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Post by smshogun on Feb 24, 2014 21:44:44 GMT -5
During the 1960’s and 70’s there was something called “the plan for coal” and this was a long term investment to guarantee the future of coal, this led to considerable drilling around the coal producing areas of the coal for depth, seam thicknesses, and quality. During this period many satellite projects were initiated and this was just one of many.
New technologies leads to new markets and both the Labour and Conservative Government’s knew this and they both looked at this particular project as exciting as there were moves within the EU to make itself more powerful and less accountable and their eventual goal was an EU superstate. Realising this was a reality and the possibility of the UK not being energy self-sufficient for the first time in history spurred both political parties to invest in this particular project which was to replace heavy oil engines with a new fuel, coal. Target markets initially were large consumers of heavy oil to create a large sales base for coal as many traditional markets were beginning to dry up and the exploration of new markets would guarantee coal sales in large quantities as fuel. It was envisaged that by making this project feasible we would retain energy independence as a nation and give ourselves a home produced alternative to the dominance of oil.
Exploratory work began and the chosen target markets were two of the largest consumers of heavy oil, ships and railway locomotives as they can potentially consume gallons per minute in the case of both and this would create a vast market for the coal industry. Work began with the basics, negotiations started with the nationalised rail industry to convert several of their older locomotives to run on coal and this initially met with some opposition and they elected to offer the older Deltic class of locomotives which were nearly phased out. These ran the old Napier engines and the only ones left in service were those which were too good to scrap as most had already been scrapped and they were confined to more localised duties, but this wouldn’t be a true test of replacing their diesel fuel for coal, so were rejected. Further negotiations continued and with some Government pressure British rail conceded and allowed a limited number of modern Sulzer powered locomotives to be used as a test bed, these were current generation engines and were known for their reliability and low fuel consumption over earlier engines, so true testing could occur. If 25% of all locomotives could successfully run on coal instead of oil, reliably and with lower fuel consumption or lower costs British Rail agreed to convert them and adopt them as a duel fuel strategy for their locomotives, this was the aim.
One ship engine manufacturer also agreed to look at this option as they supplied diesel engines to the lower mid weight ships and these could range from cargo ships to passenger ferries, and as they had massive fuel consumption from equally massive engines it could be a lucrative market for coal as a replacement fuel.
Work began on producing an injection system for coal and a company in Southampton began work on producing low cost the fuel injection systems, from memory (which sometimes fades) I believe this was a company called Bryce, and they produced an excellent fuel injection system for powdered coal. Rolls Royce were developing multi-fuel engines for military applications which would run on anything from traditional petrol and diesel through to paint thinners, paraffin’s, and even thinned down old engine oils, basically one engine could run on any mix of these fuels. They eventually supported the project for some of their locomotive engines to be converted to running on powdered coal for the knowledge gained for their own research.
With a number of engines converted to running on pure coal dust a number of problems were encountered and the main one was wear, this was quickly overcome with the addition of an anhydrous lubricant added to the coal dust, the second problem was moisture in the air.
Fuel tanks had already been replaced with pressurised tanks which were pressurised to around 10 psi to blow the powdered coal into the fuel injection system, apart from this the coal acted in every way as a liquid fuel and was very successful as a fuel. One other problem was clogging and this was from the anhydrous coal absorbing airborne moisture and forming into lumps which wouldn’t break down small enough to act as a liquid and once again this was easily overcome. Fuel tanks were fitted with a series of internal pipes of which some were fitted to the engines cooling system to keep it warm and dry when the locomotive was running and it was coupled to a small coal fired heater which connected to the coal storage tanks when in the loco sheds. This meant that the coal powered locomotives had to have two water pipes connected to the fuel storage tanks heated water supply before the engines were shut off which meant being in range of the heated coal storage tanks, this wasn’t a major problem though.
With the engines running on pure coal dust they provided excellent service and fuel consumption dropped by around 12-28% depending on application and the cost of providing dried and powdered coal was as cheap as diesel bought in bulk, this meant an instant saving. In addition they provided a useful power and torque increase with power being up from 8-22% and torque rising from 14-21% over running on diesel; this meant shorter times running at higher throttle settings to power their massive alternators.
Maintaining these engines was increased for analytical purposes and by switching from diesel to powdered coal it was found that normal oils were actually standing up well to the switch in fuels and servicing reverted back to the normal servicing routines. Additional testing found that the service schedules could actually be increased thus saving a significant amount on engine oils and filters. One problem was found and this was the air filter assemblies were clogging quickly as the engines were drawing more air so needed cleaning or replacing more frequently depending on the filter type.
