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Converting to coal

I wonder if the new administration will introduce various economic incentives for building owners to convert their boilers to coal firing to help out the miners.
Owners of large buildings in places like NYC might be candidates for that.--NBC
SWEIAbracadabraChrisJ

Comments

  • Abracadabra
    Abracadabra Member Posts: 1,948

    ChrisJdelta TCanucker
  • jumper
    jumper Member Posts: 2,384
    Can you still buy washed hard coal? You'd think rural areas would still use solid fuel.
  • ratio
    ratio Member Posts: 3,773
    Sure, they're called electric boilers...
    ZmanChrisJPaul S_3RomanGK_26986764589
  • Zman
    Zman Member Posts: 7,610
    ratio said:

    Sure, they're called electric boilers...

    Electric car owners hate it when you tell them there car is coal fired...
    "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough"
    Albert Einstein
    CanuckerSWEIGordyRomanGK_26986764589
  • ratio
    ratio Member Posts: 3,773
    Don't they, though! Watching their face as they work it through is worth all the subsequent whining.
  • EBEBRATT-Ed
    EBEBRATT-Ed Member Posts: 16,237
    more likely coal fired power plants
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 24,453
    When you actually work it through, an all-electric car (think Tesla) in most parts of the country has worse CO2 emissions than a newer gasoline or diesel. The people pushing them don't like to hear that...
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
    delta T
  • hot_rod
    hot_rod Member Posts: 23,026

    When you actually work it through, an all-electric car (think Tesla) in most parts of the country has worse CO2 emissions than a newer gasoline or diesel. The people pushing them don't like to hear that...

    Of course you could charge the electric vehicle with solar PV, or wind, or hydro generated electricity. Sweden hopes to be oil and nuke free by 2020. Fossils free vehicles by 2030.
    Bio cogens, wind, wave, pv and thermal, and hydro for power generation.
    Bob "hot rod" Rohr
    trainer for Caleffi NA
    Living the hydronic dream
    Grallert
  • Sweden hopes to be oil and nuke free by 2020. Fossils free vehicles by 2030.

    The key word being "hopes"...

    New England SteamWorks
    Service, Installation, & Restoration of Steam Heating Systems
    newenglandsteamworks.com
  • ChrisJ
    ChrisJ Member Posts: 16,224
    I'd love a steam powered car like Leno's 1920s Doble.
    I can't help but think, today, with what we have it must be possible to make a steam car that is ultimately far more efficient than any gasoline powered vehicle.

    Not necessarily fast, or convenient but ultimately much more efficient and quiet.

    Be it coal, wood, gasoline or diesel fired.
    Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment
  • Robert_25
    Robert_25 Member Posts: 549
    The reasons those large buildings switched to oil or NG in the first place still exist. Liquid fuels are easier to handle, especially in an urban area. Finding people to operate the equipment and deal with the ash is even harder. If coal is going to rebound, it will be in power plants...especially if the price of NG goes up.

    Anthracite is still being used to heat homes, and also large greenhouses. I heat my home with a stoker boiler that burns anthracite, and have installed others for friends/family in our area.
  • jumper
    jumper Member Posts: 2,384
    You can deliver your own coal easier than heating oil. You can store coal indefinitely. You can augment with biofuel or garbage. You don't need electricity. And ash disposal is no problem in the country.
  • ChrisJ
    ChrisJ Member Posts: 16,224
    jumper said:

    You can deliver your own coal easier than heating oil. You can store coal indefinitely. You can augment with biofuel or garbage. You don't need electricity. And ash disposal is no problem in the country.

    Coal is also extremely dusty and dirty. If you want an auto stoker, even that requires constant maintenance. It's not happening with the general population. Even General Electric knew it in the 1920s as they made the comment "Any appliance within the home that requires maintenance will be ignored" when designing the Monitor Top. It was true then, and it's true now.


    You don't have to store natural gas. Delivery is easy via pipe.
    You can use natural gas with steam or gravity hot water without electricity.

    Augmenting biofuel with garbage. It must be wonderful being your neighbor jumper. :)





    Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment
    RomanGK_26986764589
  • hot_rod
    hot_rod Member Posts: 23,026

    Sweden hopes to be oil and nuke free by 2020. Fossils free vehicles by 2030.

