Coal Vs Alcohol
 

Seeing as I am back to doing some work on my campaign, I seem to have alot of questions lately. :)

Using the Pirates of Vistula module as a baseline along with the x2 coal and X3.3 Ethanol Fuel Energy tables from the T2k core rules, I am thinking which would be better to convert say a river barge like the Wisla Krolowa too given you have access to both types of fuels?

Coal has a higher co-efficient but needs different storage since its a solid fuel vs a liquid so thats more systems that need converting.

Alcohol wouldnt need the fuel system conversion but it requires using crops that could be used for feeding the population instead and more overall energy because of the lower energy.

Perhaps coal would be better suited for energy production on land versus powering a ship?

Coal every time provided you can get it. Failing that, wood will do.

Why? Well basically because there's less effort required to obtain the solid fuel and boats etc can, or should, be able to handle the heavier load.

Coal. Ethanol has too many uses (vehicles, drinking, antiseptic), coal only burns. Plus, for the Wisla Krolowa, there may be a source over in the Liga Handlowy to the west-- they mined coal, IIRC. As for storage, what do you think that barge did before the PCs moved their vehicles and tents onto it?

coal
 

solid fuel and old tech engine is the best way to go - its more reliable than many more "modern apparatuses" like a diesel or an alco conversion gasoliner.

Also lots of places on land will have the odd chance of having a cache.

As I recall the Poles shut down all nuclear power plants to minimize risks during the war .This means that a country like Poland would revert to using the traditional coal ( and wood ) for fuel for everything from running a steam generator to heating peoples domiciles,cooking etc etc .

It would be one of the things a band of marauders travelling light and fast would leave behind after raiding a farm or a small hamlet - it weighs and takes up space and has to be traded -it cant be consumed right away like the grain alcohol,the food cache or the unfortunate farmers daughters..Scrounging for it when you set ashore could mean getting some.

Everyone would want coal ,every village would have stacks of it as a necsessary commodity . ( Poland has extensive mining operations /know how in regards to coal and fairly large deposits) .

Well, not everyone would have it .Those who cant get it or afford it - no .But it would be a stock commodity inmyHUMBLEopininon , and in common usage.

Coal can be mined in primitive shafts and with hand tools in many places ( thats why there is always a mining disaster in China - there are 10 000 mines from 10 -10 000 workers ) ,and more than likely many places in Poland will have such operations .I think especially in the south - south east - Silesia.

And not to forget - there are ways to convert coal into synthetic petrol that can run fairly advanced engines-like some turbojets etc .

The energy tables in the core rules needs a serious amount of work .This board shoul set down a voluntary commitee to amend them and then present their findings in final draft . ( For everyone to consider using/not using ) .

As a GM I know I would love a scientific and comprehensive document on this .


All of course - IMHO .

The other benefit for using a coal burning engine is that you can burn wood (as mentioned previously by Legbreaker), peat or even some forms of solid waste material like dried cow dung. Plus it isn't as likely to burst into flame when exposed to an ignition source.
There's also the advantage that it can be stacked in the open whereas any liquid by necessity must be stored in some sort of tank, typically sealed to prevent evaporation. Even if coal is wet, it can still be burnt (as long as a good fire is burning to help dry it out) but once ethanol gets too much water in it, it's almost useless.

I think the big vote for coal is that it is what was actually used the last time society had the choice between the two. Before refined petroleum products the world had a choice between alcohol and coal. Both were readily available and the industrial revolution was clearly coal powered.

Some good answers there...it was bigger question then I had thought tbh. Thanks for all the great insight.

Trash, the other solid fuel
 

Biomass, Municipal Solid Waste, or Trash, it all burns; many towns and cities have power-generating plants dedicated to consuming solid waste. One website dedicated to Biomass fuel technologies shows four, count 'em, _four_ Biomass burning power plants within a few miles of each other in central Long Island! Now, that would make a heck of a power base (pun not intended) for the US Gov't to try to influence back into the national fold. Considering how slowly paper and other "brown" carbon wastes decompose in dark, anaerobic, low-moisture conditions like landfills, it would behoove the neighbors of these landfills to start mining the erstwhile trash back into the energy cycle.

Edit realized i misread biomass and biogas in the above post. I don't know if I have a full list of biomass burners. I'll double check and update if I have it

Here are biogas generators from an EPA report from 1997 I found 136 Land fill gas plants but I don't think i have those.

And another few thoughts about coal after reading something about coal dust today.

1. Even the poorer varieties of coal are still useful for heating a boiler.
2. It is, relatively speaking, easier to collect than alcohol.
3. Coal dust can be made into a paste that can be formed into pellets or briquettes so you're not wasting otherwise useful material. The coal paste can either use something like wallpaper paste or other starch type glues as a binding agent. If you don't have access to such glues, you can use sawdust or rice husks - add water then mix the dust & husks/sawdust into a thick paste, place the paste into a mould, add a weight of some kind to press the mix and then leave to dry. If kept dry they have a decent shelf life.

DIY ersatz solid fuels
 

That sounds suspiciously like the recipe for "fireballs" made during the Civil War by Southern civilians when coal and even firewood became scarce.

It also is reminiscent of campfire-starters made of sawdust and wood fragments placed in muffin tins and wax poured in.

And if you look hard enough in flea markets, you may occasionally find an odd machine made of a crank, a mandrel tube with a slot in it, and a trench/tub/pan for water/grease. These were popular several decades ago to turn newspapers into logs for fireplaces. Individual sheets were started on the tube by inserting an edge into the slot and turning the crank; the next sheet edge was moistened and slapped on the trailing edge of the previous sheet, then cranked tightly onto the core. Repeat until you have a tight, dense paper roll. The roll was then secured with wire twist-ties, tightly-tied cord, or tuna/pet cans with bottoms removed as endcaps. These "logs" were first soaked in the water-filled pan first to get the paper leaves to adhere to each other to reduce included air-space, and then left to dry out for a while (weeks?). When dried they were dipped into melted waste fat or oil now occupying the attached pan, to increase their fuel value. Some advocate skipping the soaking part and just burning them as is.

When staying with a friend in northern Indiana, we supplemented her firewood supply with sections of heavy corrugated cardboard from large shipping boxes; these we cut into foot-wide strips, rolled them tightly, and cast them onto the fire in the fireplace-cum-warm air circulator. Those little buggers burned quickly but _hot_!

One issue with steam engines for vehicles is the time (and fuel use) to get the boiler up to working pressure.

http://www.sdrm.org/faqs/hostling.html

The bigger the steam engine, the longer it takes to get started. All those tons of water have to go from "cold" to "hotter than just boiling in a tea kettle" after all. And all of that energy -- fuel -- is "wasted" as far as liters-per-100-km are concerned. In the article above, the engineer uses 45 gallons of kerosene ... 170 liters ... over six hours or so, before moving the locomotive an inch.

A steam ship takes, generically, about a day to get the boilers up to full pressure. There are some ways to speed up the process, but they're not going to be easily applied to an existing, old steam locomotive.

Railways had crew (hostlers) in the roundhouses, back in the day, whose job was to keep the boilers hot.

Steam engines are not really more "reliable" than diesel engines or turbines of the same size/power; they can be very reliable, but need a lot more tending, lubrication, and maintenance to achieve that, compared to a large diesel engine.

Of course, for an engine in continuous operation -- e.g., a municipal power plant -- the need to 'restart' isn't present.

--
Michael B.

One advantage of a solid-fuel burning steam engine: you can probably substitute a variety of fuels, with fairly minor modifications. Straw, corn cobs, wood, any number of flammable objects ...

--
Michael B.