Heat was an issue as by producing more power you generate more heat and the superbly over engineered Sulzer engines coped with this fairly well but the radiators were redesigned to lower their temperatures when working at high engine loadings, merely as a precaution. Previously this Sulzer unit was prone to some teething issues and while these were effectively dealt with after installation none of them reoccurred from running on powdered coal.
Sulzer 12LDA units were the test bed and they ran in the popular Class 47 locomotives which were used for both freight and passenger duties which allowed a fair trial at full load working and off load idling conditions for prolonged periods. Many Class 47 locomotives were fitted with slow speed control which made them popular for hauling coal and many other loose minerals as they could be loaded and unloaded with automated equipment, and many hauled coal away from collieries.
Unknown to us at the time was the fact that British Rail was indeed running a secret programme to “sprinterise” the locomotives which led to the introduction of the taper fronted locomotives marked as “125” from which many classes derived; these were tested with the Paxman Valenta power pack.
Class 47’s topped out at either 75 or 85mph depending on variant and this was deemed too slow for long haul passenger work, the following “sprinterised” series all topped out at 125 mph and were deemed to be a general purpose locomotive capable of freight and passenger work.
Various Rolls Royce powered locomotive and marine engines were considered for conversion from diesel to powdered coal and while Rolls Royce showed interest they decided their C series engines were fine running on heavy oil and initially opted out. British Coal had several Sentinel locomotives in use and these were used as shunters which were the original British Coal Gyro units and were converted back to the 325 HP twin engined hydraulic drives and British Coal targeted their own units for conversion.
Rolls Royce saw that worldwide oil prices rising and decided that a twin fuel with minimal engineering work could expand their C series engines worldwide potential in locomotive, static, marine, and power generation markets, and in the mining heavy engines market in plant. Rolls Royce opted out of having Bryce design and build an injection system and opted to design and build their own systems. Things failed right from the outset as Rolls Royce lacked the total fuel injection experience of specialised fuel injection specialists, and while they ran the Sentinel powered locomotives showed great promise and power and torque increases to the Sulzer engines, but were plagued with faults from the fuel injection equipment.
Paxman diesels were producing a new engine called the Valenta MK 2 which was to replace the earlier engine and this came in an 18 cylinder version with a cylinder capacity of around 7 litres per cylinder, and better still Bryce were developing a new diesel injection system for it. Bryce spoke to Paxman and it was agreed that they would run three of these units with coal instead of heavy oil and the results were phenomenal, Bryce introduced and developed the forerunner to high pressure fuel injection we take for granted today and they introduced massive injection pressures to this engine. Their injection system allowed for a cheap and easy conversion from heavy oil to powdered coal; and while these were high speed units peaking at 1600 RPM and producing 5000 HP on heavy oil they produced over 6000 HP on powdered coal.
New cylinder head designs and high pressure injection really suited the conversion to coal and at least three ran on coal in marine applications as primary engines, one is actually still in service somewhere, but I don’t know where and would love to know.
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Post by John on Feb 25, 2014 7:39:54 GMT -5
During the 1960’s and 70’s there was something called “the plan for coal” and this was a long term investment to guarantee the future of coal, this led to considerable drilling around the coal producing areas of the coal for depth, seam thicknesses, and quality. During this period many satellite projects were initiated and this was just one of many. New technologies leads to new markets and both the Labour and Conservative Government’s knew this and they both looked at this particular project as exciting as there were moves within the EU to make itself more powerful and less accountable and their eventual goal was an EU superstate. Realising this was a reality and the possibility of the UK not being energy self-sufficient for the first time in history spurred both political parties to invest in this particular project which was to replace heavy oil engines with a new fuel, coal. Target markets initially were large consumers of heavy oil to create a large sales base for coal as many traditional markets were beginning to dry up and the exploration of new markets would guarantee coal sales in large quantities as fuel. It was envisaged that by making this project feasible we would retain energy independence as a nation and give ourselves a home produced alternative to the dominance of oil. Exploratory work began and the chosen target markets were two of the largest consumers of heavy oil, ships and railway locomotives as they can potentially consume gallons per minute in the case of both and this would create a vast market for the coal industry. Work began with the basics, negotiations started with the nationalised rail industry to convert several of their older locomotives to run on coal and this initially met