    The key word being "hopes"...

    It starts with the will, establish a target, then then small steps



    Bob "hot rod" Rohr
    trainer for Caleffi NA
    Living the hydronic dream
  • jumper
    jumper Member Posts: 2,384
    I can see somebody is no country boy.
    ChrisJ said:

    jumper said:

    You can deliver your own coal easier than heating oil. You can store coal indefinitely. You can augment with biofuel or garbage. You don't need electricity. And ash disposal is no problem in the country.

    Coal is also extremely dusty and dirty. If you want an auto stoker, even that requires constant maintenance. It's not happening with the general population. Even General Electric knew it in the 1920s as they made the comment "Any appliance within the home that requires maintenance will be ignored" when designing the Monitor Top. It was true then, and it's true now.


    You don't have to store natural gas. Delivery is easy via pipe.
    You can use natural gas with steam or gravity hot water without electricity.

    Augmenting biofuel with garbage. It must be wonderful being your neighbor jumper. :)





    njtommy
  • ChrisJ
    ChrisJ Member Posts: 16,224
    jumper said:

    I can see somebody is no country boy.

    ChrisJ said:

    jumper said:

    You can deliver your own coal easier than heating oil. You can store coal indefinitely. You can augment with biofuel or garbage. You don't need electricity. And ash disposal is no problem in the country.

    Coal is also extremely dusty and dirty. If you want an auto stoker, even that requires constant maintenance. It's not happening with the general population. Even General Electric knew it in the 1920s as they made the comment "Any appliance within the home that requires maintenance will be ignored" when designing the Monitor Top. It was true then, and it's true now.


    You don't have to store natural gas. Delivery is easy via pipe.
    You can use natural gas with steam or gravity hot water without electricity.

    Augmenting biofuel with garbage. It must be wonderful being your neighbor jumper. :)





    Grew up in a family of carpenters and auto mechanics. I have no problem getting dirty, when I'm working.

    I'm just realistic and I don't like dirt in my house, nor do most people.


    ;)
    Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment
  • Gilmorrie
    Gilmorrie Member Posts: 186
    When I was in grade school, before natural gas became available in our town, we burned coal. My job was to haul out the cinders and dump them in the alley.

    Fly ash coming out the chimney would find its way back into the house and on top of the car. My mother couldn't hang out clothes or they would be covered.

    Coal was delivered by one of several local lumber yards, and unloaded from the truck into a coal bin in the basement through a coal chute in the home's foundation.
  • BobC
    BobC Member Posts: 5,495
    We lived in a 4 family house on a dead end street in 1952. I was 5 years old and I can remember by older brothers struggling to take the ashcan up the cellar stairs to put out with the trash. I remember seeing trash trucks going down the street with flames coming from trash that had been ignited by ashes that were still hot.

    I can remember snow being covered with coal dust a few days after a snowfall, the era of coal is over and we all healthier for it. Ask people in eastern Europe and China what they think about coal.

    Bob
    Smith G8-3 with EZ Gas @ 90,000 BTU, Single pipe steam
    Vaporstat with a 12oz cut-out and 4oz cut-in
    3PSI gauge
  • JUGHNE
    JUGHNE Member Posts: 11,245
    We have all been in basements that had coal rooms in the past.
    They are always easy to locate....still dirty & dusty.
    Coal and huge heating systems were a couple of reasons that basements were not considered usable for anything else.

    We sometimes burned coal in the stove in the living room when I was a kid.
    Actually looked forward to burning wood, it seemed cleaner.

    My high school had a coal stoker boiler that could close school if the smell of sulfur? or something got too bad.
    I work on that same boiler (installed 1955) today that was converted to gas. Getting NG was like finally having sliced bread.
    Most people will say fine, but not in my back yard.
  • ChrisJ
    ChrisJ Member Posts: 16,224
    The joists and underside of the flooring in my basement is dark brown, blackish in areas. The dirt is still black where the coal was stored.

    It's filthy.

    Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment
    RomanGK_26986764589
  • jumper
    jumper Member Posts: 2,384
    Cheapo coal? Washed hard furnace coal is not so bad. Preferable to dried wood we used in country. Cinders make ice less slippery. Some fuel oil eventually gets spilled and that smells.