33k in the air
Staff Sergeant
- 1,344
- Jan 31, 2021
I wonder what the authors' reply would be to these documents. Were the documents publicly available in 1987?
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Hmmmm... didnt do the British research quite as well as might be expected.
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The first one is from AVIA-15/147, although there is a 2nd "closed" sticker which has been torn off, so its possibleI wonder what the authors' reply would be to these documents. Were the documents publicly available in 1987?
Wasn't til PostWar that the Germans introduced Dragline Excavators for open pit mining. Tech was in the US before 1900 and in limited use in the UK before WWII.Something they perhaps could have done better, in forward planning, would have been to try to open up more Bitumous coal reserves, or make mining of it easier.
The Groninger gas field wasn't discovered until 1959Yes they can. You know in peace time you can do stuff.and perhaps if other countries are getting dependend on of (sound familiar? ) the RN is not to be send in. Not all oil or gas is deep. Perhaps the should take Holland earlier for the Groninger gas. Or de wadden isle.can protect that with guns. All the arguments of not existing tech or cash is invalid. The Germans never did well on accounting but if the had known oil was that close... well (pun intended)
Yes, similarly in many languages, with some slight variation in spelling. So we're running our cars on 'benzin' containing at most 1% benzene.
Over here we have a popular brand of household cleaning agents called 'Tolu', which I'm quite sure doesn't contain any toluene.
Wouldn't surprise me if D910 is old enough that at the time there was no benzene limit in automotive gas regulations either.
Plenty of untapped CoalThere was not enough bitumous coal to feed them all (required by steel industry, possible chemical, I believe Steam locomotives were using it too) so they had to use lignite to produce fuel.
I believe about 2/3rd of the Bergius production capacity was processing lignite
That's Lignite not Bituminous. Lignite is dirt and water with some carbon. It has half the heating value of bituminous and requires larger furnaces to produce the same power output. It has been tried in locomotives but did not prove to be not a practical fuel for locomotives. Lignite is mostly used in power plants in pulverized form. German attempts to use lignite in locomotives in the interwar period failed.Plenty of untapped Coal
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The East Germans used Lignite to produce Coke substituteThat's Lignite not Bituminous. Lignite is dirt and water with some carbon. It has half the heating value of bituminous and requires larger furnaces to produce the same power output. It has been tried in locomotives but did not prove to be not a practical fuel for locomotives. Lignite is mostly used in power plants in pulverized form. German attempts to use lignite in locomotives in the interwar period failed.
You have never been to the Ruhr in the 70-80 ties. Now that was polution.There were close to none bitumous coal deposits in East Germany (GDR) so they had to use Lignite almost everywhere where suitable. AFAIR the coal was dried to improve heating efficiency but that also cost coal to do so. The massive use of lignite for heating also caused massive air pollution, especially in winter.
Domestic heating was by briquettes which were produced by pressing and heating. As you note lot of energy was required to produce them.There were close to none bitumous coal deposits in East Germany (GDR) so they had to use Lignite almost everywhere where suitable. AFAIR the coal was dried to improve heating efficiency but that also cost coal to do so. The massive use of lignite for heating also caused massive air pollution, especially in winter.
The last stand of steam powered wagons was Sentinel in the late 30's. Foden dropped out a few years earlierNot that bad
View attachment 720181Sentinel Semi. Hook up the trailer and go.
for Off-Road work
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Both 1920s. Vertical boiler. 6 ton drawbar loads typically wasn't a problem. 30mph top speed, as limited by law, not capability of it's Steam 124HP plant.
Steam HP and Gasoline HP doesn't exactly translate.
WoodGas conversions allowed existing Gasoline IC Engines to keep functioning, at lower HP ratings. Not so good for heavy goods transportation
I posted previously on this subject. It discuses the advantages of the Bergius process over the FT process.Almost none of the aviation fuel was from the FT plants, the vast majority (probably over 95%) was from the Bergius process plants. The FT plants
sometimes provided some chemicals used for iso-octane production, but this was an extremely minor constititent by volume and didnt occur after about 1943.
Pulverized cola is very hazardous, prone to fires and explosions.For the original question, I don't think they had any really good options. Other than not starting the war in the first place. Some random things they might (but in reality, probably not) have done:
- Run ships on pulverized coal instead of oil, to conserve oil for other uses? Maybe not energy dense and compact enough to be viable for warships? But certainly doable for slower ships, and still, pulverized coal in water tube boilers would be better than guys shoveling coal into fire tube boilers.
Further North Sea oil wasn't discovered until 1969 after 3 years of exploratory drilling by multiple mobile rigs. The seabed at Ekofisk is 230 to 245 deep which is well beyond the state of the art in 1934.Nope. See below for a diagram dated 2016 showing distribution of oil and gas reserves across the North Sea area. The physical challenges of developing North Sea oil in the 1970s were huge. The technology to do it didn't exist in the 1930/40s. They are some of the deepest and roughest waters in the world.
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This is the kind of rigs that had to be built from the 1970s to exploit the North Sea.
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This steel oil rig jacket was built on its side and tipped into position.