with some opposition and they elected to offer the older Deltic class of locomotives which were nearly phased out. These ran the old Napier engines and the only ones left in service were those which were too good to scrap as most had already been scrapped and they were confined to more localised duties, but this wouldn’t be a true test of replacing their diesel fuel for coal, so were rejected. Further negotiations continued and with some Government pressure British rail conceded and allowed a limited number of modern Sulzer powered locomotives to be used as a test bed, these were current generation engines and were known for their reliability and low fuel consumption over earlier engines, so true testing could occur. If 25% of all locomotives could successfully run on coal instead of oil, reliably and with lower fuel consumption or lower costs British Rail agreed to convert them and adopt them as a duel fuel strategy for their locomotives, this was the aim. One ship engine manufacturer also agreed to look at this option as they supplied diesel engines to the lower mid weight ships and these could range from cargo ships to passenger ferries, and as they had massive fuel consumption from equally massive engines it could be a lucrative market for coal as a replacement fuel. Work began on producing an injection system for coal and a company in Southampton began work on producing low cost the fuel injection systems, from memory (which sometimes fades) I believe this was a company called Bryce, and they produced an excellent fuel injection system for powdered coal. Rolls Royce were developing multi-fuel engines for military applications which would run on anything from traditional petrol and diesel through to paint thinners, paraffin’s, and even thinned down old engine oils, basically one engine could run on any mix of these fuels. They eventually supported the project for some of their locomotive engines to be converted to running on powdered coal for the knowledge gained for their own research. With a number of engines converted to running on pure coal dust a number of problems were encountered and the main one was wear, this was quickly overcome with the addition of an anhydrous lubricant added to the coal dust, the second problem was moisture in the air. Fuel tanks had already been replaced with pressurised tanks which were pressurised to around 10 psi to blow the powdered coal into the fuel injection system, apart from this the coal acted in every way as a liquid fuel and was very successful as a fuel. One other problem was clogging and this was from the anhydrous coal absorbing airborne moisture and forming into lumps which wouldn’t break down small enough to act as a liquid and once again this was easily overcome. Fuel tanks were fitted with a series of internal pipes of which some were fitted to the engines cooling system to keep it warm and dry when the locomotive was running and it was coupled to a small coal fired heater which connected to the coal storage tanks when in the loco sheds. This meant that the coal powered locomotives had to have two water pipes connected to the fuel storage tanks heated water supply before the engines were shut off which meant being in range of the heated coal storage tanks, this wasn’t a major problem though. With the engines running on pure coal dust they provided excellent service and fuel consumption dropped by around 12-28% depending on application and the cost of providing dried and powdered coal was as cheap as diesel bought in bulk, this meant an instant saving. In addition they provided a useful power and torque increase with power being up from 8-22% and torque rising from 14-21% over running on diesel; this meant shorter times running at higher throttle settings to power their massive alternators. Maintaining these engines was increased for analytical purposes and by switching from diesel to powdered coal it was found that normal oils were actually standing up well to the switch in fuels and servicing reverted back to the normal servicing routines. Additional testing found that the service schedules could actually be increased thus saving a significant amount on engine oils and filters. One problem was found and this was the air filter assemblies were clogging quickly as the engines were drawing more air so needed cleaning or replacing more frequently depending on the filter type. Heat was an issue as by producing more power you generate more heat and the superbly over engineered Sulzer engines coped with this fairly well but the radiators were redesigned to lower their temperatures when working at high engine loadings, merely as a precaution. Previously this Sulzer unit was prone to some teething issues and while these were effectively dealt with after installation none of them reoccurred from running on powdered coal. Sulzer 12LDA units were the test bed and they ran in the popular Class 47 locomotives which were used for both freight and passenger duties which allowed a fair trial at full load working and off load idling conditions for prolonged periods. Many Class 47 locomotives were fitted with slow speed control which made them popular for hauling coal and many other loose minerals as they could be loaded and unloaded with automated equipment, and many hauled coal away from collieries. Unknown to us at the time was the fact that British Rail was indeed running a secret programme to “sprinterise” the locomotives which led to the introduction of the taper fronted locomotives marked as “125” from which many classes derived; these were tested with the Paxman Valenta power pack. Class 47’s topped out