Timeline for Could solar power be utilized and substitute coal in the 19th century?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 26, 2019 at 12:51 | comment | added | Geronimo | Wood works as a locomotive fuel because it's solar power concentrated in a convenient form, by the tree, during it's life. The trees take a disperse energy source and concentrate it. | |
| Mar 25, 2019 at 21:06 | comment | added | user_1818839 | Wood burning locomotives prove it was done. | |
| Mar 25, 2019 at 18:30 | comment | added | Nyos | For iron you can use charcoal. You need a lot less if your energy production uses solar already. Also, it's a (slowly) renewable resource. An added benefit would be some resistance to rusting. | |
| Mar 25, 2019 at 16:56 | comment | added | Dohn Joe | Yes, you can strip the oxygen from the iron ore using hydrogen, or provide the carbon by alternative sources, e.g. methane from natural gas. Yet, on industrial scale, coke is the dominant reduction agent. So, in the country the OP is building, steel, or the coal used for making steel, needs to be imported. | |
| Mar 25, 2019 at 16:51 | comment | added | MSalters | @DohnJoe: That's not just an energy thing as a chemistry thing. Steel is chiefly made from iron, but it contains a sizable amount of carbon from the coke. And the iron ore smelting needs to remove the oxygen from iron oxide, which is done by turning it into carbon oxide - again, with the carbon supplied by coal. | |
| Mar 25, 2019 at 16:47 | comment | added | Dohn Joe | In steel smelting we still haven't managed to replace coal, and it will take a while until we can do so at scale. The technology is known for quite some time, yet at industrial scale, you can't beat coal respectively coke when it comes to steel production. | |
| Mar 24, 2019 at 23:44 | history | answered | Geronimo | CC BY-SA 4.0 |