping to have an ongoing conversation on here about it.

The most recent brochures were saying Q4 2023 so that's the best estimate at the moment.

Thanks
Michael

Hi everyone

First time poster so please let me know if I mess up the posting process.

I'm curious what you'll think of this:
Mackwell
Mackwell Youtube channel

I'm working for a startup working to displace diesel with advanced steam power. We're learning from the successes and failures of the steam age along with the best of it that was never widely implemented, and improving on that in areas where we can.

Our boiler are safe with no explosion risk, no sparks and no smoke when running. We'll have a 35 hp engine for sale by the end of the year and the first one is under construction now.

The boiler's are entirely mechanical in operation, though an electric fan speeds the startup. The boiler is self regulating and stable. They're designed for a long service life and easy maintenance.

I'd be very interested to hear any of your thoughts.
thanks
Michael