at either 75 or 85mph depending on variant and this was deemed too slow for long haul passenger work, the following “sprinterised” series all topped out at 125 mph and were deemed to be a general purpose locomotive capable of freight and passenger work. Various Rolls Royce powered locomotive and marine engines were considered for conversion from diesel to powdered coal and while Rolls Royce showed interest they decided their C series engines were fine running on heavy oil and initially opted out. British Coal had several Sentinel locomotives in use and these were used as shunters which were the original British Coal Gyro units and were converted back to the 325 HP twin engined hydraulic drives and British Coal targeted their own units for conversion. Rolls Royce saw that worldwide oil prices rising and decided that a twin fuel with minimal engineering work could expand their C series engines worldwide potential in locomotive, static, marine, and power generation markets, and in the mining heavy engines market in plant. Rolls Royce opted out of having Bryce design and build an injection system and opted to design and build their own systems. Things failed right from the outset as Rolls Royce lacked the total fuel injection experience of specialised fuel injection specialists, and while they ran the Sentinel powered locomotives showed great promise and power and torque increases to the Sulzer engines, but were plagued with faults from the fuel injection equipment. Paxman diesels were producing a new engine called the Valenta MK 2 which was to replace the earlier engine and this came in an 18 cylinder version with a cylinder capacity of around 7 litres per cylinder, and better still Bryce were developing a new diesel injection system for it. Bryce spoke to Paxman and it was agreed that they would run three of these units with coal instead of heavy oil and the results were phenomenal, Bryce introduced and developed the forerunner to high pressure fuel injection we take for granted today and they introduced massive injection pressures to this engine. Their injection system allowed for a cheap and easy conversion from heavy oil to powdered coal; and while these were high speed units peaking at 1600 RPM and producing 5000 HP on heavy oil they produced over 6000 HP on powdered coal. New cylinder head designs and high pressure injection really suited the conversion to coal and at least three ran on coal in marine applications as primary engines, one is actually still in service somewhere, but I don’t know where and would love to know.
I knew of the South African modernized steam locomotives of the apartheid era, but they ran similar to power station boilers, ie pulverized coal pumped at pressure into the boiler, this is something I'd never come across.
Why use pulverized coal??
What the Germans started in WW2 with coal synth fuels the South Africans took to the next level, oils and fuels from coal commercially and not much more expensive than crude oil products, and as a plus, they got chemicals for explosives and drugs. |
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Post by Wheldale on Feb 25, 2014 8:16:23 GMT -5
The UK had a squadron of spitfires that ran on petrol made from coal in world war 2. Apparently petrol from coal gives off a quarter of the emmissions from that of petrol from oil.
The South Africans I believe took to petrol from coal due to import bans during the apartheid era. I know British coal had a pilot plant at point of Ayr colliery, it wasn't deemed a success as the cost per gallon was too high, that is why the plant closed on privatisation.
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Post by John on Feb 25, 2014 8:50:47 GMT -5
Back in those years they had the stock from all the town gas plants to refine.
Doing some research, engines running on pulverized coal are not something new, Diesel powered his engines from fine coal dust way, way back.
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Post by Wheldale on Feb 25, 2014 11:47:07 GMT -5
I wonder what size of tank they stored the coal in? And do they measure efficiency in kilos per km!
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Post by John on Feb 25, 2014 11:56:59 GMT -5
No idea how they measure the efficiency.
I also found that IC engines had also been run on "black powder", I wonder how they kept the cylinder heads on???
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Post by Wheldale on Feb 25, 2014 16:17:06 GMT -5
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Post by smshogun on Feb 25, 2014 21:36:18 GMT -5
Very simply John, but back to basics.
With a traditional steam boiler you drop coal onto a grate and as it enters the boiler the heat warms it to burning and the blowers force air over the burning coal to increase its heat output but burns it out much quicker than without forced air, as it travels down the grate any fine spent material drops through the top and lower returning grate to the boiler floor, the remaining drops off the end of the grate and is stopped by a firebrick wall higher then the grate and as it builds up the lower grate scrapes it back towards the front of the boiler, but some problems arise. With this type of boiler you can run coal from pebbles to trebles size without issues as long as you get your grate speed correct so the coal doesn't burn too quickly or to slowly, and the heat output from the coal is fairly low due to the limitations the grate and its rollers can stand, and obviously the coal consumption and the fact you can only use coal, coke, or timber or timber products, so basically its a balancing act.
