SNOW JOB [power plants]

> Bell, Brian K (Contractor) wrote:

> Another reason for lower tech, local, manufacture.

> -----

Actually, wouldn't diesel work just fine as fuel for a hydromagnetic turbine
power plant?

Dean McLaughlin wrote an excellent, though oft overlooked, novelette
called "Hawk Among Sparrows." A state-of-the-art supersonic fighter
suddenly flips back to WW1 and the pilot decides to take on the Kaiser's air
force.

problem 1: Fuel. Kerosene of the time was so dirty it would choke his engire,
so it had to be all strained dozens of times through cheeseloth.

problem 2: His missiles were either heat-seeking or radar lock, and
neight worked on planes made our of paper and cloth with extremely cool engine
temperature. problem 3: The pilot finally go so pissed he decided to fly
through the enemy squadron at mach 2 and blow them apart with the sonic boom.
It worked, but something got sucked into his intake, and his plane had the
worse part of the meeting.

So trying to use a lower-tech "equivalent" in a higher-tech machine may
have a number of unexpected and unpleasant side effects. I suppose you
could make a high-tech engine to handle the low-tech fuels as well, but
almost certainly this would mean lower efficiency even with the right fuels.
And in the military, higher efficiency is usually the target.

> Ray Forsythe wrote:

Wouldn't being able to burn a wider range of fuels greatly simplify your
supply chain, however? You could burn whatever gunk they can schlep out to you
this week, and also take advantage of captured supplies when possible.

I think the M1 will run on gasoline, diesel, or even jet fuel for example.

--
Ray

> Edward Lipsett wrote:

> Dean McLaughlin wrote an excellent, though oft overlooked, novelette

Certainly, but it probably costs more that way. as I mentioned here:

> Ray Forsythe wrote:

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