When newer materials came along for chain grates they introduced "the blend" which was actually a mixture of coal and some hard materials such as stone and the stone burned hotter so you reduced your coal consumption and introduced some waste product to get rid of it and save yourself having to dump it; this blend increased temperatures but the limiting factor was the temperatures the grate could stand which limited the blend to about 85% coal as a minimum and often it was more and the remaining was stone or quite often old mine rock. Blend works simply and the blacksmiths forge is a prime example as for years it used blacksmiths or forge coke and this was a mix of around 50/50 of coke and limestone chips, the coke was only really used to heat the limestone and the coke would only burn to around orange/yellow heat and the limestone would burn at white heat so the same principles were adopted by introducing a power station blend which varies from power station to power station and the type of coal used; and the coal would generally be around 20% with the remaining pit dirt and rock, the role of the coal was to heat the rock and once heated the rock burned much hotter to produce more heat and use less coal.
Pulverised coal was used in a system which eliminated many of the labour intensive operations and costs of removing and replacing chain grates as they pulverised the blend to around the size of sugar and fed this into blowers working exactly the opposite to traditional boilers, instead of low pressures and high volumes of air they reduced the volume of air but increased the pressures from anything around 80 psi upwards, by introducing the blend into the high pressure air you blew the blend in and it ignited instantaneously and within a couple of seconds the rock content was white hot, you replaced the grate for a chute lined with refractory material and when spent it ran down the chute to the bottom of the combustion tube. This type of pulverised fuel could be adapted to suit any application including steam trains for more efficiency, but you had to line the inside of the fire tubes with refractory material to prevent damage to the steel as the working temperatures rose above that required to melt steel.
In addition to this you could blow this material into tubes and as it passed through the long tubes it had much more area in contact with the water and the spent waste blew out the other end of the tube, you could have multiple configurations consisting of many smaller tubes with multiple blowers in a boiler, so it was much more efficient. This was the basis for SA and other pulverised coal applications.
Coal to petrol and diesel is not new, but then I am one who objects to the term "NEW TECHNOLOGY" as often it isn't new, my opinion is that in most cases it is a concept that was part realised somewhere back in time where they didn't have the technologies and materials to achieve what they wanted to, but they often tried only to find the materials of the day and the then current technologies were not sufficient to reach their objectives; move on a few decades where materials technologies and manufacturing methods have moved on and many new technological scientific advances have been made.
You are quite correct that a number of Spitfires ran on petrol from coal, but why? in simple terms oil manufactured products contain a lot of water and petrol actually freezes when its cold enough and at altitude it gets cold, but the higher the octane rating the lower the water content and at the Spits working altitudes 140 octane didn't freeze and could give the 1650 HP Merlin as much as 2250 HP with just a change from 100 octane fuel to 140 octane fuel, and this is what they did purely for performance where cost is not a consideration. As previously stated oil based products contain a lot of water but coal doesn't and you could easily make petrol as high as 150-155 octane from coal with a water content low enough not to freeze at the Spits working ceiling, but the maximum you could get from oil by traditional refining methods of the day were 105-100 octane, hence petrol from coal as you had to undertake an additional refining process to get anywhere 140 octane and this was more costly than petrol from coal, but you still had the problem of freezing with the high water content, hence the reason for water-cooling the Merlin engine, to keep it cool, but heat the carburettors and later fuel injection systems to stop them freezing at altitude.
Point of Ayr was a project ahead of its time, had it still been in production it would have (and did) used totally different processes used previously to obtain petrol from coal, and experts claim that had it remained open petrol would be around 80p per litre today with the current taxes imposed; again technologies moved on and Point of Ayr used them.
So why did it close? the bullnuts claims are anything but true and there are a couple of reasons, firstly the powerful oil cartels suppressed any alternative technologies by buying them up and patenting them if not patented, and if patented they bought the rights with patents, closed any facilities and archived the technologies for the future, or continued developing them in secret for their benefit; and to keep anything from interfering with their oil products and its huge profits. You quite correctly stated emissions are much lower from petrol from coal, yes they are and the EU was banging the drum for global warming which they suddenly changed to climate change when they realised they had been seen through and the world was cooling down and not warming up; if they were so concerned with emissions reduction as they claimed then why didn't they give it an EU subsidy?
The answer is very simple, from the 1960's certain factions wanted an EU super state which does away with all our own nations and identities to form one state or nation called Europe and they were already subsidising what was to become the European energy supergrids individually in each mainland Europe member state, then suddenly they started connecting country to country and expanding this European super power grid; the last thing they could have was one nation with total energy independence and Great Britain had coal and we could remain independent with electricity, town gas, petrol, diesel, oil, and many other bye-products and all from coal, and they couldn't have that. He who is independent relies upon nobody and one of the EU's objectives is to make all member states reliant upon each other, hence no energy independence and he who has his hand on the gas taps can switch it off, he with his hand on the electricity breaker can switch it off, hence the reason to decimate the coal industry; we had so much of it.
Powdered coal differs from pulverised coal as instead of being the size of grains of sugar it becomes a very fine powder and a very fine powder can act like a liquid in most ways, it also ignites much easier and quicker and makes the change of injection system much cheaper and easier, plus the addition of the latest technologies meant it was viable, efficiency was measured in MPG and GPH as locomotives on mixed use work very hard hauling freight and often at fairly static throttle levels, passenger trains are often start stop with bursts of high throttle and low throttle, and lengthy idling periods, hence the reason to use their methods as it made comparisons easy. Power and torque were obviously dynamometer measurements.
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Post by tygwyn on Feb 26, 2014 20:43:37 GMT -5
The First Plan For Coal was 1952,there were other plans in subsequent year`s.
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Post by smshogun on Feb 27, 2014 14:06:41 GMT -5
You can go back earlier than this, I can get back to just prior to WWII and you are correct, there were several incarnations and variants throughout the years.
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Post by tygwyn on Feb 27, 2014 14:38:10 GMT -5
I would like a link to the Plan for Coal prior to WW2,that would be interesting given the numerous owners at the time.
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Post by smshogun on Feb 27, 2014 21:04:41 GMT -5
You have to research it but the upshot was to ensure coal supplies to current industry and to boost output for war production if war broke out.
Basically it began with the minister for energy coordinating all forms of energy to make sure we had adequate supplies of all forms of energy. |
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Post by tygwyn on Feb 28, 2014 6:23:07 GMT -5
Was`nt that when the Ministry of power took over running the mines to secure production for the war effort,
Not exactly a Plan for Coal as the 1952 plan shows.
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Post by John on Feb 28, 2014 9:33:46 GMT -5
Was`nt that when the Ministry of power took over running the mines to secure production for the war effort, Not exactly a Plan for Coal as the 1952 plan shows.
The coal industry was essentially "nationalized" during the war years Jim and run by the owners under the direction of the government. Around 1942 my old pit, according to papers, ran into financial difficulties, ie they went bankrupt, so were totally taken over by the government, essentially the first colliery to be nationalized and run by the government. The Management and manpower were retained, and nobodies pay was cut.
It was never returned to private ownership after the war, but was absorbed into NCB ownership in 1947. |
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Post by tygwyn on Feb 28, 2014 11:01:48 GMT -5
Was`nt that when the Ministry of power took over running the mines to secure production for the war effort, Not exactly a Plan for Coal as the 1952 plan shows.
The coal industry was essentially "nationalized" during the war years Jim and run by the owners under the direction of the government. Around 1942 my old pit, according to papers, ran into financial difficulties, ie they went bankrupt, so were totally taken over by the government, essentially the first colliery to be nationalized and run by the government. The Management and manpower were retained, and nobodies pay was cut.
It was never returned to private ownership after the war, but was absorbed into NCB ownership in 1947.Yes i know John,but my point still stands,it was not the Plan for Coal,that was first instigated in 1952,unless someone can show me where to see an earlier one. |
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Post by smshogun on Feb 28, 2014 13:56:25 GMT -5
I think you're getting confused between the MINISTER for energy and the MINISTRY for power.
The Minister for energy was a position held to evaluate the capabilities of the country before the war and this didn't just include things like gas, electricity, or coal; it included things such as the labour force, training of essential skills, and even contingency plans if we lost the war. The Minister and his staff could be considered a think tank of their day.
Ministry of Power was a Ministerial department and not an individual and adopted many of the ideas and suggestions to protect the nations power and to allocate it on a priority basis, some of the things they adopted were the war service exemptions from fighting due to the necessary skills which were later to be known as reserved occupations. |
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Post by tygwyn on Feb 28, 2014 15:01:40 GMT -5
Don`t think i`m confused at all,its only the Ministry of Power i have stated,
I know all about reserved occupations,my Father and his brothers worked underground as well as farming.
Lets now stray from this supposed Plan for Coal in the War years.
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Post by shropshirebloke on Mar 1, 2014 13:12:00 GMT -5
a power station blend which varies from power station to power station and the type of coal used; and the coal would generally be around 20% with the remaining pit dirt and rock, the role of the coal was to heat the rock and once heated the rock burned much hotter to produce more heat and use less coal. Sorry, but this sounds like complete gibberish - or we all spent years digging the wrong stuff out of the ground  |
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Post by smshogun on Mar 1, 2014 13:59:34 GMT -5
A Minister is a person, an individual, a salient flesh and blood human being.
A Ministry is a department full of staff. |
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Post by smshogun on Mar 1, 2014 14:06:49 GMT -5
Its called evolution, early boilers ran on pure coal and bear in mind many were in service for well over a century in many industries.
Later blown boilers for steam generation for power station use ran much hotter and more efficiently, it was these which had the blend which reduced coal consumption and cost as most of it was blended dirt with coal.
How did we spend years digging the wrong stuff out of the ground? don't quite follow your logic here, many industrial boilers for steam remained in service for over a century, many boilers for hot water were in service longer than this, household and domestic coals never changed.
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Post by shropshirebloke on Mar 1, 2014 14:15:35 GMT -5
Its called evolution, early boilers ran on pure coal and bear in mind many were in service for well over a century in many industries.
Later blown boilers for steam generation for power station use ran much hotter and more efficiently, it was these which had the blend which reduced coal consumption and cost as most of it was blended dirt with coal.
How did we spend years digging the wrong stuff out of the ground? don't quite follow your logic here, many industrial boilers for steam remained in service for over a century, many boilers for hot water were in service longer than this, household and domestic coals never changed.
Sorry mate but this is starting to sound like the old perpetual motion machine. I know that during the strike our local power station was burning oil instead of coal and used dirt to give a more controlled burn through the furnaces, but that was because the oil alone burnt too hot and quickly. You are telling us that rock and dirt has a higher calorific value than coal? |
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Post by John on Mar 1, 2014 15:46:35 GMT -5
Its called evolution, early boilers ran on pure coal and bear in mind many were in service for well over a century in many industries.
Later blown boilers for steam generation for power station use ran much hotter and more efficiently, it was these which had the blend which reduced coal consumption and cost as most of it was blended dirt with coal.
How did we spend years digging the wrong stuff out of the ground? don't quite follow your logic here, many industrial boilers for steam remained in service for over a century, many boilers for hot water were in service longer than this, household and domestic coals never changed.
Sorry mate but this is starting to sound like the old perpetual motion machine. I know that during the strike our local power station was burning oil instead of coal and used dirt to give a more controlled burn through the furnaces, but that was because the oil alone burnt too hot and quickly. You are telling us that rock and dirt has a higher calorific value than coal?
I think what he is getting at is modern power station boilers burn pulverized coal, it's so fine it's like talcum powder in texture.
When blown into the boilers it burns with such intensity, it's like a mini "explosion" , so to cool it down a tad, before it causes serious damage, they mix a percentage of dirt with it, the dirt in turn absorbs heat from the burning coal.
I recall when we lost our last Deep Hard coal and was sending a mix of Tupton, (low main) and a very high calorific Piper seam coal, we were requested to add so many percent dirt, as the Piper was causing damage to the power station boilers. |
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Post by Wheldale on Mar 1, 2014 16:20:59 GMT -5
Sorry mate but this is starting to sound like the old perpetual motion machine. I know that during the strike our local power station was burning oil instead of coal and used dirt to give a more controlled burn through the furnaces, but that was because the oil alone burnt too hot and quickly. You are telling us that rock and dirt has a higher calorific value than coal?
I think what he is getting at is modern power station boilers burn pulverized coal, it's so fine it's like talcum powder in texture.
When blown into the boilers it burns with such intensity, it's like a mini "explosion" , so to cool it down a tad, before it causes serious damage, they mix a percentage of dirt with it, the dirt in turn absorbs heat from the burning coal.
I recall when we lost our last Deep Hard coal and was sending a mix of Tupton, (low main) and a very high calorific Piper seam coal, we were requested to add so many percent dirt, as the Piper was causing damage to the power station boilers.I once went underground at wistow, selby. The Undermanager was telling me that eggborough power station was complaining as the coal was too clean. The result was that crushed breeze blocks were added to the coal! |
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Post by tygwyn on Mar 1, 2014 19:06:30 GMT -5
I think what he is getting at is modern power station boilers burn pulverized coal, it's so fine it's like talcum powder in texture.
When blown into the boilers it burns with such intensity, it's like a mini "explosion" , so to cool it down a tad, before it causes serious damage, they mix a percentage of dirt with it, the dirt in turn absorbs heat from the burning coal.
I recall when we lost our last Deep Hard coal and was sending a mix of Tupton, (low main) and a very high calorific Piper seam coal, we were requested to add so many percent dirt, as the Piper was causing damage to the power station boilers.I once went underground at wistow, selby. The Undermanager was telling me that eggborough power station was complaining as the coal was too clean. The result was that crushed breeze blocks were added to the coal! Wheldale,When you mention Breeze blocks,are you referring to Breeze/Clinker blocks or Concrete blocks? Breeze blocks were made from Clinkers,i presume from the Steel or Gas industry,you could see small lumps of coal and coke in them,i believe they were finished using in the mid 70`s on the buildings. The mention of only 20% coal and the rest dirt ,does sound a bit much. Similar to the mention of 50% coal to 50% limestone chips in a blacksmiths forge,one has only to think what happens in a Lime Kiln,producing Hot Lime,the coal bursts the lime from the stones with the heat. |
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Post by dazbt on Mar 2, 2014 2:55:32 GMT -5
I once went underground at wistow, selby. The Undermanager was telling me that eggborough power station was complaining as the coal was too clean. The result was that crushed breeze blocks were added to the coal! Wheldale,When you mention Breeze blocks,are you referring to Breeze/Clinker blocks or Concrete blocks? Breeze blocks were made from Clinkers,i presume from the Steel or Gas industry,you could see small lumps of coal and coke in them,i believe they were finished using in the mid 70`s on the buildings. The mention of only 20% coal and the rest dirt ,does sound a bit much. Similar to the mention of 50% coal to 50% limestone chips in a blacksmiths forge,one has only to think what happens in a Lime Kiln,producing Hot Lime,the coal bursts the lime from the stones with the heat. Once again I'll poke my nose in, at the risk of having it broken, I seem to recall in the early days of fluidised bed experimental power station at Grimethorpe that the claim was that its best, most efficient function was when using around only 10% (or less) of Pulverite (coal) mixed with already heated limestone and sands, but from what I believe to be the case, it meant that the proportion of 5% was continually maintained i.e. the coal was obviously burning away almost as fast as it was added, so that whilst the mix was 5% coal at any one time it doesn't mean that the 95% of other material was being consumed at the same rate. The limestone and sand enhanced the production of heat and lessened the release of pollutants such as Sulphur, but unlike a catalyst it didn't remain unchanged and resulted in a slag that was a problem at that time. |
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Post by Wheldale on Mar 2, 2014 5:03:00 GMT -5
I once went underground at wistow, selby. The Undermanager was telling me that eggborough power station was complaining as the coal was too clean. The result was that crushed breeze blocks were added to the coal! Wheldale,When you mention Breeze blocks,are you referring to Breeze/Clinker blocks or Concrete blocks? Breeze blocks were made from Clinkers,i presume from the Steel or Gas industry,you could see small lumps of coal and coke in them,i believe they were finished using in the mid 70`s on the buildings. The mention of only 20% coal and the rest dirt ,does sound a bit much. Similar to the mention of 50% coal to 50% limestone chips in a blacksmiths forge,one has only to think what happens in a Lime Kiln,producing Hot Lime,the coal bursts the lime from the stones with the heat. Yes the blocks made from clinker. |
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Post by drgjs on Mar 2, 2014 5:45:51 GMT -5
Speaking of black powder [propellants] and tech in development,
does any one know of situations where the coal itself is still blasted?
Given the weakness of coal, it strikes me as silly to use high explosives to break it up!
When we can do this with spoonfuls of "black powder" type stuff:
Also in regards to coal related tech, there is a lot of discussion at the moment on through-seam-blasting in open pit.
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Post by John on Mar 2, 2014 7:44:02 GMT -5
Speaking of black powder [propellants] and tech in development, does any one know of situations where the coal itself is still blasted? Given the weakness of coal, it strikes me as silly to use high explosives to break it up! When we can do this with spoonfuls of "black powder" type stuff: Also in regards to coal related tech, there is a lot of discussion at the moment on through-seam-blasting in open pit.
We have an ex undermanager and a few Deputy's who will elaborate on approved explosives. |
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Post by drgjs on Mar 2, 2014 11:37:53 GMT -5
Sorry John, I was using "black powder" as a term for familiarity.
These propellants are not actually black powder....
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Post by John on Mar 2, 2014 13:08:48 GMT -5
Sorry John, I was using "black powder" as a term for familiarity. These propellants are not actually black powder....
Most modern coal mines don't use explosives, most roads these days are driven with roadheading machines, and ripping has been eliminated in advance longwalling with main and tailgates driven ahead of the face with a roadheading machine.
Retreat longwalls are driven with continuous miners these days.
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